Deck the Halls!

Our deck is built!! We can see so much from the deck - we are SO excited for dinners up there when the weather is nice, views of the fireworks on 4th of July and New Year's Eve, or just relaxing in the sun. You can see everything - vast views of the water, downtown skyline, Domino's Sugar sign, the Natty Boh guy, the pagoda, Ravens stadium, Johns Hopkins, everything!! It is perfect. If the weather was nice right now, we would take a bottle of wine up there to celebrate! But that's just silly...it's freezing out :)

We also did a walk-through with our contractor and the electrician to figure out where all the canned lights will go, where the lightswitches will be, and any other special lighting requests. We had originally had a line item in the budget for the master bathroom to have heated floors, but that was when we were picturing a MUCH more expansive bathroom than we ended up with. So we decided against that, which means we get to spend that allotted money somewhere else! Upgraded tile, perhaps?!

Still no neighbor updates. Sigh.

Vain about Vanities

We made our first official decisions about furnishings! After all this talk about layouts and stairs and brick walls and basements…it was fun to get into buying products. Our contractor Jon said that we had to pick out vanities for the master bathroom, guest room bathroom, and the whirlpool tub that is going in the guest bathroom. I have been VERY excited to get a whirlpool tub – this is definitely something on my “MUST HAVE” list. I just picture myself after a nice long run, getting into a nice warm tub with the jets churning…perhaps a glass of wine in my hand and a People magazine to read….ahhhhh…

OK, sorry, I digress. Who knew that there were so many varieties of vanities? And that the prices can differ SO massively? I’ve never really thought anything about vanities in my life, and all of a sudden I am a resident expert after doing research online, going to four different stores, then back again to two of them, then more research online! I can spot a 36” vs. a 30” vs. a 24" vanity like a pro now.  

We were tasked with finding a 36” for the master and 30” for the guest room bathroom. It was hard not to splurge on both of them because the more expensive ones are JUST SO MUCH NICER! But we have a budget, so we had to try and stay on-task. So instead of getting two medium-priced vanities, we splurged on the master and saved a bit on the guest room one.

Ohhh...pretty vanity for the master bath! We are aiming for a "spa-like" feeling in that room, so the white vanity with the Carrara marble fit the bill!

I love the more modern look of the vanity, but the old-school faucet style

Guest room vanity. It's definitely less expensive, but I still think it looks nice! Clean lines, dark wood, white base.

 

Chillaxin' at the Home Depot in my whirlpool tub.

Mike did a lot of research on the tubs, because again, the prices differed a lot. But the difference is that we couldn’t really tell what made one so much better and more expensive than the other! Sometimes it was obvious, like one had five settings of jet speed and the cheaper one of that model has three. Really? Five settings of jet speed? I didn’t even know there was usually more than one speed, so I think I would be perfectly happy with three. So we picked one that is a bit on the less expensive side, and I know that I’ll still be happy with it! We actually picked the exact model that I am comfortably relaxing in above.

We also stopped by the house on Sunday...and we have some STAIRS! There were workers there both Saturday and Sunday - they have been working hard! It's very exciting that we don't need to be climbing up ladders anymore. It makes it feel more like a real house.

Stairs from the first floor to the second floor.

It's a little hard to tell, but on the right the stairs are coming up, and on the left are the stairs leading up to the ROOF TOP DECK!! Woo-hoo!

Ahhh...the gorgeous view of the water from the roof! The roof top deck isn't in yet, just the stairs going up to it.

So I know, I know. I haven’t mentioned the BIG WHITE ELEPHANT in the room. There is still NO news on the neighbor. But no news is good news, right? Right?!?! Sigh….

She's a Brick! Houuuuuuse

Look!! We have beautiful exposed brick walls!

Master bedroom exposed brick

First floor exposed brick

We also have no more scaffolding!

So things are forging ahead, despite the fact that we STILL don’t have permission from the neighbor. We do have more progress though – our wonderful contractor Jon went over to the house during Hurricane Sandy to take care of some things at the house. Apparently the neighbor needed some help, and he ended up getting some water out of her house, and cleaning up some debris from her yard. While he was doing this, he talked her into getting a lawyer to look over everything and advise her. So this week a package was delievered to her that contained everyone’s insurance policies, the contract, etc. She said she would take them to a lawyer and hopefully we’ll FINALLY get this all resolved. But nothing has happened yet, so we are cautiously optimistic.

The Frame is the Name of the Game

After our meeting last Sunday with the contractors, we had another one set up for Thursday. We couldn’t believe how much got done on Monday through Thursday! The whole second floor is framed up, and they framed up the first floor on Friday. Crazy that it sat empty for a month...and yet now that things are going, it is moving so fast!

Overall, we’re pretty psyched about the layout. Because of the placement of the stairs, we just couldn’t figure out how to get a double vanity in the master bathroom, unless we wanted to eat more into our walk-in closet, which we weren’t willing to compromise on. But as I mentioned before, we got a bonus of a walk-in closet in the guest room, so there is something good that came out of it!

One of Mike’s big concerns was how the stairs all work together – the stairs to the basement, the stairs to the second floor, and the stairs leading outside to the rooftop deck. I have to admit, I still don’t fully understand how they all work together, but Mike is very happy. Our concern was that we want the first floor as wide open as possible from the front door to the back of the house, without compromising too much space upstairs. And we didn’t want the transition from the second floor to the rooftop deck to be awkward. It seems like it'll all work out!

The addition is built out!

Master bedroom - check out the cool tray ceiling and the bay window! We'll probably put in a nice built-in cozy bench with storage underneath the window. How fun will it be to curl up there during a storm and read a book??

This is the second floor, looking to the front of the house. Guest room closet is in the foreground, then the bathroom, then opening for the stairs, then the master.

Guest room addition!

The first floor, looking towards the kitchen and back of the house. We are measuring to see if we'll actually be able to fit a coat closet - that may be another tough decision we'll have to make - coat closet or pantry? We won't have room for both. Mike is leaning towards pantry, I'm leaning towards coat closet. We'll see!

This is the first floor, looking to the front of the house. It's a little hard to see, but the coffered ceiling in the front room is framed out - we love that look and are so excited to see the finished product!

And now, some more frustrating news on the neighbor. Mike and I spoke with her again for about 45 minutes on Thursday, and at first she said “I’ve made up my mind, and I’m just not comfortable with it.” That was a terrible moment - I thought for sure we were completely screwed, and our only remaining hope would be the law change. Despite hearing a definite "no", we continued the conversation with her, asking what she thought about Joe offering her money, and tried to talk to her about what we could do to make her comfortable with everything. She said that she doesn't want our money, because she is saying no because she's uncomfortable, not because she wants something out of us. She just isn’t budging very much at all. But by the end of the conversation, we had at least gotten her to say “let me think about it some more and get back to you.” So…hope is not ALL lost, but I’m not sure what can possibly happen to make her change her mind. I think one thing that we are going to do is place a call to our city councilman to try and get him to call her. He is the one who is trying to pass the new law, so we know that he’ll be on our side. And she called him earlier to find out more about the law, so at least she’s taking this seriously and we also hope this means that she respects him enough that she would listen to him.

The new law would not state that we don’t need her input at all…it would require us to send via certified mail an envelope that contains engineer-signed drawings of the basement, proof of insurance, etc. The neighbor then has 10 days to contest the rehab. If they do nothing, we can proceed as planned. If the neighbor contests, they must have a LEGITIMATE reason for doing so. I have a feeling that our neighbor’s concern that her house will fall down is not a legitimate reason (because it won’t!).

Unfortunately, it's putting a bit of a damper on the whole process. I have moments of being super-excited, and then in the back of my head, I think "but we may never actually live in this house".  I almost just wish we HAD a definite answer because if it ends up being that we can't build out the basement, we'd need to figure out if we're getting out of this whole thing now, selling it when it's done, or renting it out when it's done. And we have NO idea how the contract would work, since our contractors can't hold up their end of the bargain. But we'll keep going through the motions, and hope hope hope that we eventually move into this house!

So to keep up with our optimistic side, we are meeting with our kitchen designer on Thursday!! We'll measure out where the stove, fridge and sink will go, and we'll start the conversation about cabinets. Very exciting!

Oh, and fingers crossed that Hurricane Sandy takes an unexpected turn out to sea and everyone on the east coast is A-OK! The contractors don't seem too concerned...when I asked what they are doing to protect the house from Sandy, they said "it'll get wet!". Okay...

Progress...FINALLY!

I haven’t been ignoring this blog for a month because there has just been SO much going on with the house that I didn’t have time. Quite the contrary. The house was demo’ed, and then it sat empty with no progress at all, for a full month. Mike and I went away to Italy thinking that the framing for the walls on the first and second floor would be done…and we came home to the house looking EXACTLY THE SAME. Needless to say, we were very upset. Apparently something happened with the permits or something – who knows. Between this and the neighbor…there were times that Mike and were talking about just throwing in the towel.

But in the last week, things finally started happening! And today, for the first time since we found out our neighbor wasn’t signing the papers to dig out the basement, we have felt excited and optimistic.

First of all, there is progress! 

The formstone (and apparently stucco, aluminum, and about 3 other layers) are off the bay window. 

There is a giant gaping hole on the second floor of the house where the addition is going to go. 

And the interior side walls have been framed.

Exciting!! We had a 2.5 hour meeting this morning with Joe, Josh, Jon and Jimmy (the 4 J’s!) at the house and laid out all the details of the second floor. We still can’t figure out a way to get a double vanity in the master bedroom, but we did squeeze in a second walk-in closet for the guest room…so you win some, you lose some. Overall, Mike and I are pretty happy with how everything is coming together on the second floor!

Laying everything out so we can get a feel for the size and layouts of the master room, bathroom + closet, the regular and rooftop deck stairs, and the guest room bathroom + closet.

We are meeting with the crew on Thursday to finalize the first floor (which isn’t much to figure out – it’s pretty set)…and…the basement.

The basement has been a HUGE source of worry and stress for us, since the neighbor still hasn't signed the papers. It’s pretty much the reason that we have gotten disenchanted with this process. We don’t have any definite news, but we have made some steps in the right direction: 1) confirmation that the law will most likely change, hopefully in mid-to-late December; and 2) our carpenter Jimmy, who could make conversation with a fly, has been in contact with the neighbor and seems to making headway. We may also write a letter to our council representative who fully supports the law change, and see if he has any advice or power to get this DONE so we can finally move on! However it happens, Joe has assured us that it will happen. So we are definitely getting excited and optimistic again! Finally!

We have a SIGN...and our first major roadblock

According to Baltimore City law, we must get our adjacent neighbors’ permission to dig out our basement. Considering our basement height is currently 6’…and Mike is 6’3”...this is clearly an important piece to our overall design plan. We are planning on digging it out to 8’ to fit that awesome family room, third bedroom, third bathroom, washer/dryer, and storage. The reason why we have to get permission from neighbors is because we have to “underpin” both sides of the house, underneath the current walls that we share. This can disrupt neighbors’ homes. But it’s a totally safe process, and it’s being done ALL over Canton.

Normally, neighbors are thrilled to get approached for something like this. It makes these 100-year-old structures more structurally sound (ours was built in 1915!). It helps prevent flooding. And – this is the real reason people like it – it makes it cheaper for them if they ever want to dig out their basement. It’s a costly endeavor, and one side of their house will already be done for FREE! Even if they don’t dig it out themselves, it’s good for resale value to tote that one of their basement walls is underpinned.

So, Mike and I were more than happy to approach our new neighbor, with our contractor Joe, to get her to sign the papers that he had sent previously, so that we can get the permit and move on. We walked over to our demo’d house, and saw this sign:

 

Woo-hoo! The court date to get the extension put on the back of our house is our 2-year wedding anniversary! “It’s fate,” I thought. The neighbor to our north had already signed the papers, so just one more neighbor to go. We happily knocked on her door, not a care in the world, excited to talk to her about her free home upgrade, courtesy of us. Aren't we the BEST neighbors?? We knocked once, then knocked again. We figured she wasn’t home, so Joe, Mike, and I were just chatting outside. About five minutes later, an older woman finally answered her door in her robe. She said she was sick, so she couldn’t talk long. We introduced ourselves, explained who we were, and asked what she had signed the papers to give us permission to dig out our basement. She said she had sent the papers over to her brother to look over, and he told her not to sign them. So she’s not going to.

UMMMMMMM….WHAT?!?!? I can’t even imagine the shocked/disappointed look that both Mike and I had on our faces. Our whole.entire.plan. revolves around having a finished basement. We are not going to move into another 2-bed, 2-bath house in Canton! It’s just not going to happen! What the heck?!?

Her major concern is that she’s heard of bad things happening to people’s homes after signing the permission forms. No real concrete evidence, just some random stories. She did bring up a concern about another house that Joe had done up the street that had a “rancid substance” coming out of a pipe from the house. We checked it out…and it’s water. Nothing rancid about it – normal water, that could have possibly flooded a basement and a neighbor’s basement, but instead was being pumped out of the house.

We ended up talking to her for about 45 minutes. She was very sweet – said things like “you’re the exact caliber of people that I want living next door to me”. When it comes down to it, she just doesn’t really understand the process or what is going to happen or what the risks are. So she’s simply taking the advice of someone who “is smarter” than she is – and he told her not to do it.

Mike and I were obviously SO upset by this news. I think we went all the way home in silence. After the initial shock wore off, we sprang to action. As Joe said, “This is only the first refusal”. Mike and I crafted a letter that addressed all over her concerns, and included some veiled threats (sorry – we had to!). The ONE thing that is keeping us from completely going over the ledge is that supposedly the law is going to change in November, and you will no longer need neighbors’ permissions anymore. Who knows if this is actually going to happen, but we sure talked about it in our letter as if it’s happening. We said that while we still need her permission, she might as well put language on the contract that will make her feel more comfortable. Come November, she may not have that chance. We also said that if we don’t get to build out our basement, we will not live there. Who knows what “caliber” of the people will rent it from us? We also tried to explain all the benefits to her - and reiterate how if on the offchance something goes wrong, we are responsible.

So, we are at a standstill. An expensive, stressful, standstill. IF we finally get her permission, you may hear Mike and I rejoicing from your house. IF we don’t get her permission and IF the law passes in November, then we will proceed as planned. Sucks that we have to pay two extra mortgages and piss off a neighbor along the way, but such is life. IF we don’t get permission and IF the law doesn’t pass in November…this blog may all be for nothing. Sigh. Fingers crossed!!

Demo = Done!

I stopped by the house one day last week while they were in process of demo-ing. The demolition man (surprisingly not Sly Stone nor Wesley Snipes) was very nice and complimentary about our house’s “great bones and structure”. So I guess that’s good…?

Mike and I stopped by again today and the demo completely DONE! It’s very surreal to walk through a completely stripped-down house and try and imagine what it will be like in six months. We also had a meeting with Josh, Joe, and our builder Jon on Thursday night. We discussed the schedule, and Jon seems to think that if we get the permits this week - and there aren’t any other major delays – the house could be done by February 1^st!! It would be so amazing if we could be in the house in February. Anyone want to rent a great house in Canton starting March 1^st, with the best landlords around? J

We also discussed what decisions need to be made within the next month, since Mike and I are traveling so much. Unfortunately, it seems as though our Italy trip is coming at an inconvenient time – right around when we should be doing a walk-through before the framing to make the final layout. I hope that we can get it done before our trip! I would hate to think that we would be the reason for any hold-up.

Here are some pictures of the demo-ed house!! Exciting!!

Look Mom! No stairs!

Looking down into the basement

Mike is checking things out

Watch out for that first step - it's a doozy!

Everybody hit the floor(plans)

And now…a 2D unofficial version of what our house’s layout will be! I feel like we should name our house and/or project. Abodesinger? Casa Canton? Rehab-itat? Sanctuary in the City? From Dumps to Digs? From Flop to Flat? (that one is for the Brits reading...) Vote in the comments! 

But I digress. Here is what we are thinking for the floor plans. 

The first floor. We wanted a very open layout with a wide open view from the front door to the rest of the floor. We are planning to move the sink and dishwasher to underneath the window. I really like the idea of a wide open island that people can hang out around, as well as a large place to cut and cook. I also love that we have a coat closet!!

 The basement. Mike had a great idea to move all the bathroom and washer/dryer/storage against the side wall and have the hallway go along the stairs so it feels a bit more open. We are so excited to have a third bedroom for guests, and it's actually a legitimate third bedroom with an exterior door (not a standard Canton third BR that has a window that only a small child could fit through)! It will also be nice to have an extra family room. I have a feeling that I will get the most use out of that room on Monday nights whenever Bachelor/ette/Pad is on!

And this - the second floor - was the biggest challenge for us to figure out. Mike did an awesome job downloading a free CAD-esque program to convey his ideas of where to put everything. We ended up deciding to bump out the back of the house an extra four feet to fit in everything that we wanted - two decent sized bedrooms, two full baths, a walk-in closet, and interior stairs leading up to the rooftop deck. After going back and forth many, many times, the only sacrifice I think we really had to make was not having a double vanity in the master bath. But we're still working it out - we can probably figure out some way. 

So that's it! What do you think? Any suggestions for us to improve on anything? Nothing is official until the framing starts, so speak now please!

Speaking of, demo has officially started! There is a dumpster outside of the house, but we haven't been able to get in to see it ourselves. I want to try and get in soon to take some pictures. So exciting!!

Ummm…what did we just buy?

So we did it! We signed alllllll the papers last night, and got the keys to our new pad. And I must say….you will not be impressed. Just be very glad that smell-o-vision has not been invented yet. The previous owner must have had 17 cats – it smelled TERRIBLE in there, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. So luckily every single thing in that house will go – carpet, floors, drywall – everything will be GONE! So without further ado…
(sorry that this images are all out of order - I couldn't figure out how to fix it. Anyone know the secrets to controlling where the images go on Blogger? I'm still new to this...)

It doesn't look SO bad here. I like the upstairs bay window. But that formstone and door will definitely be gone!

The lovely kitchen. I like the back entrance though - coming from our very own parking pad!

It's hard to capture on camera how broken up the upstairs is, but when we are done with it, it will be two bedrooms, two full baths, interior stairs leading to the rooftop deck, and our dream walk-in closet!!

The future master bedroom - LOVE LOVE LOVE the big bay window area!

The scary, scary, disgusting basement. Mike had to duck to walk around - it's probably 6' right now. We're going to dig it out to 8' and put in another family room, a bedroom, a full bath, and a washer-dryer.

Yikes. After we got over being punched in the face with the smell, we started to explore. Luckily, we know that all of this will be gone! The stairs on the left will be on the right when we are done, but the openness of the living/dining/kitchen will remain.

The other side of the basement. Just as scary and disgusting. This will be the third bedroom - and I LOVE that it will have its own back door, leading outside to the parking pad!

Three words: Everything. Must. Go!

The only redeeming thing that we've found in this house - kind of a cool chest!

Ta-da!!! We have a PARKING PAD!

So that's it! Kinda scary, huh? But it definitely got us excited about all the potential. It will be so much fun to see the "after" pictures to compare to these "before". Only 17,243 decisions to make between now and then!!  

Best Guest Blogger Ever

So, I’ve only written three posts for this blog, and have only sent this link to one person, but ALREADY I have the best guest blogger with a featured spot today. She was so excited for us to close today, she wrote us a song. Ladies and gentleman, Mrs. Alice Ockleshaw Phillips:

Closing Day (sung to the tune of Closing Time by some random one-hit wonder band I can't recall) (Editor’s note: the band name is Semisonic)

Closing day

Time to put your signatures to endless pieces of paper.
Closing day

Now you have more B-more houses than every boy and every girl.

Closing time
One last call for currency so empty your wallets and purse.
Closing time
You now have a new home but you CAN'T STAY THERE! :-)

ConGRATS on your brand new fancy home!

ConGRATS on your brand new fancy home!
ConGRATS on your brand new fancy home!

Fan-cee home....

The end

It's showtime!

Tomorrow is the big day – CLOSING DAY! I can’t believe that this day has finally arrived – we started this process with Joe back in April, but Mike and I have talked moving or upgrading for much longer. So excited!!

We have been doing little things to prepare for all of the decisions that we are going to have to start making soon. We’ve been talking to people about ideas, I started a Pinterest  page, and we’ve started researching wood floors, since that will be one of our most important and expensive decisions we’ll have to make. Who knew so many factors went into flooring – hardness, color, width, variance, reaction to sunlight, etc. Mike is really set on getting super-hard floors, which of course means more money. But we don’t have any pets, and it’s not like I’m always walking around the house in stilettos or anything. So I’m not convinced that we need to spend the extra money. A good compromise is getting the distressed look for the floors – that way if there are a few dents here and there, it looks like they should have been there all along!

I’m leaning towards dark floors with a wide plank, but that could make our rowhouse look smaller than if we used narrow planks. I had also really thought I’d want dark cabinets in the kitchen, and I think the house would be too dark if we had dark floors AND dark cabinets. So maybe we can put light tile in the kitchen so we can have those dark cabinets? Decisions, decisions…we’ll have to make some of these final decisions SOON! Exciting!!

One cool thing about tomorrow is that we got $2000 towards our closing costs through a Live Near Your Work incentive program. All I had to do was spend about six hours on an online class, and then met with a housing counselor one-on-one. Since I had already bought a house, it was a bit repetitive. But I wish I had known about it when I bought my first house, because it did have a lot of helpful information. That $2000 is split between my company and the city.

I’m so excited to get into our new (old) house tomorrow or Saturday and take the “before” pictures! It will be SO much fun to compare them to the new pictures in six or seven months! I’ll also be posting our floorplans and asking for opinions. Yay!!

IT’S OFFICIAL!

We have the closing date for the house! It was touch-and-go there for a while – negotiating the contract, settling on a final lay-out that we like, getting a crappy appraisal price, not seeing proper insurances for the contractor – but we are back on track! We even have a time table and completion date – March 15^th. Y’all are invited to a St. Patrick’s Day party at our new house!! Just kidding – we are fully aware of the fact that March 15^th is a very arbitrary date, and it would be shocking if it was actually completed by then. And I KNOW we won’t be organized enough to be having any sort of party!!

Speaking of, we had been agonizing over the thought of selling our house while going through this process. What if it sells too early and we are homeless? What if it sells too late and we are paying two mortgages for six months? How will we have enough time to be picking out everything at the new house, while accomplishing all the little things that need to get done at our current house to sell it? (Not to mention trying to keep it spotlessly clean nonstop!)

So we had a real estate agent come in to help us evaluate. It’s not surprising that the price she thought we should put it on the market for was less than we were hoping. So, we made the decision: we are just going to rent our house out for a year or so, and see what happens to the market. This way, we have more control over our schedule, we don’t have to spend a ton of time perfecting the house, and we can leave dirty dishes in the sink once in a while J And hopefully the market will turn around in a couple of years and we can sell it at a higher price. It is not ideal for us to own three houses within about six blocks of each other, but oh well! We have planned to keep the Foster house for a while as an investment property, but we will most likely sell the Glover house as soon as the market gets better.

Who knew Mike and I would become such land barons in Canton?

We’re doing WHAT?

First things first: I may work at an architecture firm, but I am not an architect. I am not an interior designer, I’m not a do-it-yourselfer, and I don’t even enjoy shopping for clothes, much less tile and doorknobs. So how did I end up embarking on an adventure that will use all of these skills in the next six or seven months? And WHY?

The answer is – I have no idea. It just kind of happened in a whirlwind after looking at a bunch of houses online that weren’t quite right for us. So often, Mike and I would say to each other “I wouldn’t use that tile” or “the layout is all wrong”. We’ve lived in rowhomes for more than 20 combined years, so we felt like we had a basically understanding of what we would want and not want in a rowhome.

I was walking to meet some friends for lunch and came across an open house. There I met Joe Schultz, who told me that he works with people who want to buy and rehab shells. The house that I looked at that he completed was beautiful! I got his card and told Mike about him later. We decided to just meet with him to find out more. Next thing we know, we are looking at shells with him!

I have lived all over in Canton – five different houses, all in the same neighborhood. I knew exactly what location and block that I want…or more importantly, what I didn’t want. I didn’t want to be too far east that we couldn’t walk to Fells Point. I didn’t want a narrow house, a busy street, or a tight one-way street. I didn’t want to be on a bus route, north of the park, or too close to loud bars. And amazingly – with all those requirements – we found the perfect house in the perfect location! And then we lost it, for reasons that aren’t worth going into. And I was sad and lamenting all that could have been. We looked at a couple of more houses, but I had kind of lost motivation. And then…I get a call from Joe. He managed to secure a house RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from the one we had lost!!! A wide house on a quiet street in the perfect location! And it of course fit our #1 criteria – a parking spot. Woo-hoo!!

So…now what? Mike and I have no experience renovating houses. Can we possible do this??