On-ward and Up-ward...or actually DOWN-ward!

Digging two feet down for an 8' basement has officially started!! We had another slight delay with our neighbor, because she got the flu so her house couldn't be inspected until she was feeling better. What's another week after waiting almost two months, right?!?! I don't have any pictures of it yet, because Mike and I have only stopped by at night. I could barely see what was going on, much less get a decent picture of it. But we are back to thinking about house stuff, which is great!

Next up is that we have a meeting with the contractors a week from Wednesday (Feb 6), after the basement has been dug out, but before they frame it. So we'll walk through with them and figure out the exact layout of the basement. We want to fit in: a decent-sized family room, a full bath, decent-sized bedroom (with its own exterior door), and a laundry/storage room. I hope that we can get the storage room to be large enough to fit all of our crap - suitcases, golf clubs, skis, tools, etc. We've accumulated a lot!

The decision after that is kitchen cabinets! As I've mentioned before, we've spoken with a couple of places about cabinets. We had been set on an off-white cabinet, but with all of this extra time, we may be changing our mind. Mostly because we were inspired by this kitchen that we saw on House Hunters Renovation:

Yes, this is a picture of our TV. We are very sophisticated here at Putting the Can in Canton.

Love the white cabinets, white subway tiles with gray grout, the hood, colored knobs, and splashes of red accent (hard to tell from the picture, but they are there). Mike had been talking about white subway tile backsplash for awhile, but I was never convinced until I saw the tile with the gray grout. I like it a lot better, so I may be convinced now! We would not want glass cabinets though - we would just keep solid white.

Any thoughts?

FINALLY!!!

(alternatively titled: SHE SAID YES!!)

So, I’m BACK! I know there has been a void in your heart for all of my loyal blog followers, but it is officially official. OUR NEIGHBOR SIGNED THE CONTRACT! WE CAN DIG OUT THE BASEMENT!! WE WILL LIVE IN THIS HOUSE!! WE CAN ENJOY THIS PROCESS AGAIN!!! I FINALLY HAVE STUFF TO WRITE ABOUT AGAIN!!!

This is HUGE HUGE news. Not a thing has been done on the house since November. Bye-bye a month and a half of mortgage payments!! And up until November, our contractor said they have been working at “60%”, since they knew there was a potential that they’d have to stop working.  So we are super, super psyched that starting on Friday, it’s full-steam ahead. They still have to pull the permits and do an inspection of the neighbor’s house, which is why the demo on the basement won’t start until Friday.

It’s one of those things – I don’t think I realized how stressed out I really was about the neighbor until it was all resolved. We found out at 4:30 on Friday that she finally, finally, finally signed the contract. It was as if a huge weight was lifted off our shoulders. Mike was sick (damn flu), otherwise we definitely would have gone out that night and had a big celebration. Instead, I woke up Saturday morning and went for a long run. It was a combination of a randomly beautiful warm day in January, the fact that the Ravens were playing in the playoffs that afternoon (and I just KNEW we were going to win, despite the 10-point spread against them), and our neighbor had finally committed – I just felt so incredibly amazing. What a great feeling! We can continue this process with full hearts and all of the initial excitement that we had, knowing that we WILL be living in this house and all of these decisions will be for US! AHHHHH – SO AMAZING!!!

Some major kudos definitely go to our contractor, Jon. He worked tirelessly to get this done. He helped our neighbor out during Hurricane Sandy, which in turn made her trust him. He convinced her to get a lawyer to look over the construction drawings and insurance, and explain to her what everything means. Then he followed up constantly to keep them on track. After she talked to the lawyer, she agreed to sign the contract that states that she won’t be responsible for ANY damage to her house as a result of our rehab – even above and beyond the basement. She also threw in a clause stating that our contractor has to install a sump pump in her house – at no cost to her. So there were definitely some sacrifices made (luckily all paid for by our contractor), but the end result is that the contract is SIGNED and we can finally move on.

PHEW.

So in other news, we have also been dealing with a super-annoying city fine on the house that we received right before Christmas. It was a $500 fine for not being registered as a vacant. WHAT? It is under construction! Not a vacant! After countless calls to the City, emails with our contractors, two visits to the Housing Authority, hours of internet research, and verbal fights with our title agency (who we think is ultimately responsible for this fine), we finally actually figured out the reason we received the fine. It is crazy that it took so much time just to understand why we got the fine and how we rectify it. Loooooooong story short, we had to pay a $130 “vacancy registration” fee, and we scheduled a hearing to dispute the $500 fine. The fact that all of this happened while no work was being done on the house anyway was extra frustrating.

So, onward and upward!! We are going to meet with the contractors when Mike gets back from Italy to find out the schedule. I’m anxious to find out when the new move-in date is scheduled to be. Originally it was tentatively scheduled for February 1^st. Considering that is only three weeks away, I’m guessing that it will be pushed back. It would be amazing to be moved in by April, but we’ll see.  I’m excited to make a million more decisions, keep up with this blog, and see what this house ends up looking like!!!

I also have to mention the AMAZING win by the Ravens against the Broncos. I went out that night (sans Mike unfortunately, since he still had the flu) and had such a fun time watching the game with friends. It was one of the best games I've ever seen - of course, it helps that the right team won :) Next stop: Foxboro for the AFC Championships!!

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!