Inevitable

I left DC last week on Wednesday, believing that by the time I would get back late Sunday night, the kitchen would be 99% complete. The plan was to finish installing the faucet and other water stuff around the sink (water filter, instahot, etc) and finish tiling the floor.

Instead, we got a phone call on Saturday night from a good friend of ours who was crashing at our place for the weekend. He proceeded to tell us about how when he arrived home after Friday night dinner at 1am, he noticed water running and 1.5 inches of water on the floor of the kitchen. NOT GOOD. To make a long story short, turns out one of the hoses from the water filtration unit came undone and instead of filling the tank with filtered water, it tried to fill the kitchen. It didn't quite make it to the auto shut-off level, I guess thankfully so. He quickly ran and got the front-desk man who called the building manager to help out. They shut off the water from the under the sink and then raided our linen closet to mop up all the water.

As I quietly listened to him tell this story, I thought to myself: Isn't that inevitable? 3 weeks go by in what could otherwise be described as one of the most perfect and mostly on-time kitchen renovation projects in the history of man; something was bound to go wrong at some point.

While we did have a wedding at 4pm Sunday afternoon in NY, I couldn't shake the feeling that we had to go back- if only to check on things and assess the situation before 2am Monday morning (when we would have gotten back after the wedding). My brain knew that everything was ok- things were drying, didn't seem like anything was damaged, and water wasn't leaking anymore. But my heart told me that we should go back, that it was irresponsible to leave the apartment empty (our friend was on an early morning Sunday flight to New Orleans), just in case something else went wrong. So we decided to skip the wedding and drive home early.

The plumber came on Monday morning and fixed the hoses. Turns out there's something wrong with our faucet, though that wasn't connected to the Friday night flood. Kohler is sending us a new faucet. And hopefully today, we can get the floor finished.

Suffice it to say, I am extremely thankful that we let our friend crash in our apt, despite the mess, dust, and boxes all over the place. If the apartment were empty, who knows when someone would have noticed that our kitchen (and rest of our apartment!) was flooding- probably not until our downstairs neighbor would wake up the next morning and notice his ceiling leaking. And by then, we would be dealing with something totally different and far more disturbing.

More kitchen

Two more pictures uploaded to my Flickr account. The countertop has arrived!

I'm leaving to NY today, so I won't be able to see the progress in the kitchen until I return early Monday morning. It's too bad, but hopefully when I return, I will be pleasantly surprised. Things should wrap-up by Friday! Yay!

Kitchen renovations

I've been meaning to post thoughts and pictures of the progress of our kitchen renovations, which started on Monday, February 25, the day after we got back from New York after my grandfather's funeral. I made sure to take the pictures mostly every step of the way, but haven't yet quite gotten around to actually uploading them. They will come soon, I promise.

In any event, here's some narrative:
Some of you know that we've been planning on renovating the kitchen since we moved in last year. The kitchen was quite old (~25 years) and hadn't been updated since the condo was originally built. It's a classic L-shaped kitchen, with a wall on the other side. There were a few issues with this:

1. There were only 2 drawers in the entire kitchen. Any normal kitchen should have more than two drawers; otherwise you end up wasting counter space for nick-knacks, other utensils, etc.
2. Cabinets didn't maximize the actual space of the kitchen. With at least two sets of everything, we need as much storage space as possible. Thus is the life of kosher.
3. My baking sheets did not fit into the wall oven. 'Nuf said.
4. The wall on the other side of the kitchen was empty. It could be used for more storage!

So we thought about it for a while, and with one of us not having a job at that point, we couldn't really pull the trigger on any work yet, so thinking time was good. During the 9 months between when we moved in and when we decided to get our butts in gear, we decided (with the help of a mom or two) to knock down the wall on the other side of the kitchen and expand. What's on the other side of the wall, you ask? None other than a 1/2 bath. In a one-floor, 2-bedroom condo, is a 1/2 bath really necessary? Especially with the second full bathroom off the hallway and easily accessible to guests? It's a nice luxury, but an even nicer luxury is a larger kitchen. :)

We spent a whole bunch of time visiting kitchen renovation people, and once we decided they were outside of our budget, we visited Home Depot and Lowes, who offer free design services, and the cabinet lines they sell are pretty good. We decided to go with Home Depot, which ended up being a bit cheaper than Lowes on the cabinets, and we found our own contractor, Oscar, who happens to be terrific (If you live in the DC area and need one, please don't hesitate to contact me for his info; he needs referrals to get back to school and he does excellent work!).

Work started in earnest on Monday, February 25th. Oscar knocked down the wall and started priming the kitchen for a full gutting. Our appliances were delivered ON THE DAY THEY PROMISED, Monday, March 3, and our cabinets also were delivered ON THE DAY THEY PROMISED, Thursday, March 6. Oscar started installing the cabinets this passed Monday and hopefully by tomorrow, 90% of the kitchen will be complete!

We spent a good chunk of the first week packing up the kitchen in preparations for the total gutting. Everything- food, dishes, utensils, gadgets, etc.- were packed into boxes and moved into the living and our bedroom. Oscar spent that week tearing up the floor- you'd think that removing a floor would be easy. Nope. Turns out the floor wasn't tiled, but instead was a thick sheet of marble that they cut lines into to make it look like tile, which forced Oscar to buy a jackhammer to pry it all off. The jackhammer then caused more dust than we anticipated, which got sucked into the ventilation, and spread throughout the apartment. This didn't make me happy, but what choice did we have? Though it turns out I'm kinda allergic to this stuff and it has caused major throat irritation for the last two weeks. Not fun.

Then the appliances and cabinets came. In anticipation, we moved everything in the living area to the far side of the room. Little did we know that the all the cabinets would come in 50 million boxes. No joke. OK, maybe not 50 million, but there were A LOT of boxes. So many boxes, that they took up THE ENTIRE ROOM. I have pictures to prove it. We were forced to live in our bedroom for the last week, with no entertainment but our laptops, some books, and each other. We've taken to watch the previous night's Daily Show and Colbert online to sorta make it seem like we can watch some TV.

So far, though, there are no regrets. Yes, we've had a bunch of little things come up, like marble floor, trying to move the water line for the sink to the corner and discovering a building pipe in the way, finding out that the pantry gets in the way of vent on the ceiling, etc. But, so far at least, things are going relatively well, and I'll be pleased if we move back in by next week. (And now that I'm making all this public, watch something happen to totally screw us over...) I'll also be pleased to have my living room back so that I don't have to eat and work on my bed. But even more so, I'll be happy to stop going to Home Depot every other night.

Pictures will be forthcoming, I promise.

Good business decision of the day

This morning started off a bit slow for me, and I took some time to just browse Amazon.com. They usually have pretty interesting Gold Box surprises and other deals that are only available at specific times during the day. So I figured, hey, why not check it out?

Since we placed an order for a new TV, we've been waiting patiently for Frys to get a new shipment and honor the price they advertised right after Thanksgiving (they had it on backorder). At the same time, I've been tracking prices for the same set, just in case Frys didn't deliver on the order. Up until today, none of the prices were below $1050.

So as I was trolling the Amazon.com website, I saw a link advertising low prices on select HDTVs. I decided to click and take a look at what they had. And, lo and behold...Amazon had our TV, the Samsung HP-T4254, for $900 with free white glove shipping! Wait! It gets even better! They had the sets IN STOCK AND READY TO SHIP!!

There's more: With any purchase of a Samsung 40" or bigger flat panel, they are giving away a free Logitech Harmony 550 Universal Remote. (The Logitech's are awesome but not necessarily needed for HDTVs if you connect everything thru HDMI, but hey, it's free!) And, we get a $100 gift card to nflshop.com.

And, I realized that it gets just a tad better than that. Amazon sold out their stock and is now selling the same TV for $1069 through another vendor, and without the free shipping. Someone, who will remain nameless ;o), wanted to wait until tonight to figure out which to buy. (Amazon is selling HP-T4254's sister model, the HP-T4264 for $999. For those wondering, the ONLY differences between them is a USB port and ultra-ultra-ultra anti-glare, as opposed to ultra-ultra anti-glare.) Good thing I insisted on a purchase within the hour of the find!

Oh, and once the purchase was made, I called Frys to cancel our original order. No questions asked and no credit card charges.

So there you have it. Today's lessons:

1. It pays to waste time at work surfing the internet for amazing deals during the holiday season.
   
2. Amazon.com rocks on any given day.

I'm quite happy with myself. It's been a good day. :-)

Bad Business Decision of the Day

We've been doing a lot of research into flat panel TVs, since we have this nice big wall in front of our couch that would be just the perfect setting for TV viewing pleasure. We've looked into the differences between LCD, plasma, and DLP, decided what size we wanted, how much we wanted to spend, and narrowed the search down to a few different brands, based upon level of support, quality, and user reviews. Andrew then spent the weekend scouring the ads for good deals, and found this from Frys, a West Coast electronics chain: a Samsung 42" plasma, a $1500 set, for $900. And, to boot, it came with free shipping!

We didn't want to buy the TV without seeing the picture in person, so, on our drive back down to DC yesterday, we stopped at Best Buy and liked what we saw. During the drive, we decided to stop in Delaware, just in case we found something else we wanted, so that we could take advantage of the free shipping. Also, it couldn't hurt to see if anyone would match the price we found online.

We walked into a Circuit City with online ad in hand. Turns out, CC was selling our set for $1199. I approached a salesman and asked him if they would match the price we found at a competitor out West; he asked his manager, and his manager said yes! We were psyched. The guy walks us over to the Samsung, writes down the model number, and takes our online ad, to ring up the purchase. 5 minutes later, he returns with a change of heart: they will match the $900 price but will have to add what overnight shipping would cost (~$198) if we were to purchase the TV from Frys.

Wha?? I looked at the guy and pointed out that ground shipping was free, so we wouldn't actually pay any shipping on the TV. He countered with the fact that we want to take home the TV today from CC, so in essence, it's overnight shipping. So, we said thank you for trying, but we'll just buy the TV online, thank you very much.

Logically, his argument makes sense, but how much does it make sense when stores are trying desperately to keep their share of customers away from cheaper, online purchases? We walked into Circuit City with the intent of dropping at least $900. We were willing customers who would probably have bought a movie or two while waiting in line to buy the TV. But we walked away, in the same position we were in when we walked through their doors- we have $900 to spend on a TV, but instead of spending it (and perhaps more) at CC, we're spending it online, from the comfort of our own home, without the hassle of loading and unloading the car with a 42" TV. I don't care that I have to wait a few weeks for the TV to arrive, no skin off my back; but CC just lost yet another customer to the internet.

Invasion of the chocolate bugs

For the last few months, we would notice just one or two little bugs moseying along in our kitchen near our stovetop. We got rid of them quickly and wondered where they were coming from. We usually wouldn't leave food lying around and kept the area relatively clean. Mostly, there were some papers and a small box in the corner area of the countertop. These little buggers would show up every now and then and keep me confused.

Then last night, as I was cleaning up, I saw a few more. I was in cleaning mode, so I started to clear off the counter, and lo and behold, I lifted a piece of folded paper that had been sitting in its exact place for who-knows-how-long, and found: a partially unwrapped bar of chocolate, which I hadn't seen for quite a while.

And then it hit me: it says wonders that we've had a cleaning service clean our apartment every other week for the last few months and the folded paper and other little stuff we had sitting in that corner was never once lifted to clean underneath. What on earth am I paying them for if they are only going to clean the areas of my home that don't have any "stuff" on it?? I understand not wanting to disturb clutter on a desk, but they would always clean up our table and make neat piles of all the mail. So why not the kitchen??

Ugh.

I gotta hand it to the little buggers, though- after all this time, they didn't bother us anywhere else. All they wanted was that chocolate. But then again, would we all be happy if our world consisted of one big bar of chocolate?

Real Estate Blues, an update

So although we finally moved into the new apartment, there's still the matter of Andrew's apartment still up in the air. About a week after the apartment went back on the market, we got a few offers and accepted one of them. We went thru the inspection and appraisal processes again and eagerly awaited March 15th, the date the financing contingency was to be lifted. Unfortunately, the buyer never made it to March 15th.

On Wednesday, March 14, the day we moved into the new apartment, we found out that the buyer's financing fell thru. Nothing as exotic as a diplomat not being able to get the right person to waive her immunity; our lives are busy enough as it is at the moment, we could use less drama. No, this time it was simply the fact that the bank didn't believe the buyer would be able to afford two mortgage payments on his salary (he already own one apartment and was planning on using the rent from the first apartment to pay for this one). It was as simple as that. Nothing we could fight against. We felt so helpless; the news totally ruined our first night in our new home.

But, as they say, the sun will come out tomorrow. Our realtors put the apartment back on the market and called a few people who had expressed interest in the apartment last month but missed out. We are expecting a bid to come in today. Third time's a charm?

Moving Day

The movers arrive this morning between 9-930am.

We will start at our storage unit in Alexandria and then pack up all the boxes and furniture left in the apartment. Then we head over to the new place for delivery.

Packing sucks.
Moving sucks.
But knowing that tonight we'll be sleeping in our new home...can't get any sweeter than that.

The sweet taste of victory

• Amount of dollars increase from monthly rent to mortgage payments: at least $1000
• Amount of money given away at closing: a lot. :)
  
• Number of packages needed to be sent in order for one to arrive: 4
• Number of weeks delayed from original closing date: 2
• Number of sellers needed to fly in from Germany at the last minute: 1
  
• Number of times I just wanted to throw my hands up and quit: too many to remember
• Number of people around the table at closing: 9
  
• Number of our new apartment: 305
  
• Value of finally owning a new home: priceless.

Thanks to everyone for your support during the last trying month. If anyone out there needs a trusted agent, look no further than Elley Kott and Kira Epstein. Anyone can tell you where to look for a place and where to sign your name, but when the going gets tough (as it did too many times in this case), some realtors just go through the motions and some go the extra mile. Elley and Kira went at least 100 extra miles to make sure we got to closing and then added some extra emotional support along the way. They fought our fight and sheperded us through the process like it was their own. We wouldn't have gotten here without them.

Buying property is a real bitch, but if you have the right people on your side- from realtors to mortgage brokers (yay Seth!), at the end of the day, when all is said and done, it's a real rewarding experience.

Now, onto the renovations...!

Real Estate Blues, part Zvvei

The saga just doesn't end.

Last week, we left off with the main characters very sad and stressed out about their temporary living situation. Since then, a lot has happened, but not much has changed.

Once we decided to walk away from buyer #1, we were left in a bind with the apartment we wanted to buy: do we let it go or do we try to somehow find short-term financing to cover for the money we were going to use from the sale of Andrew's apartment? We literally only had a few days to figure it out, and thankfully, we were lucky enough to get it done.

So it's February 13th and closing is scheduled for Thursday, February 15th. The seller (we'll call him Doctor), who lives in Germany, had just put signed documents that we need at closing in the mail through DHL. In the meantime, Washington and most of the Northeast get a ton of ice dumped on them and the airports shut down. DHL was unable to deliver the package on time- as it turns out, DHL was unable to locate the package AT ALL. So the Doctor went back to the consulate, signed and notorized the papers a second time, and sent them off- this time thru UPS. We're told the package will be delivered by Saturday, February 17th, so we rescheduled closing for Tuesday, February 20th. OK, no big deal, so the closing got delayed by a few days, but it's only paperwork that holding it up, so what can possibly go wrong, right??

WRONG!!

Saturday February 17 comes and goes. We check out the status of the package and, as of 5:10am local time on February 16th, the papers left Cologne, Germany. We called UPS and all they can tell us is that the package is somewhere in Pennsylvania but they don't know where. They can put a trace on it, but it will take at least eight days. EIGHT DAYS!!

At this point, the closing has been indefinitely postponed. The Doctor was on business in Luxembourg, but he was going to try getting it nortorized there and perhaps this time use FedEx. Turns out, the private notary needed to get the docs translated into German, as required by law, but our the company we are using for title only accepts a US consular notary, so that would be a waste. So he goes to the Consulate, but it turns out the Consulate only notorizes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and he got only on Wednesday, and wasn't going to be back in Germany until Thursday night, so the earliest he could get the papers sent would be Tuesday, February 27th. Argh. And the frustration and stress continue...

Thankfully, the Doctor was able to get to the Consulate on Thursday. He got the papers notorized yet again and shipped them International Express...but thru DHL, since that's the company the Consulate uses. So, we track the package online all day Thursday and Friday and everything looks good- the package left Luxembourg, took detours in Belgium and the UK, and was on it's way over the Atlantic. We figured that by the time Shabbat is over, the package will have already been delivered, safely and soundly. Right?

WRONG!!

(You didn't think this would end normally, did you?)

Right after Shabbat, we check the status online. And what do we find? The package arrived in Ohio yesterday and left the facility for...drum roll please...WASHINGTON, PA! At 9am, it left the facility in Washington, PA, for delivery, and by 2pm, it was discovered that the address didn't exist, so it was being sent back to the sender. You think I'm kidding, don't you? Check it out for yourself- tracking #4813941952.

But, there seems to be a silver lining, we hope. We frantically called DHL and find out that they realized their mistake (DUH!) and the package should be on it's way to DC as we speak. Yeah, right.

If you're interested in living thru this experience with us, feel free to check in on our package every few hours. For up to the minute tracking details, track package #63413351746.

At this point, all I can do is laugh. This has gotten to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever been involved in and really can't put into words how ridiculous it is. You'd think that perhaps we just weren't meant to buy this apartment, but at this point, there's no turning back without significant financial loss. Not that I want to turn back. But WTF??

Real Estate Blues

Everyone keeps on asking how married life is treating me. For the last six months, we kept hearing how the engagement is the worst part of your life and the first year of marriage is the toughest, so we've been quite prepared, mostly thinking that everyone was referring to what our relationship was going to be like. What nobody prepared us for was what crap the outside world would heap on us once we started making big plans, like, say for instance, figuring out where we would live.

The original plan was to sell Andrew's 1-br apartment and buy a 2-br condo. Andrew's apartment went on the market the second week of December. A couple people came along 3 weeks later and placed a bid. By January 2, a contract was signed and a buyer was found. Not bad for a declining market. Then we got married, came back to DC, placed a bid on an apartment we really liked. A day later, another contract was signed and we started making plans for our new home. And then God started to laugh...

Slowly, things started to unravel. Our buyer was an older woman working for the embassy of Country "G." As a diplomat, she was required to waive her diplomatic immunity in order to receive the loan she qualified for to purchase this apartment. Traditionally- no, wait, actually, by law- immunity must be waived by a government official. This is a very important point to keep in mind, as it seems some people from Country G (and their agents) don't really believe this.

After waiting until two days before the closing date, the buyer got the diplomatic waiver form signed and submitted it to the bank for approval. Unfortunately for us, though, this particular bank did not accept the signature of a "school teacher" as the official representative of Country G, waiving this buyer's diplomatic immunity. Who woulda thunk that a school teacher's signature wouldn't be sufficient for the bank? Man, banks these days...so demanding...

Closing date came and went. Buyer informed us she found a lender who did not require the immunity waiver form and that it would take 10 days to process the loan. Being the nice people that we are, we gave her an extension to secure financing. At the same time, we were told that as long as she took the waiver form to the Ambassador, he would sign it. So there was hope that either option would work. After being reassured by the new lender that the loan would go thru, we were told that the new lender was just bought out by Wachovia and that Wachovia would not allow the loan to be processed without the waiver. OK, but there's still a chance to get the waiver signed by the Ambassador, right? WRONG! It turns out that, while Spain and France and countless other countries have waived diplomatic immunity so that their diplomats could buy property and receive loans in the United States, Country G won't allow it. Country G instead likes to be different and screw with people for their own fun and enjoyment. (Do I sound bitter? No, I'm not bitter. Why would I be bitter?)

So, we're back to square one. We've given this lady enough chances and we decided it was time to just walk away. After busting our butts to get that apartment empty a week after our wedding so that it could be sold before the end of the month, Andrew's apartment is back on the market, the prospects of actually buying the apartment we were planning on living in for the next 5-7 years decreasing by the minute, and we're living out of boxes in my 1-br place for the forseable future. How does that sound for the first one month of married life?

We all say that God has a funny way of handling things but that they happen for a reason and everything will work out in the end. So perhaps this is your lucky day. Anyone out there interesetd in a terrific 1-br apartment in Foggy Bottom/West End? Let us know...