Impressions of our new house

The wonderful part about owning a new home is the impressions that you get when you walk into it for the first time as an owner. The final walk through for our home was conducted last week and as we walked through the living room replete with vaulted ceilings and beautiful oak floors, we popped open a bottle of a 1963 bottle of Viognier and....Wait, that never happened.

On our walk through the owner was still unpacking the house. It made it harder to imagine the house as our own because someone else still had stuff in it. And the air fresheners. My god, the woman had those plug-in air fresheners in every available outlet.

Conversation after the walk through:
S: How did you like it?
M: It seemed kind of small.
S: Yeah, it did seem a bit small.
M: I can't believe we just spent our xthousand dollars on that small house.

Luckily we closed that afternoon and were able to go back over to our new little chateau. We walked up the small hill to the extraordinarily dark house and concluded that the empty house was actually quite large. Unfortunately, we also both concluded that the house was likely haunted. S actually had this impression when we saw the house the first time, but I pooh poohed the idea. What a strange saying.

S: How did you like it?
M: It seemed bigger.
S: Yeah, it did didn't it.
M: It also seemed like it was freakin' haunted.
S: Really.
M: Oh yeah, we've definitely got some child ghosts living in that place.
S: That's comforting.

But now those days are gone. I no longer believe the house to be haunted. I believe the house is a place where you go to do hard work on hardwood floors.

S: We'll have to get fabric to cover the bottom of all the furniture so it doesn't scratch the floor. Oh, and we may have to buy one of those plastic things or we'll have to get rid of the office chair because it will scratch the floors.
M: So we paid x for these floors and now we're paying even more to not use them?
S: Sort of.
M: Seems like a good purchase.

Obviously I'm kidding. The only reason we got those hardwood floors spic and span is so other people in our age range can come over and admire the exact same hardwood floors they have in their house and compliment us on seeing the unique beauty of the old wood. Then we'll talk for a while about the grain of the wood. And someday when we're selling the house some young couple will come in and admire the nice floors and not realize how much hard work went in to making them that way, so I'll carpet over the floor again to teach them a lesson. I'm not sure they'll learn it, but sometimes it's good to just try and teach a lesson, even if it means you can't sell your house and you've got piece of shi- carpet all over your nice floors again.

Other highlights of moving in. While I was raking in the back yard I noticed that the neighbors behind us had a dog. Mind you, I hate dogs. Luckily this particular dog upon seeing me did one of those guttural snarls that communicates, "Not only am I going to kill you, but I'm going to eat your unborn children someday. What? You say that's not humanly possible? Well I'll make it happen buddy, just you watch me." Note: The dog had a very expressive growl. Thus, I decided that the leaves in the front yard probably needed more attention, and I left the dog to blissfully growl to himself while considering various ways to escape from behind his fence and murder me.
I'm thinking that privacy fence is sounding like a good idea! We're glad to be a part of the neighborhood, just not glad enough to want to see any of you!

So yes, it may be a small haunted house with a bloodthirsty dog and floors so hard that you can't actually ever picture being comfortable on them, but dammit it's ours!

Is that varnish I smell?

I've been trying to put together a video montage of our housing search complete with some songs and sepia toned pictures and a sad clown. However, windows movie maker is refusing to download to my blog at this point, so anyone reading this blog will just have to imagine how amazing and epic that video might have been. We're talking like the Epic of Gilgamesh epic. Although, perhaps I just haven't finished the video because I'm too lazy to deliver good content to this blog/most things in my life.

At some point around midnight on Monday night I realized that I was living through a nightmare, which more to come on those vis a vi scary movies, as I was painting the lower part of the wall on our hardwood floor. For those that don't know, I have the fine motor skills of a severely impaired chimpanzee. Thus, painting in a very small area with the ability to stain the floor with copious amounts of paint is not my idea of fun.

Notes on hardwood floors. I want to give a word to the wise. Hardwood floors have a big downside. They are hard. Granted, I probably should have known that from the name, but I wasn't sure just how uncomfortable they were until I was sitting on my cartilage ravaged knees trying to keep my roller from dripping paint. I failed. I can see why the previous generation wanted to put carpet over hardwood floors. They all realized what a pain in the ass they were to be on. And now we need to buy area rugs to cover our new floor and buy little fabric for our furniture. Nothing like paying money for something then covering it up/paying more money for it. On the bright side we can have people over now and talk about how nice the floors are.

M: I really like how you can see the grain of the wood. Are you seeing the grain?
Guest: Yes, well, C and I have been having a good time at work of late
M: Sorry to interrupt, but look at that area rug. Are you as excited about that area rug as I am Bill?
Guest: Yes, they are very nice.
M: Look at the subtle amber.
Guest: Coat please.
M: I'm just glad we don't have parquet.

Over under on the number of times S will mention Adirondack chairs before actually putting them on our front porch.
8.
Feel free to wager heavily on this.

Hell, I spent some of the best times of my childhood huddled over a floor heater on a beautifully carpeted living room. If it was hardwood I probably wouldn't have done it. I'm thinking of talking out the hardwood and putting in a nice red shag carpet. At the very least a bear skin rug is going in my basement dammit! Mark my words! Mark them!



New and improved conversation with guest.
Note: We're both now lying comfortably on the bear skin rug and swirling our glasses of wine.
M: I just love the feel of dead animal fur against my bare skin.
Guest: Where did your shirt go?
M: Nothing beats it. Are you a good foot masseuse Bill?
Guest: We probably need to go.

Okay, so it ends the same, but think how much more comfortable we both were during that exchange.

And at some point during the weekend extravaganza the surprising thing is how you start to feel like a competent home owner. You suddenly realize that with the help of at least three other people you might be able to take on some home projects yourself. Hell, you might even save yourself some money. Then you realize how much good television you'd be missing and you start asking friends around the office for the number of a cheap handyman.

Did anything interesting happen to me today? Answer: no. That's probably the toughest part about consistently writing a blog, my life isn't interesting enough. Maybe you'd like to read about how I killed a cricket? No. Oh well. Note: If any Janeism folks are reading this please read "killed cricket" as humanely put beneath a glass and released into my back yard with good wishes for future serenades.

Painting

Shortly after buying our new home walking in and deciding that it looked nice, we decided to change a bunch of stuff. I think we decided to do things like paint all the upstairs rooms and rip out the carpet because we wanted to make sure that if the housing search hadn't driven us completely insane perhaps ripping apart said house could.

Naming. I've had to change the name of my blog as we've actually gotten a house in D.C. now. Though I think S would have preferred the name to have been the Silver Spring housing blog. Zing! Thank god she never reads this. I guess that's something she has in common with the rest of the known world. Zing! Zing!

Excerpt from our house at least once a week:

M: (Insert punny/funny joke here. Let your mind go free. Think of the funniest off the cuff thing that someone has said to you in the last month then make it at least five times less funny).

S: Do you think our furniture will match that color of paint?

M: Did you hear what I just said? (Note: Remember to insert hilarious joke here).

S: (looking at me vaguely).

M: It's like pearls before swine in this house. I give you gold and you give me dross.

S: But like a really high quality dross right?

M: I'm so depressed.

Anyhow, I've got to change the name to something suitable. I'm starting with the D.C. house blog, but I've considered others including:

The D.C. raking blog.
Description: A blog strictly dedicated to first time home owners who are gaining experience working in the yard. This blog will feature reviews of rakes from all of your major appliance stores as well as trash pick up dates for yard waste removal in the Brightwood neighborhood of D.C. This blog will also feature new ways to rake your leaves every day including the subtle sweep (this involves sweeping the leaves off your porch and onto the top of your shrubs thereby avoiding the need for removal. Note: Best performed when sig. other is not watching and judging. Note Note: I came up with that way before Vince Vaughn. Steve will vouch for that. Vouch Steve.

Unfortunately the D.C. raking blog might have a limited appeal and the if you say the name too fast or mess up one of the letters you could offend some people/remind me of S's classic meltdown when I suggested we buy in D.C.

The D.C. painting blog
Description: this blog is dedicated to people who are painting a room for the first time and who are put off by discovering that periwinkle and endless rain are both colors and not words made up by the fashion industry to make us less intelligent. Note: Yes they are. This blog will feature us painting rooms until one in the morning, having conversations about things like primer and whether a second coat of paint will be necessary. This blog will also feature discussions about the validity of the bright colors make spaces seem bigger debate and whether our bedroom should have been a slightly darker shade of blue even though it makes the windows pop. Oddly specific that.

The D.C. housing blog

This blog will focus on me continuing to look for a house every weekend even though I have one. I'll try out various real-estate agents and torture them with questions about cabinet space and closets only to tell them after three months of looking every Saturday that I already have a home. It will be like that show punk'd on MTV except way better because it will be about real people who will probably take me to court for libel afterward. Which of course leads to the D.C. I'm getting sued blog and so on.

Random thought about moving out. At some point this morning, perhaps when I was pouring water over my bowl of Kashi Go Lean cereal, I realized that we are neglecting some priorities like buying food as we're moving between houses, and that I'd like to be out of our old apartment soon and into our new home.

Recommendation: The water on Kashi is at least a four star breakfast.

And now a song from this guy who grew up about a mile or so from the new house we're buying.

We bought a house today we look different now

I woke up at six A.M. today with a light in my eyes and a giddy-up in my...Edit: I never wake up at six A.M. with any sort of light in my eyes. My eyes are deadened, like something that crawls around on the sea floor and then dies and is used by some other weird looking thing as shelter. That's the color of my eyes/tenor of my attitude when i wake up at six in the morning...step ready to jump into the day that I would become a home owner.

At 9:15 after acquiring a searing sinus headache from oncoming swine flu or waking up too early, we traveled over to the house to do our final walk through. There we found the seller busily moving her stuff out of the house. Which was great, except that she was supposed to already have it all emptied out.
Seller: Do you want some old kleenex?
M: I guess.
Seller: Do you want to keep these curtains?
M: I could wrap myself up in them like a babe swaddled in a blanket? What does swaddled mean?
Seller: so you could use them?
M: Sure. Why not?

We then preceded over to the title company and spent a somewhere between one hundred thousand and four million dollars on a home. S has asked me to not divulge our financial information as she fears identity theft like I fear a shark attack in the bath tub after watching Jaws. S nodded dutifully at the guy who was asking us to sign away our lives while I tried to work on perfecting my signature. C- in third grade. Terrible cursive.

S: I'm glad we saved x amount of dollars. That was a good catch.
M: Do you think my B could have more flair? Does it have enough flair?
S: You do realize how much this costs right?
M: Should I end with a flamboyant line in place of the last few letters?

My vague headache disappeared as we stepped out into the warm air and hustle bustle of Friendship Heights.

M: We bought a house! Said with fervor.
S: What did we just do?

Highlights from our celebratory dinner. Passing a flashing sign that was advertising sconces in Cleveland Park. It wasn't quite neon, but it was the sort of thing that I associate with sports scores, news, firecrackers, or live nude girls. Not exactly sconces. And no, I'm not exactly sure what a sconce is. Maybe it's the sort of thing that belongs in semi-neon. Maybe that just shows how much I still have to learn about the world. Is it a type of hat?

Highlights from day two of yoga:
Instructor: Keep doing those sit-ups. It's eight months until bikini season.
M: Continues dutifully doing sit-ups in a class with an 11-1 female to male ratio. Mentally trying to picture myself in a bikini. Not flattering.

On the bright side my yoga teacher handled the delicate subject of my age with masterful aplomb.

Instructor: You're not a student are you? Said with slight question that implies it wasn't really a question.
M: I'm actually staff.
Instructor: I thought you looked a little more mature.
M: It's suddenly like I'm fourteen years old again, and I've just been told that I don't look twelve anymore. She's taken my age and turned it into a compliment. That's tough to do on a college campus. Genius.

The funny thing about the day that we bought a house is that it felt like any other day except that we bought a house. I woke up, brushed my teeth, went to work and came home. Nothing really changed. And when I say that I hope that any reader understands that what I really mean is that I became a man today. It's the middle class white protestant bar-mitzvah, the day you buy a house. But really, it has less impact right now than if we'd bought a television, because at least we'd be watching the television. Our house is sitting empty and across town while we sleep in our usual bed. How strange that we'll have a new place to call home in eight days. A place where we can spend all the money that we used to spend on trips to Europe....

Packing!

Listen, their are two types of packers in the world, and I can't distinguish between them. Damn, that sounded punchier when I had something to go along with it. Essentially, S is the first type of packer. This type of packer carefully labels every single box. They wrap each item delicately in newspaper and place it in the box as though it were a baby bird being returned to its nest. Though, as we all know, that mother bird smells dirty human on baby birds, resents the fact that dinosaurs have been superseded by mammals and commences pecking holes in the baby bird's eyes. At least that's what my science teacher told me. Thanks Mr. Corey! (Aside: I give thanks to Mr. Corey for nothing. He was the single worst teacher I ever had. Though, as seventh grade crushes go, if anyone knows Gail Strickland tell her I say hello).

Back to packing. S's type of packing is not necessarily efficient in terms of saving time up front, but she insists that it saves time on the back end. (Please insert the office joke here).

I'm the second type of packer. A ruthless and efficient packer. Like if packing was a jungle, I'd be the f-ing panther or lion, or dominant species of gorilla that rules the jungle and also raises little orphan boys. I just throw sh-t in boxes and say to hell with it. It will all get sorted out in the wash. And yeah some things might get broken in the move, but the things that don't break will be the things that really wanted to stay with us. They'll have gained my trust.

Math, of which little has been written about.
If you look at the problem below where x is the amount of time that S spends packing and y is the amount of time that I spent packing and z is the amount of time that it takes in sum total,

x-z=
y-z=

you can clearly see why I failed all of my math classes after the sixth grade and got a Masters degree in the Fine Arts.

Does it really save a lot of time to have boxes neatly labeled? The answer: no. The real reason that S, and presumably all women label boxes, is so that they can then direct the men carrying them various places. "Oh wait, take that box to the kitchen. Uh, that one goes in the basement." We all know that it's really just to make the men feel stupid, as though they couldn't read what it said on the boxes. Why not just do a rush job and plunk everything down in the living room? Let's be honest, it's a nice central place where you can send all of your belongings out into your new home, like some kind of giant octopus. (In this scenario other people are your arms). So now you're packed up in half the time with half the hassle and you half-assed the job. What could be better?

Honestly, as S was packing up tonight after I little while I grew tired and confuses at her method and just sat on the couch watching football. I suppose that's what comes of being the male lion in charge of the pride. When you have nothing to do, you just kind of laze about in all your power while the females run off and kill and elephant Planet Earth style.

I guess the main point I wanted to make is that the wilderness is a pretty crazy place. And that we should probably cut the whole damn thing down. The wilderness that is, and all the creatures therein.

Watch this video. Yeah, it's eight minutes but it drives my point home like a hammer on a nail. If only that was a saying...And if you can't convince me that you don't have eight minutes to watch your childhood fantasy of animals of varying species in a death match. Don't you dare not click on the video. That bowl of cereal/morning/evening shower/ is not more important than what this video says about how we should chop down the wilderness. Okay, I guess I'll ease up now. The wildebeest charge just kind of got me fired up.

This is some crazy shi-.




boxes and bags.

Closing Time!

Remember that song Closing Time that played about every five seconds in the late nineties? Me too. After a while, it really sucked. However, as it will be our first time actually closing on a house on Thursday we're pretty excited. Excited enough to have conversations about contractors, painting days, and to start the playlist for the eighties montage. (Video below. Why is that one guy shirtless? further below).



That's right. After seven months, (it was probably shorter but who really wants to count) we are finally going to own a lovely home in the Brightwood district of DC. Look forward to an upcoming profile of the clown and balloon store in the nearby neighborhood. I believe the motto is, "Just when you thought we couldn't turn a semi-seedy downtown district any worse." I think they should have gone with something like, "Guns don't kill people. Clowns kill people." Or, "do you like that balloon animal that I just made little Jimmy, because I'm going to haunt your dreams for the next seven years of your life. No that's not booze you smell on my breath...it's fun!" All this to commence before turning into a spider.

Samples from my first day of yoga.
Instructor: Now breathe into your heart. Now breathe into the place where all of your kindness resides. Feel yourself at one with the kindness. You are feeling warm and kind.
M: I can't believe people call this new-agey.

In the end what really matters is that we did something. Sure we didn't build a bridge or land on the moon, or feed the hungry, or shelter the homeless, but I think we can safely say that we did something much more important. We spent a great deal of energy/time/financial resources on buying ourselves something. In the end, isn't that what life is about? (Yes, Howard's End, and all of the homes that we grew up in as children argue against this sort of rhetoric. It's not that a house is meaningless, it's that in the end the rather self-focused search for one is exhausting. Not that we've shown that we're capable of much more in general.)

Because poetry is good for the soul:
Desmond O'Grady Pillow Talk

And, out of the light's agony
leaving behind all past destruction,
let us lie down again on that old bed
steadfast under the bamboo and seaweed ceiling,
opening glad white arms to one another.

Then let me tell you all that story
That's the skill of survival in the daily struggle:
the blow's given, the beatings taken,
of wandering for years and of wins and losses
in the search not to end a destroyer.

While I watch over you, let down your long hair
to shadow your shoulders before sleep
for all this place shall break
and fall apart should you go absent.


Conversation:

M: Go to your heart center S I think you'll find some kindness there.
S: My heart center is just angry.

No more apologies. We bought a house and we're going to paint the bedrooms blue. We're going to cut holes in walls and polish floors. We're going to talk about the potential of the bar. We're going to get older there. We're going to watch the years pass by without realizing how quickly they leave us. We're going to sleep in a quiet blue room. We're going to sit in the yellow room and look out the small window while it rains. We're going to watch our dreams come to nothing without every realizing we had them. We're going to paint rooms bright colors so that we forget that we're sad. We're going to sit in blue rooms in blue moods. We'll paint the walls of small rooms in bright colors so that we won't feel them closing in on us. We're going to watch the dreams of others from just beyond the doorway. We're going to talk about moving. We're going to read Island of the blue dolphins to our children in blue rooms. We're going to watch the newly finished floors begin to change back again. We're going to read that strange section in "To the Lighthouse" in the basement below our blue rooms. We're going to be the same as everyone else. We're going to buy a house and fill it with things. We're going to talk about the proper place to put a bookshelf. We're going to take our shoes off at the door to preserve the new floors. We're going to talk about children, and realize how strange it is that we can remember our own childhoods. We're going to put up a private fence and shut out the whole world. We're going to sleep in a big bed beneath heavy blue dreams.

I hope to see you all there at the house warming party. According to S that will be sometime in the next century when we're finally feeling settled. Eighties montage clean up time.

The future? It's hot.

I'm hoping that this week we actually get to become owners. We're tantalizingly close to the eighties montage painting scene that I've already got a pair of jeans with paint on them. I'm encouraged by the vague promises of as of yet uncovered paper trails that we shouldn't have a problem closing sometime in the next millennium.

Kidding. I actually think we'll be closing soon enough. So soon, that in addition to the paint stained jeans, I an also already hear S's voice coming down the stairs. "Honey, can you come help unload the dish washer?" And I can already see my hand going over to the remote and turning it up ever so slightly to avoid all exterior noise. Basements are awesome!

I've also been suggesting that we paint the brick on the exterior of hour house. Apparently one of the great things about owning a brick house is that you don't have to paint it. However, the vague idea, reinforced by seeing well-coordinated painted brick homes in Dupont Circle, leads me to believe that it is a good idea. Mind you, I've no intention of ever actually painting the bricks myself, but I look forward to pestering S with the idea for the next seven years and pointing out during that time every house with painted brick that looks good.

In other news I tried to put together a video montage of our housing search. This video would have consisted of a bunch of pictures of cabinets, closets, and me looking vaguely displeased in various spaces. The blog however did not allow me to upload the fancy windows movie maker video. And, as I know next to nothing about technology (what is it?) I have forfeited my right to post to the blogging gods. I think it's fairly safe to say that an elaborate system of blog gods will probably be formed in about 200 years or so. Give or take a nuclear fall out or two. (You must forgive the dire tone of the above entry as I've just started watching BSG. The future looks pretty damn bleak. Though we're all either old and grizzled capatins or hot. Needless to say, the future can't come soon enough.