Attic & basement

The attic and basement are real assets for our house... and I think we actually have photos that make them look that way!

Interior photos

Those of you that know our house, hopefully these photos look just normal to you. (Clean and ready-to-move-out normal.) It's amazing what you have to do to make interior photos look like the place looks in real life.



Toys? What toys?


Why yes, the kitchen is always this orderly. We just took the bananas off the countertop is all.


Oddly enough this room required many decisions. Blinds open or closed? Lights on or off? Flash or no flash? Just to make it look like it usually does.

Okay, this looks like a room in which a preschooler would do nothing but lie on his bed and stare at the ceiling, but buyers like a clean slate.


It's a full bath, but it's not possible to photograph the tub. It looks great, I assure you.

Professional cleaning

What a treat.  The stove, while still its old stove self, has never looked so white and clean; I don't know how they got the burned-on stuff off, but they did.  The shower is sparkling, the kitchen sink is shiny, the furniture is fluffed from the vacuuming, and all the construction dust is gone from the windowsills.  The place looks great!

This weekend, we will take fancy faux-wide-angle photos of the interior, and keep at it in the attic and the basement.  Those two zones are actually looking very spacious, which I think is the main goal, but there's always more to tidy up (and pack).  Then on Tuesday morning, we clear out.  And again on Wednesday... and so on for the week.  fingers crossed!

Grits

What do to with most of a 1.5-lb package of grits?  They're delicious cooked up with parmesan, but four servings of that only uses about 3/4 c of grits, and it's not like I'm going to eat that every night.  

Fortunately I found the baking soda.  So I started tonight with lime polenta cake, adapted from a Cooking Light recipe.  Grits are basically polenta, no?*  The cake was very yummy, kind of like a rough-textured cornbread, but soaked with lime syrup (which I made up).  It only used half a cup of grits, but it quelled somewhat my desperate yearning to bake.  I brought it to Mike and Kathryn's house and we gobbled it up.

I am further tempted by Martha Stewart's polenta cookies and perhaps a vanilla polenta pudding.  The thing is, none of these recipes use a large amount of polenta (or grits), and they use a lot of other ingredients... not to mention the fact that I would be faced with a lot of dessert.

More research, more good options.  Polenta is the pasta-equivalent for Northern Italy and can be used as a base for pretty much anything.  So perhaps my opening line of "not gonna eat that every night" was premature... lots of people do!  I'm liking the idea of topping polenta with white beans and black kale, very Tuscan.  But maybe too white, with the white grits... some prettier bean, maybe.  Sausage and cabbage is another very northern-italian combination.  And apparently the slow cooker (which I have not yet packed!!) makes perfect, creamy polenta with no stirring.  I am seeing tomorrow's dinner in my mind...

* If this horrifies your gourmet sensibilities, sorry.

Silken tofu

Seized with the urge to create something in the kitchen, I almost baked a lime-pistachio pound cake, but couldn't find baking powder anywhere.  Perhaps it's a good thing.  Since there's not much you can bake without baking powder, and I've already been to the store once today, I tried to move on.

One of the ingredients I've been wondering how to use up is silken tofu.  I have three boxes of the stuff.  A favorite food blog of mine suggested making a berry mousse out of it:  one block silken tofu, 1-1/2 c berries (I had frozen strawberries), 1/2 c sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla.  Blend and blend in a powerful blender or food processor, until silky smooth.  We did; and wow.  Delicious.  And startlingly healthy.  I could even have used less sugar.  Right now it's kind of a runny texture but in the fridge it will supposedly set in a couple of hours.  Jordan did not wait.

Next:  I'm cooking fish tonight and I've stopped even fantasizing about slathering mayonnaise onto things, I'm so WW-trained, but aren't you supposed to be able to make mayonnaise out of silken tofu?  You can.  I did.  Amazing.  It is so luscious and lovely, I want to eat it with a spoon.  And I can, with no guilt!  One block tofu, a sprinkle of vinegar (I used rice vinegar), a sprinkle each of salt and sugar.  Blend until creamy.  Try varying the kind of vinegar, or use lemon.  Try different sweeteners.  I also added a teeny clove of garlic.  Other spices would be great, I'm sure, I just wanted to keep it basic this time.

I still have another box.  suggestions?

Landscaping

The transformative-landscaping people have worked their magic and the Haddon exterior really is wonderfully improved.  Everything in the front is neat and spiffy and nicely arranged, with new flowers and mulch making the place look fresh and well cared for.  They did a lot of great stuff with the details, neatly lining the edges of beds with bricks, using extra stones to terrace steep spots, creating nice lines with the lawn edge, and working in the better plants of ours with new stuff of theirs.  We're impressed.  

Here's how things looked at the start, while Sergio's crew was clearing out the big stuff.

Here's the landscaping folks in progress:

And here's the result.  Much improved.

Dale says this has made our move seem more imminent than anything else so far.

The last prep week

This is the last week before the houses go on the market... I think we're going to make it!  Jordan's school is closed, which will make my work a little less efficient, but I still think we can do it.  Sergio is taking care of the "punch list" for Glenway, and I'll do what's needed indoors here (attic, basement, and blinds in the bedrooms).  Professional cleanings are scheduled for Thursday and Friday.  As for the outdoors, the back fence is complete and looks good.  The transformative landscaping guy was here today casing the joint, and gave an estimate of $895 for Haddon, $695 for Glenway.  I enthusiastically accepted (through Jim, who is making the arrangements).  

If all goes well, I actually get to spend next week at work.  What is it I do there again?

New trick

Aaron has a new trick:  Instead of (well, in addition to) sucking his thumb, he blows it.  He blows loud goofy raspberries with his thumb in his mouth.  He had us all laughing our heads off in the car today, especially Jordan.  He puffs out his cheeks and everything.  Maybe he will be a trumpet player.

Showing the Haddon house

Of course one of the things that has me biting my nails up to the elbows is how we will show the Haddon house when we're living in it. I met with Jim on Sunday, and he was pretty reassuring on this point. First of all, there is less to do on a daily basis than I had been expecting. We don't have to leave the place every morning looking as though no one lives here. Of course it has to be clean (and the items on the "punch list" need to be addressed in advance), but it's fine to do things like tuck the toys neatly into a corner rather than eliminate them from the living space. That's the condition he saw the house in on Sunday, and he says the impression you get walking in is very much that we are almost moved out. "It looks like you could be gone in 24 hours," Jim said. While that's not quite true, the point seems to be that the house looks available, rather than looking full of the current occupants. What a buyer will see is a place that could be theirs in short order.

To my great relief Jim is sure it's fine if Phil is here while the place is being shown. I am a little concerned about people letting him out, but he's not a door dasher, and there are screen doors that swing closed behind you when you come in. Jim advised us to leave a note on the door asking people not to let the cat out. It seems like that will be okay.

As far as what our daily life will be like when the place is available for showing, here is what we decided. The house goes on the market on a Tuesday. That week, we can easily leave the house vacant from 9-5; the kids are at school and we'll be at work. Jim will state that during those hours, people should call the home phone, and if there's no answer they're free to come over. For other times, the listing will say "by appointment; young children." Apparently this is a standard practice for occupied properties. Of course, many (most) people do their house shopping on the weekend. The first weekend that our house will be open is Sept 6-7, and we can expect those days to be the busiest. He said that the big time is 12noon-7pm. We need to make some plan to be out of the house on those two days. Maybe we will call in a favor from neighbors, or maybe we'll go out of town for the weekend.

Jim warned me that not all realtors are maximally considerate of the occupants and that people will drop by unannounced. For those people, he said, just don't stress about the fact that there are toys on the floor and dishes on the table. They will understand, and it's not worth taking extreme measures.

After that first week and weekend, Jim said, we should not make any special arrangements to vacate the property. We'll just live here like we do now and let people in one at a time.

Jim will not hold an open house. He says the main purpose of an open house is for the listing agent to promote themselves, and he has no interest in that (since he's not normally a listing agent). He repeatedly reminds me that what we need is one buyer. His professional opinion is that having dozens of people tramping through the house, at an open house or on any other day, just doesn't correlate with finding that buyer. What we really have going for us in this market is that we are going to be one of very few houses available in this neighborhood in this price range. Whoever wants to move here for this amount of money, we're it.

Glenway "punch list"

Jim's "punch list" for Glenway is significantly more detailed than for Haddon. I was concerned that this was because at Haddon, the kids and I were there distracting him, and I asked him about it; but he said no, the houses are different, and he feels confident about his recommendations in each case. So here we go.

Interior

• Cheap venetian blinds on all the windows (except the big picture window in the living room). As at Haddon, the blinds are not expensive, but I'm thinking there are maybe fifteen windows involved, plus labor.
  
• Repair (with matching color filler) small sections of torn vinyl on kitchen floor and deep clean the floor. Did you hear that? Jim thinks we do not need to replace the kitchen floor. I asked him specifically about it and he thinks it only needs repair and cleaning, that Sergio can do the repair, and the maid service I've scheduled for next week can do the cleaning.
  
• Replace lower level tub faucet hardware (hot and cold handles and diverter handle). Right now the faucets don't actually turn on the water to the tub, which is not okay. They don't have to be fancy (nothing in that bathroom is fancy) but they do have to work.
  
• Replace lower level sink faucet.
• Install new vinyl sheet flooring in lower level bath. We can have Wheaton Tile do this, as Dale has an estimate from them, or we can ask Sergio to have his guy give us a new estimate.
  
• Steam clean master bedroom carpet. This is the only one we didn't replace. I'll arrange for the cleaning.
  
• Deep clean or replace kitchen exhaust fan. It's got a layer of greasy gunk on it that is pretty nasty; it's an eyesore. I think having Sergio replace it will probably be the simplest.
  

Exterior

• The garden shed door trim is damaged, which prevents the door from opening and closing properly. Repair it.
• There are rotted landscape timbers on the right and left sides of driveway steps. Replace them.
  
• The yard gate on the right side of the house isn't really operative. We need to repair or replace it, and maybe the fence that it's the gate for, also.
  
• Dispose of the outdoor BBQ in the back yard.
• Mulch all beds (Sergio is already scheduled to do this).
• The back yard is clean, but sort of nothing, and it could be a real feature. Consider landscaping by the overnight-transformation guy.

Are we ready to approve all of these actions? Or some of them? As soon as we decide, I'll talk to Sergio.

Haddon "punch list"

The "punch list," I guess, is realtor-speak for the last few things that need to be taken care of before the house is ready to be shown.

Jim thinks the interior of the Haddon house is looking great. He complimented the floors and the overall condition of the place, including the way we're living in it - sparsely. Inside, he says, we need just a couple of things:

• Organize the attic and basement as planned. Jim said the basement looks good - it looks like a dry, clean basement, and when I get the stuff in it organized, people will be better able to see how enormous it is. Same for the attic.
• New caulk in the tub. We knew that. I did this myself this morning; I've done it before, it only takes about an hour (plus drying time). It's a big improvement, I should do it more often.
• Cheap venetian blinds on all the windows. This would cost a little money; the blinds are only about $20 apiece, but we need ten of them, plus the labor to install them. It's not a hard job but I would be too slow at it - I'd hope for Sergio. Jim feels strongly that this is needed.

The outside, Jim felt, is not up to the same standard. The front is passable but the back is well below its potential, and there is wide agreement that the exterior matters a lot. Sergio and his crew did an enormous amount of work clearing out the overgrown everything, and that needed doing - they'll also repair the fence this week. But now the yard is only cleaned up, not actually attractive. Jim has a landscaping guy he loves who he calls in for overnight transformations - he just tells him "Make this look beautiful for sale," and in a single day, he and his whole family swarm over the place and turn it into something really lovely. This costs around $1000, depending on how much they do. Jim has asked the guy to come by and give him an estimate.

Jim said we also need to clean the AC unit (just to make it look nicer). I'll do that myself before lunch.

While we're on the subject of the exterior, Sergio's estimate for the fence freaked us out at first - about $2500, including labor, materials, and disposal of the old fence. But we interviewed some neighbors who had new fences put in recently, and that price was in line with what they paid. And we certainly have to do it. Jim agrees that it is probably not worth pursuing the neighbors for the cost of the fence repair; he thinks they may not even be liable for it (he helped a client with something similar a couple years ago). However, he said we should legally notify the landlord of the property behind us that we are replacing the fence. He'll get their contact information and forward it to us.

The items we need to decide on are the blinds and the landscaping. What do people think?

Why we love Sergio

We're trying to get the vinyl flooring replaced at the Glenway house and wow, what a hassle.  After an initial appointment on August 4 that the floor guys postponed, Dale went to Glenway on Monday for them to take measurements, to the store on Wednesday to pick up samples, back to Glenway on Thursday to choose from among the samples, and back to the store on Friday to tell them his choice and get an estimate.  Unfortunately they said they had to come out to house again to get more information.  That was supposed to be this morning at 9am, but the guy went to the wrong house.  After a lot of confusion and leaving of messages, he and Dale finally hooked up, and an estimate was emailed to us tonight.  And guess what:  We don't like it!  It's too high!  It's as much as we paid to refinish the hardwood at Haddon!

Maybe we should consider it, though, because check out what it includes:

• Embossing level old floor
• Install Domco 65521 in kitchen
• Install Congoleum 02044 in bath
• New shoe mold
• Gold metal
• Fake stove
• Move refrig
• Pull and set toilet

New vinyl and new shoe mold too?  And gold metal?  And a fake stove?  Maybe it's worth it.

While we decide, Sergio will talk to his friend who does floors.

Postponement

We are making an executive decision to postpone putting the houses on the market until the day after Labor Day.  We just aren't quite ready, and with me in SF this week, we won't get as much done as we might otherwise.

• At Haddon, we still need to replace the backyard fence that was knocked down by someone else's tree.  We think it won't be worth the trouble to pursue their potential liability.  Either Sergio can do it, or we'll arrange it directly with a fencing company.
• The Haddon basement will be painted today - it's helpful that Aaron isn't sleeping in it!  Last night Dale moved everything away from the walls without too much trouble (displacing many spiders' nests, ew).  But of course it's something of a mess.  It's a great basement, and with some time to organize what's down there, we can make it more attractive.
• The Haddon attic is recently liberated from many yard sale items, but is full of packed-up boxes.  If we move those into the crawl space people will be better able to see the space's potential.
• At Glenway, the kitchen and downstairs bathroom still need new vinyl flooring.  Dale is pursuing that but it's a multi-step process (measurement, materials selection, estimate, installation).  Not likely that it will be finished this week.
• Finally, both places need a professional cleaning (after all the work is done).

We could try for an opening on the 25th, but it would still be tight, and Jordan's school happens to be closed that week so it would be harder to keep the place empty for showing.  So we think we should do the day after Labor Day.  This was our realtor's recommendation all along.

Hiatus

My grandmother, who turned 94 last week, is not doing well, and Jordan and Aaron and I have come to SF for the week to visit her.

Packing for this trip in some ways seemed like nothing - I didn't have to bring three beds, a microwave, pots and pans, a high chair, etc.  Grandpa's house is very well equipped.  On the other hand, the things I did have to pack were unusually had to find.  Coats, for example; where on earth were the kids' coats, which we haven't needed in months?  Found them, but with effort.

Twelve days

We're back in the Haddon house! Yahoo! There are touch-ups still to be done on the interior and more exterior work, but the fumes have dissipated and the major appliances are back in. We'll sleep here tonight. We haven't decided exactly where. That seems like a detail. We've been out for twelve days.

It is yet another Moving Day, cleaning up the place we're moving out of and readying the place we're moving into, hauling things around, wondering where to put them. But it's sort of a way of life at the moment. The next few weeks are a reason to take things one day at a time:

1. Kari and Danny and Harry and Sam arrive tomorrow. They had expected to come in July, but their dog lost his eye and they had to postpone. It's a little hard to imagine what it will be like having houseguests, but they're pretty understanding.
2. Next week Sergio will paint the basement walls, some of which show signs of moisture that would be likely to scare prospective buyers. We think there's no reason for them to be scared; the overgrown bushes outdoors probably were holding the moisture. Painting the basement is simple and fast, but it means, of course, that everything has to be moved away from the walls.
3. Also next week, Fanta is closed for summer vacation, so one of us has to be home with Aaron every day.
4. The week after that, starting the 18th, is the first week that the houses are on the market.
5. The week after that, starting the 25th, Jordan's school is closed for summer vacation.

And sometime around then one of us should probably be going to Seattle to choose a house.

Air problems

I've been referring to the Glenway experience as "camping with AC," but now the AC is out.  Bummer.  We'll arrange for it to be repaired.  It was not too terribly humid yesterday and there was a breeze, so it helped to have the windows open, but it was still 85 degrees indoors.  

Back at Haddon, the floors are done and they're fine now.  However, it's much too stinky to be here for any amount of time - I think we need to wait one. more. night. before coming home.  I can't even wait in the basement, really, because my eyes start to sting.  I opened the windows and am waiting in the garage for a freecycle pickup, then I'll go somewhere else.  

Regarding freecycle, the black chair is incredibly coveted - nine people have written in the last 12 hours asking for it.  Next most popular is the kitchen cabinet, with three desiring.  No one has fallen in love with the orange couch yet.

Freecycle items

OFFER: Large desk, maple-colored wood, three drawers, clean modern design. If the top were refinished it would be quite nice.

OFFER: Loveseat-sized orange couch with black and gold weave. This amazing retro item is not even hard to carry.

TAKEN: Black leather (?) bentwood chair and footstool. Great condition. (A dozen people wanted this in the first few hours it was posted.)

TAKEN: Freestanding IKEA cabinet, 2 drawers / 2 doors, 26Dx38Wx36H. Cream-colored laminate doors and a solid wood butcher block top. (A smaller number of people coveted this one. The woman who took it had a great tattoo and it fit just fine in her minivan.)

The trouble spot

Glenway has its disadvantages... the kitchen is minimally adequate and I have no use for the neighborhood. But the thing that has us at wit's end is these stairs, which connect the living room to the upstairs bedrooms and bathroom. Aaron is drawn to them like a magnet, which means that anytime he's awake and not restrained, one person has to stand there ready to catch him. If you're the only person home, that means you can't so much as put toast in the toaster, much less pee or get dressed or pay any attention to Jordan. It's boring and frustrating.

We haven't come up with a way to block the stairs without investing big money. Ideas welcome.

Floor not ready

Very sadly, we don't get to move back into our house today after all. The floor is not ready. The guy has done the two coats of polyurethane that he said he would do, so it is supposed to be done, and it looks nice from a distance. But it is not beautiful and glossy and smooth under your feet the way a new floor should be. It's rough and sandpapery-feeling. Sergio was very understanding and responsible about it and has agreed to have the floor guy give us another light sanding & coat of poly, which we all think is what it needs. Fingers crossed. That happens tomorrow morning, so maybe we can go back on Tuesday afternoon.

Last night this seemed like a crisis, because I am really dying to go home. This morning it only seems like a setback. And really, this is the only thing so far that hasn't gone according to plan, which is some kind of miracle. Everything else in the house looks fantastic and there are only touchups remaining to be done on the interior. The exterior still has work going on; they expect to be done with that on Thursday.

Yard sale

The big yard sale was Saturday morning. At 5am there were thunderstorms, and it was still raining at 8am, which messed with our plan of starting the setup bright and early for an organized 9am opening. Instead, we had to wait until 8am to decide if we were going to have the sale at all. We decided to go for it, but it meant a late opening (more like 10:30), which, if you know yard sales, is Not How It's Done. Oh well. We couldn't set up in the rain.

Kathryn and Mike provided the yard, which was far preferable to our driveway, but it meant I had to schlep everything over from a block away. It took three carloads, plus another two people-only trips for Mike and I to carry the couch and the desk by hand. It was an incredibly physical and busy day. I was frenetically hauling and unpacking and moving and helping and yelling out prices all morning. (It was just me, because Dale had the kids.) It got hot. Everything happened very fast, because I could hardly get stuff out of the bags fast enough for the people who wanted to look at it. That's good right? We did a decent business. I got rid of a lot of stuff, which was my number-one priority -- I think about one carload. And I think I took in about $100, which is not bad either, for a late start.

One woman was crazy about my clothes (the ones that are now a little bit too big for me), and was totally thrilled to get herself an entire new wardrobe for 50c apiece; she bought at least half of what I put out. Another woman was incredibly excited about my spice racks, which I gave her for $4 -- she said "Do you KNOW how much the stores charge for these things?" Yes, and I don't care, I just want to get rid of it. One of the first things to go was Dale's drum throne; a hippy kind of Takoma Park elderly gentleman looked sincerely moved by the opportunity to acquire it. And then there was the young pregnant spanish-speaking couple who came by at 2pm, when we had thought the business day was over, and bought Kathryn and Mike's crib, and then were wide-eyed when I gave them six grocery bags of Aaron's baby clothes. Saved me hauling it down to the thrift store.

We did not manage to unload our big items, so I'm Freecycling them.

The bake sale was highly popular. In Steve and Mary Margaret's beautiful kitchen, I had made chocolate-chip bourbon nut blondies, sand tarts, and World Peace cookies (so named because they say if everyone in the world had one, contentment would reign on the earth).

House features

Staying in other houses is really the best way - maybe the only way - to notice what you like and don't like in your surroundings.  Here's some things we hope for in our next place:

• Solidity.  The Glenway house has that flimsy thing going on - wiggly fixtures, feather-light doors.  The Clayborn house felt like it would last you a while.
• Ceiling fans.  You very rarely wish for AC in Seattle, but fans can be nice in both winter and summer.  The Clayborn house had them in just about every room.
• A great kitchen sink.  Talk about things you touch every day.  The Clayborn house had a deep double porcelain sink with one of those high-arched faucets.  
• This is sort of random but the Clayborn house had one of the best bathroom sink cabinets I've ever seen.  It was solid dark wood, with drawers, almost like a desk.  We both loved it.
  

I admit that the pantry with the double swing-out shelves, sort of like this one, filled me with emotion.  But it's more than I need.

Brother games

Okay, we're back at Glenway, and I confess it's a big step down from Clayborn.  But when we got here, Jordan and Aaron burst into the most hilarious game of chase - Jordan ran all over the house and Aaron did his best to follow him, up and down the stairs, in and out of doors, the works - both of them shrieking and laughing hysterically.  It was one of the first times I've really seen them have an independent game together, except maybe in the back seat of the car.  And maybe it was because there's not much else around here to do (or even bump into).  Perhaps there are advantages to the empty house.

Later, in the bathroom, Jordan had fun climbing into the empty cabinets under the sink, and Aaron had the very funny idea of shutting the doors.  Both loved it.