What The Hell I Was Thinking (Part 2 - The Hadean Age)

The Hadean Age is that primordial period described as an "eon of massive solar system catastrophes." Essentially, this was the 767 million year period in the beginning of the Earth's formation where the planet was being bombarded by solar explosions, crusts were starting to form, and gases swirled around in a time considered by geologists to represent Hell on Earth; thus the name.

Of a much shorter duration, my own Hadean Age ran from purchase of this house to installation of a kitchen sink 8 months later. This Age is marked with massive demolitions, injuries, and lots of unhealthy air. As soon as the keys to this little world were handed to me in March 2001, I hired a friend of my then-boyfriend's former landlord contractor to install a new roof, furnace, and air conditioner; being the end of March and freezing, I felt I really couldn't move in with no heat and a hole in the roof. I also talked to a plumber friend of the aforementioned contractor about redoing all the plumbing which would be necessary in order to use any of it. He wanted $5000 to redo the plumbing of a single bathroom. I called Service Magic to get another estimate and (like magic!) found the kind, reasonable plumber I still use today, who did the plumbing for the kitchen and the bathroom for $1500.

Lesson #1 in Remodeling: It pays to get second (and third or fourth) opinions.

Anyway, in order to redo the plumbing, the bathroom had to be gutted. The pictures above are the bathroom in its original state. I will admit that I had removed the tiles from the shower when the photo was taken, but other than that, it was what was conveyed by the term "As Is" - including the empty beer bottle.

Shortly after this photo was taken (about a week) the aforementioned then-boyfriend became the ex-boyfriend. This was a good thing in every way but from the standpoint that what little confidence I had in taking on this project came from the assurances of the then-not-ex that he knew how to do all this stuff and would be there to help. I didn't know how to do any of this stuff and facing the daunting task ahead of me alone felt like the metaphor of the walls caving in on you becoming a physical actuality. Fortunately, most relationships have a positive takeaway, and mine was that I got to keep the contractor and the vacuum, which were all I really wanted at that point anyway.

So the bathroom remodel was my first go at construction and went like this: (1) Lure new work friend who lives 8 blocks away over to help you demo the bathroom by talking up the thrill of actually taking a sledgehammer/axe to a wall in earnest; (2) Throw away all fixtures and window (saving the unbelievably heavy cast iron tub for the contractor); (3) Replace window with glass block and take up first layer of linoleum tile; (4) Take up second and third layers of linoleum, a layer of ceramic floor tile, and - SURPRISE! - the mud floor (try not to fall through kitchen ceiling below); (5) Call plumber for rough-in plumbing; (6) Finally install (with contractor assistance) new subflooring so you no longer have to balance on the floor joists and rewire the scary old electrical work; (7) Install new drywall/cement board; (8) Buy new fixtures (call Mom and ask for that awesome old Kohler sink she got 10 years ago and has dragged through three moves without ever finding a use for it - thank her profusely when it arrives unscathed from UPS); (9) Have plumber connect toilet and tub; (10) Move in!

Mind you, at Point #10, there was no tile in the shower (just 360 degrees of plastic tarp), the bathroom sink was sitting on the floor waiting for a cabinet and counter, the kitchen was in As Is condition (see earlier post), so the only usable water in the house was from the rough-in plumbing in the tub, operated with a pair of pliers. That's when I had my first overnight guest. Thankfully, my father is not a particularly demanding person and didn't once complain about the state of his lodgings, and insisted that there were "good bones" in the house and puffed me back up with his confidence that he just knew I could do this and that it would be great. He offered to help tile, which consisted of going to Sears and getting a chalk line, a level, and various tools before his flight out.

Anyway, yada yada yada, with more work and help from other friends curious to lend a hand for a day on projects like trying to figure out how to cut a hole in the counter for the sink, the bathroom ended up looking like this:

Please, God, Don't Let This Be Us

I saw a real estate ad today that embodies my deepest, darkest fear about our addition:

Home under construction for 30 years. No septic. Site used exclusively as weekend retreat. Close to Harpers Ferry, CharlesTown & Martinsburg with new Route 9, 25 miles to Frederick, MD or Leesburg, VA

What The Hell I Was Thinking: The Beginning Of It All (Part 1 - The House Primeval)

Things weren't always as bad with the house as they are now. They used to be worse. But unlike the current mess, once upon a time, there was reliable progress that came in on budget and on schedule...back in The Beginning, that is. There I am, on the cusp of The Hadean Age, standing in front of my first-home-to-be, smiling in the way only someone who has enjoyed the occasional episode of This Old House but who has never actually engaged in home renovation can smile about bidding on a HUD foreclosure that looks like 5 young boys lived in it without parental supervision.

Prelude To The Beginning

I had wanted to live in Georgetown since my 8th grade CloseUp trip to DC from Nebraska, where I learned about the hallowed halls of government and that the teachers lied about sticking mailing labels on the hotel doors at night that would break if we opened them. I came back again in 10th grade with my 2Gen Hippie friend to protest nukes in The Great Peace March, and we stayed in some church basement in Georgetown and I remember being awed by Banana Republic and The Big City.

Which led in a roundabout way to me moving to Georgetown for the sweltering summer of 1991, which marked the apex of DC's murder-capital career. But living in Georgetown, cute as it was, had drawbacks. Like the $150 in parking tickets I accumulated the first week because I didn't yet have a document proving I lived in DC that would enable me to get a residential parking permit. Like the $200 in parking tickets I accumulated over the course of the rest of the summer because my street was a rush hour zone and the meter maids started writing $50 tickets well before the time restrictions even kicked in. Like the one paltry a/c unit for the kitchen, living, and dining rooms with 18 foot ceilings and ancient, leaky windows. Like lots and lots of drunk people stumbling around all the time. Georgetown in 1991 was not the bastion of elegance it is now; it was pretty shabby and I actually witnessed a robbery take place across the street.

After college, when I moved to DC to live the philosophy-poli sci major's dream of interning on The Hill and then working for Borders and then working as a paralegal for a patent law office, I had zero interest in returning to Georgetown. I loved Capitol Hill, but it was too pricey for a student budget without living in one of those 10-roommate houses with no a/c and 18 foot ceilings and ancient leaky windows. So I fell in love with Old Town Alexandria because it was like Georgetown, but without the swarms of drunk frat guys and army of corrupt meter maids. The only problem is that there is no living in Old Town on a student budget. So I moved into a group house in the more residential neighborhood of Del Ray, which hugs Old Town and is closer to the metro anyway. The landlord was pretty happy to have 3 pseudo-professional women in the house: he didn't have to deal with the catfights and 2 of us kept the place pretty clean. The house was a 5 minute walk from the metro and had a hot tub, which was as great as it sounds. And in the 5 years I lived in that house, Del Ray went from the slightly sketchy neighborhood next to Old Town to "funky" and "eclectic."

Sadly, my parents didn't accept my offer for them to buy and then rent to me and some friends the 3 bedroom/2 bath house next door that went up for sale at $155,000 in 1993, when I had my first inkling that I really, really should find a way to buy a house in this neighborhood before it was too late.

So by the time I was ready to buy a house in the Del Ray of 2001, it was too late. The place is now a "Front Porch Community" which largely means people took the bars off their windows and doors and the area gets written up in Cottage Living because its denizens can now walk to chichi restaurants and the best frozen custard outside of Wisconsin. My only chance to own a house here was a long shot with some drawbacks...this one and only non-condo in my price range: the HUD foreclosure on Glendale, just 3 blocks from the Hot Tub House. A lot of my friends thought I was nuts.

It wasn't really the ancient, leaky steel windows, the skanky blue carpet, the scribbling on all the walls in pencil, crayon, and marker, or the fact that all the door hinges had been pulled from the jambs due to kids swinging around on them:

And it wasn't really that the back yard had a monstrous near-dead silver maple hovering over the house and the deck was covered with green slime that became slick as snot in the rain:

It was probably more because of the circa-1940 electrical box, the lack of central air, the need for a new furnace, and the asbestos-wrapped ducts (covered safely in plastic!):

Of course, there was also the kitchen, with the stagnant moldy water in the nonfunctioning dishwasher, the sink that drained straight into the cabinet, the floor you could see through in spots, and the layers of grease on the walls and the stove:

Mostly it was the tar, gravel, and wet insulation falling through the foot-wide hole in the roof that struck fear in the eyes of my friends....but I had a mortgage approval letter and a dream.