Merry Christmas 2015!

I have to say, it's incredibly difficult to get into the Christmas spirit when it was in the low 70s this past weekend. Coupled with the fact that this year only just began, didn't it?!? and it's hard to imagine it's time to fill everyone in on our year.

In 2015 we did something we'd never thought of before: Mary and Eric joined a local bowling league (!), where we're bowling with our friends Ken and Trish Fritzsche once a month. We tried naming our team "We're Only Here For The Beer," but that was actually already taken, which tells you about how seriously this league takes itself. So instead, "Livin' On A Spare" is in its second season now. Our social season included, as always, Chili Bowl XXI--it's old enough to drink now!--with the annual appearance from Mark "Admiral" Kolodny. This year, two new twists to the calendar: the inaugural Overlake Wine Festival in May, and then at Labor Day it was our turn to host the Overlake Court Labor Day cookout, where we savored the gorgeous weather by cooking and hanging out front. 

On the home front, 2015 saw us redo the living and dining rooms, a process which also involved relocating the wine cabinet into the kitchen, which presages the kinds of changes we hope to do in the kitchen in 2016 (and the kids' bathroom, Mary points out). As ever, we enjoyed having people come and visit and see our newly done rooms: we welcomed Uncle Rod, Jen, Monica, Courtney, and had the chance to get caught up with Chuck and Lisa Mustapich on their way through town. No major family vacations this year, but we did visit Vermont twice, once in late June and then again in August for Mary's cousin Angela's wedding, where we got to see parts of her family we've not seen in far too long.

Sarah has had a most amazing and unprecedented year. This spring, she and the girls from Troop 2349 received their Girl Scout Silver Award, which positions her for earning the highest honor, Gold Award, in the coming years. One measure of how unique she is: she completed her middle school having had a wonderful time, finishing her sixth year in AAP and surrounded by a great group of friends. The eighth grade dance--the Eight Ball--soon gave way to her first high school dance, the South County Homecoming (or SoCo HoCo) with her circle of friends, and the whole range of new experiences that come with being a freshman in high school. One that's definitely different: Sarah became the first girl ever to suit up in a South County football uniform. She announced in the spring that she wanted to go out for freshman football, and so she went to all the practices and weight sessions; Coach B recognized she was something other than the stereotypical girl kicker, and Sarah was repping at third or second string cornerback of all things. (She prefers to "put a thud on the boys" rather than be tackled herself.) However, a weight room injury in late summer led to a stress fracture of her lower back, which kept her medically ineligible all season. She stayed with it, attending every practice and game, and was cleared fully before Thanksgiving, so she's already announced her return to try for JV next year! She was also selected for Lead Four:Twelve, which will position her to be a counselor and missionary with Jeremiah Project in 2017!

David now has his sister in the same building with him for the first time since 6th grade, which has been working out really well. For him, he's now a senior and in the throes of college applications. As of now, he's applying to four, and has been accepted already at Radford University, a state school (yay!) here in VA, so stay tuned for how the other three come in. He continues to be active in South County's theatre program as the head of set design and construction, where they put on Jabberwock this fall, and the spring musical, Les Miserables, was up for a Cappie award for best set. But his big adventure was two weeks in July hiking at Philmont Scout Ranch in northern New Mexico. David and Eric were part of an 11-person crew of his fellow Scouts from Troop 688 that hiked over 100 miles and had a truly amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Mary's year was filled with work at ABI, including trips to Detroit and Delaware in addition to the annual spring meeting here in town. She also had visits to Vermont helping her folks with their major renovation of their farmhouse, where they completely redid the first floor of the old part of the house and added a new wing. She also had the chance to be present for Naomi's high school graduation in June, and earlier in the spring, to help Naomi and Monica get ready for prom. 

Eric had a full year of transitions. In the winter, he completed the exams for the Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM) certification, which he put to use in applying for a new job. In October, after 23 years at FBI, Eric moved across the street and was promoted to be the Deputy Director of Budget for the entire Department of Justice. It was difficult to leave the FBI after so long and with so many great people, yet the DOJ family has been incredibly welcoming and Eric's already settling in just fine. In the spring, the two praise bands he worked with (Refresh and LifeSign) both folded, around the time he was serving as the assistant coach for Sarah's lacrosse team and preparing to hike Philmont with David. That wasn't his only trip this year, as he visited San Antonio (and Shiner!) with Glenn in the spring, and had a chance to connect with Joe and Jen Siragusa in Buffalo after...well, far too long!

In 2016, our adventures will continue. David will graduate South County HS and head off to whichever college he chooses, beginning to empty our nest a little. In the summer we'll visit Ireland and tour where Mary's family comes from, to follow our Germany visit of 2010. Sarah plans to try out for lacrosse and football once again, and both will be on mission trips to Pittsburgh in the summer. But in all this, stay current with us here on the blog, and come visit or stop by! Our very best wishes for all the grace and peace of the holidays to everyone--Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2016!

Our New Living Room!

We'd told you at the beginning of February that the living room was finally up for renovations. With all the pre-work necessary to get the space ready, we thought this day would never arrive. But this week we took delivery of our new furniture from La-z-Boy, and Tanner was here to help us get things set up. Remember when it looked like this?

Gone is the beige, gone the 20-year-old couches, gone just about everything…and now, here's what you see when you walk in!

View from the front hall

The north wall, with our new storybook art: two lovers meet on a journey to France, and the story begins there! (Awww)

New couch, artwork, and you can really see the blue of the wall here.

View from the dining room. The rocking chair, Mary's grandmother's, is the only thing left in the room from before.

Looking towards the dining room and one of the new bookcases

Other side of the dining room entrance and the matching bookcase. 

So what do you think? Come visit and experience it for yourself!

Renovations 2015 Update

For us to accomplish the renovations of the living room we talked about before, the infamous "home renovations onion" has made its appearance. Nothing is as easy as it ought to be.

For us to be ready for the new furniture and accessories to be delivered in late March (Tanner's current estimate for when everything will have arrived), we wanted to have the wood floors sanded, stripped, re-stained, and finished in polyurethane instead of their current 27-year-old wax. Well, for the floors to have cured enough to put rugs down, we need to have the floors redone by the end of February--and so we've set it up that the week of February 23 we'll have that accomplished. Thanks to the Kuehns for the tip on using Hatcher's Floors--we look forward to seeing the results!

HOWEVER, to have the floors ready for Ed and company, we have to have the rooms emptied. That means the massive china cabinet and dining room table need to be moved, plus everything else that was in the room. We've already donated the two old couches and moved three bookcases down to the rec room; I'm not looking forward to this last bit, though. As you can see, the living room looks sparse as we're readying to paint!

Goodbye, beige!

HOWEVER, one of the things to move out of the dining room was the wine cellar. Mary had had the idea of knocking out her "desk" in the kitchen--it had never really been used as anything more than a landing pad for clutter--and moving it into that niche. So first up was demo-ing the desk, patching the wall, repainting the niche--then finding a cabinet to install in the leftover space and creating a mini-bar area--each of which took time, and precluded our getting to the main event.

I think you'll agree, the new wine niche is a great addition to the kitchen:

Our new wine niche, bar cabinet, and wine rack.

Remember how this used to be a desk?

We also are taking advantage of the floors being done by painting the walls in the living and dining rooms first…that way, won't have to worry too badly about drips! HOWEVER, whilst doing that, it emerged that a lot of trim work in the kitchen and foyer hadn't been done, so that's now on the to-do list.

So, to sum up: to install our new living room furniture, we have to redo the floors. Since we have to redo the floors, we ought to paint first. Since we have to empty the dining room, we ought to move the wine cabinet. Since we have to move the wine cabinet, we have to demo and rebuild a space for it first. Since we're making the kitchen nicer, we should take care of those hanging chads of undone trim work. See how the onion just keeps peeling?

At least this morning I got to put one of the colors on the wall in the living room. Here's a taste of what's to come--more later!

No longer beige! See, there's a difference with the air return duct!

Home Renovations, Cont'd (2015 Edition)

Last year's big change to the house was the new master bathroom. This year, we're planning at least one change in a much more visible part of the house.

We've been in the house for over ten years now, and still haven't done a thing to the formal living room. We scarcely use it, and we've talked for years that it needs a coat of paint and some rethinking about what we can use it for. And the furniture probably needs refreshing after 20 years too.

Last month, we went back to our old friends at (don't laugh) La-Z-Boy, whose stuff has been a mainstay of our family room since we moved in. Turns out they have an actual real live interior designer on staff, and Tanner came out to take a look at our space and give us some ideas. Last weekend we met with him to see his ideas, and we signed a deal whereby he'll redo our entire living room for us later this winter/spring.

Before it goes, though, one last look around the current space (as configured for Chili Bowl XXI today):

Living room, into the dining room (also to be painted this year?)

What visitors currently see when they first walk in…to be changed!

From the dining room looking out; the TV usually isn't there, that's just for Chili Bowl.

Without giving away too much, be on the lookout for major change coming in the ~March timeframe. I have some painting to do in the meantime, and (for the first time in at least 10 years) the floors will be sanded and redone too! But what will come in its place? Here's a hint…and it's only a hint for now! (OK, two hints: Think Paris!)

Tanner's idea board for us…how will this all come together? Tune in and see!

Merry Christmas 2014!

Instead of making copies of our Christmas letter this year and mailing them all, or creating a new site to capture the year, we're listing here some of the highlights so you can get caught up, and dive in more where you like, to learn more about our year.

courtesy Glenn Cook Photography

Our year involved tearing out the master bathroom for a major renovation, but six weeks later it looked better than we had imagined it could. Up next: the kitchen? The kids' bathroom? Our annual ski trip with the Scouts to Canaan Valley was in February, and then in August we flew out West, the kids' first visit someplace west of West Virginia, for a very full experience of Nevada, California and a little of Oregon. We also had a nice weekend in a cabin at Deep Creek Lake in October with our Fergie, who passed a set of milestones this year. Not only was it her first "puppiversary," or a year after we got her, but in June came the time when (we estimate) she had spent more of her life with us than before--I guess that means she's found her Forever Home. She turned three in October, and kept wryly amusing us with her antics throughout the year. Our puppums is a happy doggie and has attached herself quite firmly to Mary lately.

If you look up the address for South County Middle School in the Fairfax County tax records, you will see that yes, in fact, Sarah *does* own the school. She's having a wonderful time as an eighth grader in Advanced Academics, as a Peer Helper at school, playing guitar, doing Girls on Track, and (most recently) being elected the school's Vice President. She rejoined Girl Scouts with her friends, with whom she is surrounded most of her free time. In the summer she had her second mission trip with Jeremiah Project, which she really enjoyed and which has her thinking of going as a counsellor someday.

The theme for the year with David was "adolescence," the one-foot-in-one-foot-out nature of being a high school junior. He earned his driver's permit this year, and is making slow progress in learning to drive--it's just not a huge priority for him to do, which baffles his parents. His burgeoning leadership was recognized in the winter when his Scout troop elected him its Senior Patrol Leader, and he took the first  (quite halting) steps into the world of girls and dating. But by far, his biggest adventures were a weeklong mission trip to Costa Rica in the summer, and beginning the great college hunt--with visits to William and Mary (two stories to tell there), Berkeley, U of Arizona, and his current #1 choice, Arizona State. Where will he end up? Tune in next year!

Mary celebrated her tenth anniversary with American Bankruptcy Institute this year, and accompanied Sarah on her Girl Scout troop's visit to New York City in the fall. Eric remains in Finance Division at the FBI, although at the end of the year is beginning a six-month rotation to work temporarily in Procurement instead of Budget, a new adventure. In the summer, he had a much-appreciated chance to spend a week at Harvard Business School, and is pursuing continuing ed into the new year. He's also still drumming, with Refresh at Sydenstricker UMC as well as with LifeSign at Burke UMC, loving every minute. This year he also began serving as the Chaplain of Boy Scout Troop 688, and will have a chance next summer to take a long walk in the desert with David--they both will be part of a dozen-strong crew hiking Philmont.

As 2014 fades, we hope it's been a good year for you and your family, and we pray for the light of the season to guide you throughout the new year. Join us here throughout 2015 for more of our adventures, and be sure to share your own--and stay in touch! We very much enjoyed the visits we had this year from Courtney, Naomi, Monica, Mom & Dad Tarrier, and many others…come back again!

Merry Christmas and Happy 2015 from us all!

Our New Bathroom

After about five weeks of work, and about five weeks of living out of the kids' bathroom, our new master bath reached a state of "done"ness that allowed us to move back in.  There are still a few things that need to be finished off, but that first shower in our new space left Mary purring and very, very glad we'd made this investment.

Here's some of the before-and-after!

Old 3x3 shower replaced by an angled 5x3.5 shower.

The tub took up too much space in the corner like that, so it's now a smaller tub and tucked against the outside wall.

Goodbye soffit and Laura Ashley stencil and ginormous mirror; hello gorgeous!

 Some last adjustments need to be made, but overall we're very pleased with how this turned out.  You can't see the wireless Bluetooth speaker we installed in the shower so Eric can hear music or the radio in the morning.

Now the debate begins: Mary favors moving on to do the kids' bathroom, while Sarah desperately wants the kitchen redone next.  And me, I just look at the checkbook and wince…  But seriously, it needed to happen, and we're very pleased with how well Daniels Design did on the job.  Come by and take a look sometime!

Bathroom Remodeling: Progress, Just Past Halfway

Over the MLK weekend, we began the renovation of the master bathroom and started tearing out the 25-year-old relics.  At this point, we're more than halfway to our new bathroom, and despite the two days lost to the snow this past week, we're in pretty good shape to wrap up at the end of the month/beginning of March, as planned.

The new shower pan and the framing for the new shower and tub hint at how the closet door on the left has shifted a couple of feet to accommodate the new space.  This was about a week in; you can see the plumber has been by to set up the new tree for the shower.

Demolishing the soffit overhead of the vanity made plenty of room; the electrician has pre-wired for the new outlets, including one within the tower where Mary can store the hair dryer tucked away.

Tile has now begun to go down, and by this week tile is largely finished: the floors look great, and the tub-surround is beginning to take shape.

The scope of the shower is really beginning to emerge now that tile is in place.

A close-up of the tile in the shower, and the niche.  Still to be added are the accent tile throughout.  But on the whole, we're very pleased with how it looks, and at this point, are incredibly anxious to get into out (and out of having to traipse down to the kids' bathroom instead)!

Bathroom Remodeling Kickoff

Almost exactly one year to the day after the Home and Remodeling Show where we first met with Ted Daniels of Daniels Design and Remodeling, work began today on what will become our new master bath!

I've chronicled before the torturous path it took to get us here: the process of finding a contractor, then setting up financing, then having the closets redone first…and then the planning, the drafting, the selecting of fixtures and tile and marble…it's all been a long time coming.

But this morning, Bobby and the crew were here just after 7am, and we took one last look around what had been the master bath at Overlake Manor for the last 25 years:

The shower, about to be expanded another couple feet;

The tub, no longer to occupy so…much…floor space!

 The too-low vanity, the soffit, and the Laura Ashleyesque stenciling, all to be gone…

The plain 4x4 tile, the carpet in the bathroom (!) and the to-be-relocated closet door…all to be changed!

Over the coming weeks we'll chronicle more about how this project is coming along, but at long last, the first sledgehammers have been swung, and the work has begun!

 This…is a puzzled Pums.  What happened to the room?

Everything old is…gone!

One (Renovation) Step At A Time

Progress on the home renovations onion has been slow, but it has been made.  Consider that so far this year, we have:

• Renovated the laundry room,
• Negotiated the financing to tackle redoing the master bath and the kitchen, and
• Arranged for new closet systems to be installed

To that list we can now add, re-carpeted the entire upstairs: last week we completed that effort with the installation of new carpet throughout the upper floor, and even in the study--the only carpets not done were the entire basement level, which can certainly wait another decade as far as I'm concerned.  

But now that the carpets are done upstairs, we can proceed with the installation of the new closet system, which will be done on August 15.  That will mean some more demo and repainting work beforehand, but things that I should certainly be able to knock out beforehand.

We are, after all, making progress on our plans for the year.  And I am also proud of the fact that (as best we can tell) Fergie has not yet "christened" the new carpets, although she certainly does enjoy snuffling in them for all the wonderful new smells.  And it is a wonderful change to have springy carpeting underfoot, as opposed to what we had had for at least the last nine years (and who knows how long before that).

Over our Vermont week I hope we can come to consensus on the contractor for the master bath, which we've agreed will be the first project.  Then perhaps we can begin setting that up, and make that happen within this year.

The Home Renovations Onion

It's now four months since the Home and Renovations Show we attended to begin the process of possibly redoing our kitchen and master bathroom, and three months since we had contractors out to give us initial estimates.

And nothing's begun.

Making progress on this has been like peeling back an onion: nothing is as simple as it seemed at first blush.  For instance, one of our first commitments was to redo the closets with a new closet system for us and for Sarah.  We've signed the contract to get that done.  However, it dawned on us that the new closet furniture will be installed, and pretty immovably, on top of the carpets...the carpets that have been there for at least the nine years since we moved in, and God knows how long before that.  Replacing the one in our closet is easy; it's a stand-alone patch of carpet, since the tile floor of the bathroom begins just outside it.  However, Sarah's closet carpet flows into her room...which flows into the upstairs hall...which flows into the guest room (oy, there's one that really needs replacing), David's room, our room...which means a much larger project than at first blush.  (The carpet guy is coming out tonight to take a look.)

Picking a contractor took awhile; I think we've come to a point of decision on whom we want to use, but we also want to lock in the financing first before we make a multi-tens-of-thousands commitment and find we can't back it up.  So we back up to start looking for a home equity line of credit (HELOC).

A simple query on Lending Tree turned into an interesting snapshot of credit markets post-2008.  Only one lender was willing to talk with us, and quoted us rates that seemed higher than I had expected; apparently these days lenders just aren't willing to take a subordinate position to homeowners, even those of us with credit scores around 800.  They suggested a cash-out refinance, but then when we started exploring that (with a fresh Lending Tree query), everyone said we were asking for too much cash out for the credit markets to bear these days.

Fortunately, one lender made the comment that a credit union has different, looser rules, and so we're now in the process of getting final approval for a HELOC through our credit union.  But the multiple rounds of that have precluded us from making final decisions on a contractor, let alone the scope of work and details of the project.

I do remain optimistic that our plan for the year--that There's Gonna Be Some Changes--will still come about, even in this realm.  It just may be into the fall before the renovations are done.  And it will take all my willpower not to suggest to the designers to put up wallpaper with onions on it, to remind me constantly about the level of effort required to get there.

Our New Laundry Room

When we last left our story, we had two things: a dryer failure, and consequently, the excuse we'd been waiting for to get a new laundry room.

The previous laundry room had been what the builders had installed, and it was unwieldy (and always a bit of a mess):

Side-by-side appliances, no place for the kids to drop backpacks, overhead cabinets that were clunky and beige walls with 1988 lineoleum floors...all just begging to be tossed out.

We pulled out the old appliances and the old laundry sink (which had no underneath storage to speak of), tore up the old lineoleum floor (both satisfying and frustrating), pulled down the old cabinets, and left a shell of a room.

Putting it back together, we put in the new floor, arranged for the dryer power and vent duct to be moved (which also surfaced the fact that the duct hadn't really been connected anymore--now that's fixed), painted a new color of slate blue, and added wainscoting and trim (she had always wanted wainscoting somewhere in the house).  New cabinets and the bench went in.  Here's how it came out:

We did everything ourselves but for the connecting of the appliances, the rerouting of the duct and power, and the connecting of the new sink.

In the end, it cost us about $3,350 for the new laundry room (fully half that is the appliances), plus whatever hours we spent scraping up linoleum glue and putting up the new walls.  We even had a chance to learn more about drywall repair in the process.  Is it worth it? Sure: we finally have a room Mary is happy with, that works well, and that we can be proud of.  I'd call that a good investment.

Laundry Room Renovations

Two weekends ago, the clothes dryer finally died.  It came with the house, eight-plus years ago, and I have no idea how old it was before that.  Combined with the washer giving periodic fits, this became the spark for Mary to declare the time had come for the laundry room that she has always wanted.

Instead of the industrial sink, washer, clothes rack, and dryer all next to each other on the wall, her vision was for a stacked washer-dryer pair, and a bench with shoe storage underneath as a place for backpacks to land and shoes to be stored, with cabinets overhead.  After going back and forth about it, we are keeping a sink, but encasing it in a dark brown ("espresso") wood cabinet to match the bench and cabinetry we're installing.  The old linoleum floor has to go, in favor of new broad-format tiles, and the walls will be painted slate blue with white vinyl wainscoting and trim.

Progress has been...halting.  Between the time to engage with the new puppy, go skiing, and handle multiple competing pressures at our respective jobs, it's taken awhile to get started.  We do have some deadlines, though: the new washer and dryer are to be delivered and installed on the 7th of March, so we have to have the floor installed, the dryer vent rerouted, the dryer power outlet moved, and the drywall repaired and painted behind it, before then.  I keep flashing back to the $4,195 dishwasher project from three years ago: what started out as a simple replacement became a major initiative.  This time around we're doing almost all the work ourselves; staggering it properly and getting everything done will be the challenge.  I am learning drywall repair as I go, as well, so we'll see if the finished project is acceptable.  But it will be different, and more modern, and more colorful, and one more piece of the "there's gonna be some changes" aspect of 2013.

There's Gonna Be Some Changes

Twenty-odd years ago, a good friend and I would greet each New Year's with the same promise: this year, we said, "there's gonna be some changes."  One year it was when I got married; another year, she promised she was going to get a new job.  The dreams of each new year sounded big, and impressive, and maybe just a little scary at their immensity.

The first 31 days of 2013 suggest the old trope will actually be coming true this year: there's gonna be some changes, in 2013.  As the shine of New Year's resolutions fades and we confront in February the gritty realities of the year to come, there's still quite an extensive list of things we're planning to do this year:

• Tomorrow we go to visit the Fairfax County Humane Society's dog farm and look at doggies.  After months of "I wanna puppy I wanna puppy I wanna puppy," we're actually going to do it.  We've bought the food and water dishes and baby gates (to mark off space in the house so Doggy can get used to it gradually instead of Whoomp all at once), and we have our eye on one dog we're hoping to meet and who might come home with us later in the month.
• In mid-January Mary and I went to the Home and Remodeling Expo and began, formally, the process of spending tens of thousands of dollars.  The hope is to be able to redo the master bathroom and some portion of the kitchen; we've already contracted with one outfit do redo Sarah's and the master closets, and we've already met with three contractors (fourth is coming up) to see what they can do and how large a bag of money we'd need to come up with.  But one way or another, one room or another (if not both) will be done in 2013.
• After years of inaction, we're beginning to redo the living room: scrapbooking supplies are moving to the rec room, which brings us to...after years of inaction, work (of a sort) is starting on the train set, too!  I'm making the executive decision that some parts of the train won't ever be set up, and so I'm repurposing parts for later use.  The scrapping station will go where those unused train set parts are stored.
• I bought myself my own drum kit, which is now also ensconced in the rec room.
• And, perhaps inspired during my time at Harvard last month, I have started some writing projects, one of which I want to see through in the coming year.

And that's only the first 31 days! May the good starts begun in January bear fruit throughout the year and into the years to come...