Welcome to Woodbridge

It's all ours now.

We promise lots of pictures over the next couple of days to prove that we're actually in the house, but until we get enough energy to write a few good, long posts, here's a quick update.

1. We had an awesome crew at the house this week: The Carris family landscaped HoB into submission, whipping our house into a condition that can't possibly embarrass the neighbors anymore. It looks great. Our new buddy Phil extracted the ridiculously heavy radiator in the bedroom and is ready to set us up with high-efficiency heating and AC -- yay! And Billy Ho ... well, let's just say that I have been underestimating poor Billy. I've never seen anyone work so hard for so long for so little payoff, other than a case of Miller High Life and the sight of a neon-yellow house. We owe you big, Billy. And Todd and Mike drove the whole way to Edgewater to trudge up and down lots of stairs to pack up the cars with stuff that didn't make it into boxes, then drove to Woodbridge and unpacked it all cheerfully.

We're truly blessed. Our friends rock. To all of you who have been here for us over the past few weeks, thank you from the bottom of our black little hearts. I promise a home-cooked meal and excellent wine and beer.

2. The movers showed up this morning an hour ahead of schedule. I'll let Rich tell the rest of the story, but it was ... eventful. But damn quick. So we're here, surrounded by stuff and facing at least a good decade continuing to make it ours.

3. The cats finally stopped hating me a couple of hours ago and are back to their Poos selves and exploring. Considering they were locked in a cage for six hours and had a whole new house to get used to, they're doing pretty great.

More to come, but some pictures:

No, really, it's love this time

I want this so much.

John Boos & Co. Cucina Grande Table

The Chad, Giovanna and Allison Commemorative Post

Oh, my God, we're tired.

Thank goodness for Chad and Giovanna, who came on Friday night and absolutely busted their butts helping us at the house, and Allison, who surprised us with pizza and sweets before we put her to work (we taught her to paint!) this afternoon. Honestly, I don't know what we would have done without them this weekend.

We're calling the window in the dining room the Chad and Giovanna Commemorative Window. There should be a plaque. After all the paint that was scraped off and all the priming, I'm hoping the two of them aren't having nightmares.



At one point today, the bathroom door became unhinged. "Oh, man," I said to Rich. "We bought the 'Money Pit.' "



In the end, we got the majority of the trim painted, and we each made a trip to Home Depot (in an homage to my dads). And our kitchen underwent a transformation.

Before:



After:



Yes, that table was actually rigged into the wall out of some boards and random cabinet pieces. We'd been afraid to take it down in case it was covering some ugly or destroyed wall, but it turns out -- after poor Rich dropped the "table" on his head -- that the wall was in good shape. I trashed the boards and we stashed the cabinet under the basement steps, and suddenly, I've got a nice, big kitchen.

The chandelier in the kitchen is also somewhere in the basement, where our friend Phil unfortunately had to spend some time this weekend in preparation for taking out the radiator in our bedroom. (The entire house is baseboard heat, except for that room. Bizarre.) Rich took it down with the help of Ricca during a telephone consultation -- really, he should charge for this kind of thing; he's darn good -- and he graciously also walked Rich through detaching the fans from the ceilings so we could paint.

If I ever see another paintbrush again, I'll vomit. Looking forward to that this week. Yet another thing (besides movers) we'll never, ever do again on our own. We haven't even touched the upstairs yet.

LOOK AT ALL THIS SPACE!

Home alone

With Rich indisposed on Sunday, I hit the house on my own to expend some energy and get a little more work done.

I also learned that when I go to Home Depot wearing an old painting shirt and my Pirates ballcap, I can't get anyone's attention even while waving my credit card around. But when I have to go back a few hours later to grab some primer and return a wallpaper steamer but I'm wearing a tank top instead after spending three sweaty hours ripping maroon flowers off my hallway walls, I can't get anyone to leave me alone. (It is Home Depot, after all, I suppose.)

Anyhoo. I also learned that I've been there often enough that I've heard "Hey, you're back" more than once this week.

No pictures, as I was Rich-less and it's a little tough to take photos while you've got a steamer in one hand and a scraper in the other, and you're covered in old glue and strips of ugly, ugly wallpaper. But it's gone! Yay!

After that, more spackling. Is it a little sick that I enjoy spackling? Spackling, sanding, cleaning, covering the floor in paper and painter's tape ... this is our life.

Also, I'm probably just being weirdly paranoid, but I had the sneaking suspicion someone's been in the house. I know, I know -- the first thing I should have done after the ink dried on the closing papers was change the locks. So I went out and bought new locks. And installed them myself. Granted, it took a call to Dad to finish:

Brooke: Hi, Mom -- where's Dad?

Mom: Anything wrong?

B: No, I just need Dad's help. I'm trying to change the locks and I'm stuck.

M: By yourself?

B (mentally): Oh, shit, I really shouldn't be doing this on my own, should I.

B (for real): Well, yeah.

M (proudly): Good for you.

It took me two hours, but I did it. Lots of swearing and such, but it looks much better. And I feel less crazy.

We're just about ready to do some actual painting, if my world continues spinning on the correct axis and Rich's digestive tract begins to cooperate.

Project

We're not big fans of the chandelier in the dining room, but somehow, replacing it seems like a bit of a waste right now.

Especially when I can test my abilities by spray-painting it a more updated color and bringing it back to life a bit.

It's not a pricey piece, or especially unusual, but I think a solid update will really change the character. New bulbs, a good dusting and a coat of paint, and I might have saved myself a good chunk of cash. (Plus, if I ruin the job, no harm done, and I buy a new one anyway.)

While browsing some sites, I picked up a few tips that will hopefully work:

-- Use a primer. Sure, it sounds a little "duh," but I'm impatient. Better do it right so the metallic actually sticks.

-- Instead of one heavy coat, lightly coat it multiple times for good coverage. I didn't want a high shine -- not my style -- but I did choose this in Champagne Nouveau (seemed like a pretty neutral choice) and have a little hope that it will look nice in our dining room.

What to do with this monstrosity in the kitchen, I don't know. Part of me is already growing on it -- like Tyra would say, it's ugly-pretty. (Rich's take: "This thing is shiteous. I'm going to see how fast Ricca can get in here and put recessed lighting in there instead.")

On the bright side, it is getting in the way of where I want the rack for my gorge copper pots to go. Priorities.

Sunday quiz

I'm off to paint the house while Rich tends to his poor digestive system, which has mounted a rebellion of epic proportions this weekend. Poor guy.

In the meantime, a few questions:

1. Do you masking-tape the hell out of everything, or are your cutting-in skills such that it's a waste of time for you? (I tend to overtape because I'm such a klutz.)

2. Do you stick to more neutral colors, or prefer bolder hues?

3. Do you think I will somehow manage to electrocute myself taking down all the ceiling fans before I paint the ceilings?

Discuss.

Going viral

Painting was supposed to begin today. (Progress admittedly feels as if it is at a glacial pace right now, hence the tiny amount of blogging.)

However, I took myself to the hospital for what turned out to be a viral infection in my inner ear, which has been leaning to vertigo and is the likely cause of all the car sickness I've been feeling. Looking upward with an extended paint roller in hand to turn my ceilings into Ultra Pure White did not seem like a good idea, so we took a break. And now, poor Rich is laid up on the couch with a stomach bug. Maybe we just shouldn't paint. There are signs, people!

Fortunately, last night we managed to cover the entire dining room and the office floors to protect them from all of the painting that will hopefully ensue tomorrow. This came after we extricated deep-set nails from the walls, spackled -- we spackle! -- and dusted much of the trim. A few hours of hard work, and we were quite ready to get back to the apartment.

On Wednesday, I met my new best friends at Home Depot with my new store credit card in hand and bought all the paint. As I waited, I ogled all of the flooring tiles, outdoor power equipment, new locks and door handles, kitchen laminate, wallpaper steamers (that one's a rental), new bathroom medicine cabinet, and everything else on my wish list. (I walked out of the garden center before my head exploded.) We got a good amount of rain the other day, so I'm guessing the lawn will need our attention right soon.

New pictures to come tomorrow, once painting has commenced and I have fed the crew coming to help.

A difference of opinion

One thing we just cannot come to agreement on is the lawn.

I keep pushing for a new lawn mower. Rich keeps saying, "I'll borrow so-and-so's," or "So-and-so's kid is coming over to do it this weekend," or "The neighbor down the street runs a landscaping service and will do it for cheap."

I'm admittedly running out of patience. This is clearly where I need to just put my foot down and go out and buy it.

My take is that when we buy our lawn mower, trimmer, etc., it's an investment -- we'll be able to do these things on our own, when we need to, as we please -- without wasting it on landscaping services.

Clearly the yard will be my domain, and that's fine. If Rich wants to say he bought me a house, then I can order him around and make him transport wheelbarrowfuls of dirt, mulch, whatever around my little patch of land.

Floored

As a matter of compromise, we chose to have all of the carpet ripped out of the house and the hardwood floors underneath sanded and refinished, with total replacement to come sometime in the far-off future.

When we walked in today for the first time in a few days -- had to let it dry -- we gasped. It looks awesome.

After we'd gingerly walked around the whole house like kids on Christmas morning, visibly taking in breath with every room we entered, Rich looked at me and said, "Are you tearing up?"

Yeah, I was. But so was he.*

For me, it felt like the first real moment of homeownerdom: a decision made, the realization that it was ours to live in, that it was really going to be OK ... and that we'd finally put our own stamp on the place.

I can't wait to paint. After that, the house will be nearly unrecognizable.

One of our neighbors is a landscaper, and he very kindly offered to trim up the lawn after Rich's first mowing experience the other day. Our yard looks so much better, and it's really exciting. (Suddenly, it doesn't look so daunting.)

Tomorrow or Tuesday, the pool is being disassembled and taken away, so we'll have to fill the resulting hole with dirt.

Plans, they await.

*OK, OK, fine. As Rich pointed out this morning, did I really have to emasculate him on the blog? Apparently ... yeah.

Waiting for Godot - to Finish Our Floor

Waiting is no fun.

We brought in our floor guy this week. His name is Manuel and he was recommended by a buddy who just bought his own house in Jersey City Heights. (Thanks, Nick). Manuel was the cheapest option of the four quotes we had for the floors. In the end, we decided to go with the simplest fix up front: sand, stain, finish and poly coats in the living room and pull all the carpets up from the office, the steps and the master bedroom. We left the wood parquet floor in the dining room, because I wasn't quite courageous enough to pull that floor up and find out what's beneath.

The work is an interim fix. In five years or so, I'd like to pull up the parquet and re-floor the living room and dining room in the same hardwood, to give it a homogeneous look that's very appealing to the eye. But that's a more expensive project and one not best suited to the budget one finds themselves with soon after closing.

I wish we had pictures to post of the floors in progress, but because the house lacks central air, it's taking extra time for the stains to dry. Trust me, I'm' more eager than anybody to see the finished product.

I say again, waiting is no fun.

Mow Mow Mow My Boat

I can't make this stuff up.

So the woman who sold us our house used to keep the lawn incredibly well-maintained. At least one neighbor has already told me that. Apparently, her commitment to the manicuring of mulch ended the day we went under contract. Because by the time we moved in, the grass was taller than Gary Coleman (too soon?). No problem, I say to myself. I'll just call a few lawn guys to come and take care of my Amazonian side yard.

Lesson: It's not as easy to find a grass cutter at the start of summer as you'd think.

These guys are in some sort of prime time, like looking for a last-minute accountant after Passover (early April for the goys). I called a half-dozen firms and between "Sorry, can't schedule you for two weeks" and the folks who never even bothered to call back, I eventually went a new route. I hired a buddy's kid to do the lawn for me. $25 for a few hours work on his part. We set it up to get done over Memorial Day weekend. I have only held the title to this house for two weeks, so I figured that was moving pretty quick. But the kid had to attend a distant relative's funeral with his parents - and my bluegrass butchering was postponed.

It wasn't until Brooke arrived at the house Wednesday morning - to let the flooring guy in - that she found a violation from the town warning me to cut my "high grass and weeds" or face some sort of punishment. Yup. A neighbor has already ratted me out for property maintenance. True, oh sticklers of fact. That previous sentiment is clearly a supposition. It's possible that a random city official driving through New Jersey's sixth-most populous city just happened to stumble upon my house. Or maybe it was the douchebag a few houses down and across the street who actually clapped in my direction at the sight of the lawn finally getting cut.

Lesson: I think I've found our first prick neighbor.

Never being one to like even the potential of a warning-cum-fine, I immediately to set my lawn for the first time. Via an old friend who lives around the corner from me, I I managed to transport a self-propelled, gas-powered bag mower to my yard. THe bag filled - easily - two dozen times as I slowly chewed my way over and over a lawn grown impossibly large. The process took so long, the phrase "losing the light" actually became applicable to lawn mowing. I never even got to the backyard. All I managed to get was the side yard and the front, which.

Lesson: I will soon enough be purchasing my first mower - and it will be mighty..