Weathering the Winter

Lest ye think I have ceased blogging, I post now to keep the dream alive. But even as I go through occasional periods of less frequent posts, I will never stop blogging until you pry the keyboard out of my cold, dead hands. Or blogging becomes uncool, whichever comes first.

Random notes...

Happy Anniversary Petworth House! It's been a year since I bought this place and it got a new kitchen for it's birthday. Not completely finished, but all the heavy-lifting is done, it's just some finish work now. I took pictures but they are not in the same place I am right now... but I'm really happy with how it came out. Thanks to my awesome tenants who put up with the awful kitchen there for a year, and then no kitchen for a week or so while the remodel was done.

The final piece was a granite countertop from Granite America in Bladensburg. These guys were great - I did all the measurements myself, which from my previous experience, most vendors are very wary about. With good reason, since if you screw up, it's often a total loss. But this saved me a few bucks, they were happy to work with me providing designs via email, and it came out perfectly. Best of all it was done a mere three days after I placed the order! Can't beat that for speedy service. Total cost for about 12 linear feet of countertop (25 sq. ft.), including installation, was just over $1,100 -- which is pretty damn cheap. I would definitely use these guys again.

Total cost of materials for the kitchen...

Counter - $1,100
Cabinets - $800 (two bases, four uppers, home depot special... nothing unique but they look nice)
Sink - $280 (yeah, no bargains there, for some reason undermount sinks are gouge-o-rama)
Appliances - all stainless - $1800:
-- Frigidaire five-burner gas range, $550 (Lowe's floor model)
-- Whirlpool over-the-range microwave, $150 (Lowe's floor model)
-- Kichen-Aid side-by-side fridge
-- Bosch diswasher -- $1100 for the pair (Craig's list, from some rich guys in Dupont Circle who were remodeling their brand-new kitchen, ha ha)

Most everything else was recycled or pretty inconsequential.

Total: $3980

Not bad for a brand-new, pretty high-end kitchen. All the appliances are actually really nice and look great together despite being four different brands. At this point my investment in that house (post-purchase) is hovering around $12,000. The major expenses have been electrical heavy-up, refinishing the floors, a security gate for the front, a boiler repair, and the kitchen. The only expensive things left to do are build a deck off the back yard, and fix the front porch (which probably will only be about $800 or so in materials, mostly labor on that one). Possibly fence in the back yard. There are a bunch of other minor things that need doing, but these are all weekend projects, mostly involving drywall and paint. It's looking like my total remodel costs are going to come in at well under $20,000, not counting central air - but I won't do that for a long time.

There have been very few if any really bad surprises on this place, which makes me feel good about my ability to pick out a diamond in the rough. When I bought this place it looked run-down and neglected at best. But it had what I wanted: many original details in good shape and not too much bad work that needed undoing. In the last year, it's turned around completely - it now looks like a really nice house that just needs a few things patched up. I am looking forward to having my weekends back! Or at least to having them to work on the house in which I live... which is probably feeling fairly left out by now...

Awesome Halloween at the Red Derby... N. and I ended up at the Derby for much of the evening on Halloween last Saturday. Apparently, this holiday is not usually an especially busy one for the bars in DC. I guess people go to parties more than bars. But there was a steady crowd of regulars the whole night and the costumes were amazing. I don't think I saw a single person who wasn't dressed up in some frightening get-up... including N's awesome zombie costume, ghouls, goblins, ghosts, vampires, and scariest of all, a couple mormon proselyzers. Again, I shamefully do not have any pictures handy but will get some online before next Halloween.

Great party Shannon... you look fantastic in leopard. Really. I am slowly coming to terms with my southwest DC phobia.

A note from the 'hood...

Allegro facing foreclosure. The Allegro, the new apartment complex at 14th & Meridian which I toured shortly before their opening last spring, is now on the auction block. Apparently, they have not been able to lease enough units to pay the bills. This is too bad, but I suppose not entirely surprising. These are luxury apartments in a builing with many cool amenities - at a price point to match. It seemed like they were doing pretty well - the last figure I heard was 58 percent rented. Considering how expensive the building is, and the fact that Columbia Heights is still very much a transitional neighborhood that some people willing to pay $2500 a month in rent might blink at, it seemed like a good sign that there were even this many people willing to take up residence there in only a few months. But it sounds like the investors' pockets are not deep enough to weather the troubled economy and where they are now won't cut it. At the same time, while this is pretty bad news for the owners, I can't believe it's just going to shut down, as obviously there's a lot invested.