Lots to Do

Not a lot of time to write tonight, what with work (behind in two different jobs) and travel (trip to Philadelphia tomorrow that my boss just cancelled out of so I'm on my own) and kid (keeping her entertained until school starts Thursday) and exercise (I did get out for a run in this heat!).  We survived the inspection -- $500 (well, it's a big house) bought me no new significant information about needed repairs, which may be expensive but is clearly good news.  Lots of things to fix for sure but at least the repair bill didn't leap exponentially.  Paul, the inspector, did suggest I talk to a structural engineer about one issue, who I'll call tomorrow, and we still are supposed to get an electrician in to find out if it's more than just an artistic reason that the chandeliers throughout the house are real -- that is, they take candles, not lightbulbs.  

Beyond that, I ran over to the city's CEO office again to get a final determination on how many apartments the city thinks the place has (no luck -- office closed at 4 pm -- Ok, I will decline to make a joke about city workers and their schedules), called another old friend and contractor (someone who I suspect will be cheaper than Craig who looked at the place with me a couple of weeks ago) to see if he can get me a quick estimate of how much it will cost to create the new apartment, called the lawyer to see how likely it is I'll get an official appointment with Marge at the city before Friday...  Suffice it to say, there's lots to do.

Most disappointing comment of the day -- both Paul, the inspector, and Nikki think I may not be able to put a roof deck on the building.  What??  Hardly makes sense since the brand new building of condos right in front of the house, the ugly part of "my" view I'm trying to ignore, has a gigantic roof deck -- how can the city deny me?  This is one I will fight.

Kanha did come with me this morning and saw the house for the first time.   She was bored with the inspection and enthralled with the apartment -- she's claimed the third bedroom as her art studio and has determined how we'll arrange our couch to maximize the living room view of Portland Harbor.  (She also was fascinated by the rotary dial phones throughout the sellers' apartment -- she can figure out how to operate a brand new computer in five minutes but struggled mightily to determine how to dial a phone number on these phones.  Do we count this as progress?)  I called her at her dad's tonight and she gave it the seal of approval -- "We have to buy it."  I'm working on it, honey-bunny.