Teague is my hero. He spent yesterday, his only guaranteed day off of work this week, digging a huge trench for the new foundation wall we’ll be needing when we extend the kitchen out 6 feet. He was out there past sunset – what a hardworking guy!

So, though the framing hasn’t even started, my mind can’t help but wander to thoughts of our someday-kitchen. We went it to look somewhat historic, but above all it must be FUNCTIONAL. I’m sure we’ll piece out the renovation over years and years, but the brainstorming phase is my favorite so I dug up some […]

Ladies, the “But I have no upper arm strength!” excuse has just been blown to bits. It turns out a jackhammer isn’t as heavy as you might imagine….. For weeks, we’ve been talking about getting rid of the concrete porch foundation that lingered outside the kitchen door. It was the last piece of the porch […]

It has become evident that since we’re already planning to rebuild the back wall of the house, we could extend the kitchen a few feet while we’re at it. The back annex we’re removing butts up against the kitchen – all that seperates the two is a false wall. At some point, a few feet […]

Hallelujah, I might actually be able to sleep at night – the insurance fiasco is OVER! Well, not exactly over, but temporarily taken care of in that “at least we won’t have to default on our mortgage and lose the house” kind of way. After many, many phone calls to various insurance companies, both local […]

The weather has been our enemy since November, when we first moved in. We’ve known nothing but snow and cold in this house. Winter left us with astronomical utility bills, blankets on our windows, and an ever-growing pile of exterior repair work to be done. This weekend it was almost (gasp) spring-like. I even heard […]

If you’re itching to live in Ohio, you can buy yourself a fully-furnished Victorian……. off of eBay! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=12605&item=4359269436&rd=1

I saw this article on Bob Vila’s site and thought it had a good set of guidelines for the type of demolition work we’re doing on the back of the house: Deconstruction for Reuse and Salvage We didn’t get a permit before we started tearing down……. oops. Didn’t know we needed one!

How great is my fiance? I came home from work yesterday to find the walls of our back porch GONE! When he gets into a project, he’s a maniac. He’s a neat maniac, though – he got all the debris loaded onto a trailer, and salvaged all of the clapboard siding, decorative elements, and useful […]

sent this beauty to us yesterday! I came home from a long day of work and errands and tripped over a very large box in our entryway. Imagine my excitement when I turned on the porch light and saw what it was. This saw is something Teague has been drooling over for months, and it […]