I think this little number would come in handy when drilling… especially when drilling overhead while balancing a piece of drywall on your head, severely straining your neck as you fumble for the screws in your pocket.

You can get one here for $15.95, although the crafty gal in me thinks this would be VERY easy to make yourself. A strip of fabric, some velcro, and some nice heavy-duty magnets and you’re golden.  It’d make a good stocking stuffer!

I’m all for modern design and unique architecture, but this? This seems like a resell nightmare…

The toilet house was built by Sim Jae-duck, the chairman of the organizing committee of the Inaugural General Assembly of the World Toilet Association. Apparently he hopes his toilet house “will highlight the global need for better sanitation”. Hmmm…. I think it highlights the fact that if you’re rich enough, people will tell you your ideas are brilliant no matter how crappy they are. Pun intended.

It’s not quite as ugly from the side,  although it kinda reminds me of a big cruise ship. I’m sure it gets fabulous sunlight all year round, but no way would I trade our Victorian charmer for this thing…..

Found via Freshsome 

Yep, we’re still NOT working on the house. It’s lovely. I have seen my friends and family more in the last few months than I have in years! The house is nearly spotless… no drywall dust, no caulk guns lying around, no extra lumber being stored in the kitchen. The physical and mental chaos created by 2.5+ years of constant remodeling is slowly subsiding. At this rate, I may even get a manicure just to prove that I can make one last more than 2 hours.

But, it makes for boring blogging. And it makes me forget what this house looked like when it started. So I’m pulling out another oldie but goodie from the archives…

This was our living room. It had really big cracks in the plaster, many of which were held together with scotch tape. Notice the picture I hung over one in a vain attempt to minimize the appearance of that one bulge? NICE TRY. You do very odd things when you’re desperate.

Also notice the cigarette smoke stains. We washed the walls and ceiling with soap and hot water, then primed everything twice with the extra-strength Killz in order to block the smell and discoloration. That worked, thank goodness. Killz is a godsend. We should have bought stock in that a long time ago.

Check out this old post on fixing holes in plaster walls, but also be sure to check out this post for more tips – things learned later on in our DIY process! Also perhaps useful, there are pictures of our drywall ceiling/wall seaming technique for wonky and overly large gaps here.

And to give all you fixer-uppers a small ray of hope, here is the living room as it stands today:

No holes, no badly placed closets, no ugly shag carpet, and no scary wood floors hiding under said carpet. It has come a long way. Someday, we will own nice furniture, lighting and draperies and it’ll look just marvelous!  At least now it’s got good bones.

So as you may have noticed, I really like painting. White walls offend my senses. I like lots and lots of saturated color. No pastels here! It all comes down to my twisted obsession with color and drastic, “big wow” changes. Someday, when I can afford fancy-schmancy hair salons, I’ll be one of those women who dyes her hair a different shade every few weeks.

When a rep from EZ Paint Tools asked me to test-drive their product, an easier-to-clean paint brush, I was all “I’m your girl”. And when it arrived, I marveled at it’s lovely bristles, which are surprisingly high-quality considering the reasonable price.

The brush is designed to screw on to a garden hose. When you’re done painting, you put it on the hose, run it for a few minute, and voila – clean! The cleaning starts right at the base of the bristles, unlike traditional brushes. No futzing around trying to get paint from way down near the handle, which is where you waste all your time, energy, and water.

I was impressed by the quality of the bristles. Neither of us like the handle shape as much as our traditional brushes, but that part cannot really be avoided. I will be grabbing this brush in the future for quick touch-ups and smaller jobs because the plastic handle is worth dealing with for the extremely fast clean-up!

If you’re the type that will throw out a brush rather than wash it (tsk, tsk) you should get yourself one of these. It will help you to be a little greener.

Want more paint tips? Try these posts from the archives:

Fixer-Upper’s Paint Tips (There is some great stuff in the comments on this thread!)

Test Driving Paint Colors Online

Using Milk Paint

It’s time to start buckling down for blustery winds and dropping temps. Around our house, that means we have to accomplish the following before the snow flies:

• Clean and store our patio and porch furniture
• Check the caulk and seals around our windows and doors, install new weather-stripping if needed
• Wash exterior windows one last time (so I don’t have to stare at the same dirt all winter long)
• Drain and store garden hoses, shut off the exterior spigots.
• Clean out our gutters and downspouts
• Test the boiler and radiators (we did this about a month ago), get the boiler maintenance guy over to clean it out
• Clean out the gardens and trim back our plants and trees
• Clear leaves from the basement window wells and around the foundation to ensure good drainage
• Rake the leaves once they fall – most of them are still on the trees! This is a good thing, because it means we’ll get one crazy day of wind that blows them all off at once. No need for multiple days of raking.

Also, because fall isn’t all work and no play, I’m adding a few of my personal fall activities….

• Put all my Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations up around the house and yard
• Carve a few pumpkins for the porch
• Drink a mug full of hot apple cider from a local mill

What fall chores have I neglected to put on my list? I’m sure there are plenty more to contend with before winter….

As I mentioned in a previous post, my parents are in town this week. They’re “escapees”, full-time RVers who no longer have a permanent address or house to return to when they tire of life on the road. They can fit everything they need comfortably in their 5th wheel, a Big Sky Montana with a little over 300 sq. ft. of living space. It’s a very swanky RV complete with glass-front cupboards, a nice little kitchen island, and an electric fireplace beneath the flat-panel tv. It’s about the size of a small studio apartment, which turns out to be plenty of space for two adults and two small dogs. And somehow, they make the place feel like home when my brother and I come to visit. We can even crash there on the pull-out bed and sleep soundly, cuddled up with their two small dogs who love getting to sleep on “magic bed”.

Every time I spend time with them in the RV, I am reminded of how very few material possessions we need to be happy. They don’t have rooms and rooms full of STUFF and THINGS that need dusting and organizing. They don’t have seperate closets overflowing with clothes they don’t wear. They don’t feel compelled to save items they don’t want because someone gave it as a gift, or because it meant something to them when they were ten. They’ve pared down to the essentials, and every time they buy something new they have to get rid of something old. It’s a forced form of simple living!

Both Mom and Dad swear that they don’t miss their things, all the doodads they collected over half of a lifetime. Of course, they can visit half their things at my house (we took a lot of furniture off their hands when they left) so that might make it easier ;) The one thing Mom admits to missing is a real shower and bath, complete with scalding hot water. Dad, I think, must miss his workshop full of gadgets and tools. Otherwise they seem to have everything they need and want.

They are Workampers (which means they work at a campground in exchange for a site) so they aren’t off the hook when it comes to employment. But living in an RV has allowed them to reclaim sooooo much of their free time. Cleaning their house means an hour, tops, including mopping and vacuuming and all that good stuff. In comparison I usually spend 4-5 hours a week cleaning our house – and I’m certainly not a neat-freak. That is just enough time to keep it from being a health hazard or an embarrassment should unexpected guests drop by. I mowed the lawn today, and although I enjoyed the sunshine it was 2+ hours of monotonous work. Their lawn maintenance? Non-existant.  Sure, there are things to fix or upgrade here and there, but it’s nothing like the day-to-day care a real house needs. As Mom puts it, without the constant upkeep a house and lawn require, they find that they have time for friendships. Not to mention walks with the dogs, long phone conversations, and extra cups of coffee out under the awning in the morning sun.  And on top of all that, they can live anywhere they want. They can move right on out to the next beautiful beach or rocky coast whenever they get sick of what they’re looking at.

I try not to be materialistic, but in our culture it’s pretty hard not to get wrapped up in what The Joneses are wearing, driving, and living in. So I often need reminding that stuff and space does not make you happier; that a beautiful house is just a beautiful house, and although our Dirty Gert is fun to come home to I would probably be just as happy sharing a small apartment with the dogs without a huge lawn and a 12×12 craft room filled with fabric scraps and pretty beads. Or, as is the case with my parents, happier!
I’ll miss them terribly when they roll back out again, and sometimes selfishly wish they’d kept a house here in town so they could come back each summer and not always be so far away. But I see how much happier they are living this slow-paced life filled with warmth and sun (no snow, not ever!) and unlike many people  – who think they must be out of their minds -  I can understand completely why they’ve chosen this lifestyle. They’re my constant reminder that house is just a house, stuff is just stuff, and “home” can be anywhere.

Our fall has, thus far, been one of the nicest in recent memory. We’ve had weeks of warmer-than-usual temperatures (tomorrow might hit 80!) and very little rain. It hardly feels like fall at all, except for the obvious reminders – pumpkins and potted mums on everyone’s front steps, leaves floating lazily to the ground with every stiff breeze, and the high school football players sporting jerseys on their way in to school in the morning. We’re still working hard NOT to work on the house; it’s a tough habit to break, but it’s getting easier by the day.

This past weekend, my mother and father rolled into town. They’re full-time RV’ers, and the last time they were at our house was over 2 years ago. Needless to say, they barely recognized the place. When we bought it, I know they worked very hard to appear optimistic and not to let on just how awful they thought it was.  Now, without holes in the walls and cat pee in the carpets, they can see what we saw all along.

With the weather so beautiful and the Adirondack leaves nearly peaking, we decided we’d head north for a day. We spent a few hours wandering around Old Forge and Inlet, climbing Bald Mountain, and appreciating fall in New York State.

While in Inlet, we stopped at a store called The Boathouse. It’s right in the center of town and Inlet is a VERY small town, so you really can’t miss it. The store is owned by friends of my parents, two wonderful people named Dale and Paula who have truly great taste in home decor.  Unlike the sometimes-tacky “country moose and bear” decor of most Adirondack shops, they stock furniture that is rustic, organic, breezy and elegant.

I wanted to bring many things home to my in-laws, who own a charming log cabin in the woods which they built themselves from logs right on the lot.  It would all look so perfect in their house!

I especially like this large “tchoctchke holder” (I know there’s a better way to say that, but I can’t spell any of them!) and the tree branch coffee table. Maybe some day, when we can afford furniture from someplace other than tag sales and the Salvation Army, we’ll find a way to work a rustic piece into our own decor.  If you happen to be near Inlet I definitely suggest stopping by The Boathouse for a peek!

One more reason to be wary of the press… one of our favorite housebloggers, Kristin of 1902 Victorian, was recently tricked by a writer for the WSJ. She unwittingly became part of a none-too-flattering story about DIY’ers gone wild. The story, which Kristin understood to be about the camraderie and community surrounding a “renovation party”, turned out to be a cautionary tale of why sawzalls and scotch don’t mix.

I’d be the first to tell you that drinking and demolition don’t mix. But Kristin has talked about her town’s renovation parties before, and not one of her stories started with “After shotgunning PBR’s in the driveway…” She’s one of the most sincere and thoughtful housebloggers I follow, which is why it really chaps my ass that they used a photo of her in their story. (But Kristin – at least you had the dust mask on and look all safety-conscious!)

Read the WSJ story, ” The Three Martini Renovation,”  and check out Kristin’s report on how it all went down here. And watch your backs when reporters come calling… it seems they’re not all looking to glorify your AMAZING hard work!

Fall has always been my favorite season, and Halloween my favorite holiday. Christmas is cool and all, but it doesn’t involve costumes and candy so it really can’t compete.  I have an entire closet dedicated to Halloween costumes; I’m that girl at the party that obviously spent wayyyyyy too much time hand-crafting the perfect get-up, accessorized from head to toe.

Next to the tupperware bins full of costumes are more tupperware bins filled with decorations. Strings of little gourds, stringy spider webs and gauzey curtains, bloody handprints for the windows and larger-than-life rubber rats for the porch. But my favorite decoration of all is a craft project we embarked on last year, using a little bit of rigid insulation we had sitting around….

I won’t pretend they were a quick project – we spent a few hours on each one – but they were inexpensive (the cost of some rigid insulation, primer, and spray paint if you don’t have leftovers in your garage like we did)  and a lot of fun to make. The trick-or-treaters (and their parents) seemed fairly amused by them.

For a tutorial on how to create them, along with some inspiring links to other DIY halloween decorations, check out this post from the Fixer-Upper archives:

Tombstones to Haunt Your House

As you’ve no doubt noticed, there’s not much going on at the Fixer-Upper worth bragging about. I’m enjoying the much-needed break. Instead of charging ahead on renovations, we’re working on paying our remodeling bills off (I absolutely despise credit card debt) and squeezing in as much outdoor time as possible before the snow flies.

Never fear, though. While it’s boring now, it wasn’t always so – and many of our readers weren’t around for our first year of home madness. So I thought I’d share some of the fun way-back-when posts you might have missed out on.

First up: Homemade Scaffolding. It was whipped up one weekend for some chimney repairs that were desperately needed so we could secure home owners insurance. It was quite possibly the scariest contraption I’ve ever set foot on, but it worked and saved us a lot of money. I don’t know that I’d recommend this route to anyone, but in a pinch it was a real godsend!

Tackling our own chimney repairs with the help of our lovely DIY scaffolding resulted in a savings of about $1,750 (we were quoted $2,000 by a masonry worker).