As you may recall, we were thrilled to pick up a salvaged clawfoot tub a few weeks ago. We still haven’t gotten to the cleaning stage yet, but I’ve already lept ahead to the refinishing process because I love me some research. There are basically three parts of the tub that need restoring, and each […]

I mentioned yesterday that we’d gotten some new toys at our house in the past week. The first is something I’ve been lusting after since the day we moved in. An adorable, bubble-bath worthy clawfoot tub. It’s the perfect size – not too big, not too small. It’ll be going in our master bathroom (yes, […]

Wave goodbye to the boring old aluminum mailbox we used to have, and say hello to our newest pride and joy – an antique cast iron mailbox made by Griswold Mfg of Erie PA: The photo is a little fuzzy, but you can see that it’s marked “Standard, No. 2”. The little floral piece at […]

When we bought our salvaged french doors from Historic House parts two springs ago, we knew they wouldn’t be great for the frigid Upstate winters. They’re single-pane glass, and they could really use new glazing. They weren’t built to be exterior doors, but we just didn’t care. They’re beautiful, they let in tons of light […]

We’ve been avoiding some of our bigger projects lately. Feeling guilty? Me? Always. Anyway… Our next BIG project is the master bathroom. It’s big in a few ways; big money, big changes, big investment of time and energy. So while we should be planning for it, we’re avoiding it instead. The only real step we’ve […]

We didn’t make any progress last night – too tired, too bored with drywall – but I thought I’d post some photos of last weekend’s wallapalooza. That is the ceiling “before” – you can see the insulation peeking through, and the rough shape of the lathe. This is why we decided to frame up a […]

With our upstairs electrical finished and a full weekend ahead of us, we decided to get crazy and start putting up walls in our stairwel/hallway. Not that I don’t love the open, airy feel of the exposed plaster and framing… it’s the dirt and debris that shakes out of it with every footstep I’m getting […]

We took advantage of the long weekend (and the exposed hallway walls/ceiling) to finish rewiring all of the upstairs electrical. This is a major milestone for us. Finally checking “Electrical” off the to-do list, after nearly two years of fiddling, is extremely satisfying. I love drawing a nice thick line through something huge like that. […]

As of tonight, every upstairs bedroom has an overhead light that runs off of a switch. While this may not seem exciting to most, it means we’ll no longer have to enter pitch black rooms with our arms flailing above our heads searching madly for a tiny little pull chain. The propeller-arm era has officially […]

Though we’re stubbornly leaving the windows open at night and resisting long sleeves, it’s evident that fall is closer than we think. I could see my breath this morning, and had to wipe the dew from my car windows. The air is crisper; sunsets are earlier. Our (half-unhooked) radiators are blissfully unaware of how soon […]