My knuckles are bloody, my back is aching, my eyelids could use a set of toothpicks to keep them up…… but I am thrilled with yesterdays accomplishments! I have great news for all you fixer-uppers out there who are in the same position we are. Last night, at around midnight, Teague and I determined that […]

Tomorrow morning, Teague and I will throw caution to the wind and attempt to begin replacing the knob and tube wiring ourselves. At first, this sounded like such a freakishly hard project I was sure we’d have to take out loans and hire a professional electrician. After all, it’s electricity we’re messing with. And that […]

Poor, poor Teague. We’re both sick with hacking coughs and runny noses, but that didn’t stop my hardworking guy from getting up on the roof in the freezing rain to do some chimney repair. (Consequently, making himself sicker….) The chimney is crumbling – especially at the top, where it has lost large chunks and entire […]

The kitchen updates have been an ongoing, slow-moving process. Christmas preparations pretty much stalled our progress, but now that things have died down I have a renewed energy for fixes. So, our cupboard doors are FINALLY back on the hinges. They’ve been leaning up along the walls for about a month now, and staring at […]

Nevermind coal in our stockings – we got a letter in the mail on Christmas Eve telling us our homeowners insurance policy was being canceled. Merry Christmas to you too, Met Life. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I was. They did the inspection over a month ago. No agent called with concerns, so […]

I’ve been neglecting our poor little site, so you might think we’ve been slacking off on the housework, but you’d be wrong…. we’re busier than ever trying to squeeze Christmas preparation in with the house repairs. I primed and painted the office a nice gold color, but we haven’t taken pictures yet since the room […]

I love radiators – I grew up in a house full of them and always liked being able to cozy up next to one when I felt cold. But the dining room radiator is right in the room’s focal point, and it’s not pretty. It looks like this: It’s half white because we were going […]

Right now, the kitchen isn’t exactly working for us. It’s small, but I can handle that. The thing that’s killing me is our total lack of cupboard space. Here’s what we’ve got: (click for larger) That’s it – every pot, pan and canned good we own is shoved into one of those cupboards. Miraculously, it […]

Our first enemy was the dreaded draft……which we beat into submission by stuffing every crack and crevice we could find with insulation and expandafoam. But now, a new enemy has emerged…. We had some water in the basement on Tuesday. It has been rainy, windy, and miserable most of the week, so I’m just glad […]

About a week ago, in an energetic burst of fixer-upperness, I decided I would strip the bathroom door. The paint was peeling and cracking, and I was itching to try some Peel-Away to see what the fuss was about.