I’ve mentioned ReHouse NY before - it’s a great salvage shop located in lovely downtown Ra-cha-cha (or Rochester, New York for you non-locals). It’s a big warehouse with plenty of stuff to dig through, including the usual doors/windows/clawfoots/hardware/lighting but also featuring some nice antique furniture and little knick knacks. I always find something to bring […]

Before we refinished the hardwood floors, the area near our bay window featured a prominent circular black stain. It was obviously left by a Christmas tree stand and water trapped beneath it, built up over years of happy holidays. It took a good deal of bleaching and sanding to get rid of that sucker, and […]

Guess what came in the mail yesterday? A reward for all my hard work blogging our remodeling and renovation adventures. My very own, light-weight, small-enough-to-comfortably-grip 18 volt Master Mechanic cordless drill. This is the first power tool in our whole arsenal that is all mine. That excites me for two reasons; first, I can […]

The other day I wrote up a Gift Guide for handy men… but realize as I write this today that I would like just about everything on that list too. It was actually quite sexist of me to put all the cool “big boy tools” on the men’s list. That’s because at our house, the […]

Let’s face it, fixer-uppers are a special breed. They require special holiday gifts. Don’t bother buying them a nice wool sweater - it’ll have caulk on it two days later. New watch? That’s nothing but a safety hazard when you’re running a tablesaw. A nice piece of literary fiction? A new video game? A […]

Have you heard of this “Cyber Monday” phenomenon? Apparently it’s an attempt to grab all of us techies who refused to storm the stores on Black Friday. They’re luring us with online deals these days, and apparently they named the day in 2002, but up until last night (when I saw a feature news story […]

My Grandma sent me a newspaper clipping the other day with a great, super simple idea in it. When you’re painting, glue a paper (or better yet, styrofoam) plate to the bottom of your paint can. That way you can move it around and not worry about leaving paint can rings on the floor.
Because I’m […]

Here’s a snapshot of what I’ve been reading this week:
This Old House got a major website facelift full of pretty pictures and a little more white space. It makes me want to surf the site a little bit. Except that when I do, I’ll find all sorts of projects that cost $3.4 billion dollars to […]

Want to send your dog into violent fits of rage? For $29.95 you can install a “Pet Peek” in your privacy fence, so he can see every little leaf that blows past HIS property, and bark his head off accordingly.

Please tell me I’m not the only one that finds this product shot (complete with uber-serious […]

Now that we’re not working 24/7 on our house, the blog is getting a little lackluster…. time to branch out a bit and start moving beyond the “here’s what we did, ain’t it great?!” posts I guess.
So unless you all hate it, I’m going to start a weekly “Worth a Look” post with links to […]

It’s a belt buckle AND a bottle opener. And it’s super cool looking. Put it on your Christmas list ;)

Handyman Belt Buckle from Patina Stores, $28.00
Tags:shopping

Everyone knows I’m into the pricey paints - but I almost never pay full price for them. $40/gallon? Not a chance.  Here’s our secret - we opened a Sherwin Williams customer account a few years ago, which gets us 20% off every day. On top of that, they send plenty of coupons and sale flyers.
I’m […]

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 […]

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 […]

When we got a letter in the mail telling us to sign-up online for our NYS Middle-Class Star Rebate,  a property tax relief program, I marched straight to my laptop to fill out the form. I mean, how often does the government throw us a bone and admit that maybe, just maybe, New York State […]

Anyone close to me knows I have a real thing for dinosaurs. Blame it on the Advanced Dinosaur class I took while at RPI - a stellar science elective. Definitely more interesting than Geology or The Physics of Computing.
So if I ever win the lotto and can afford cool wallpaper, I’m doing a “feature wall” […]

If you’re picky about color, it pays to “testdrive” a few different selections before you slap something on the wall. If you don’t, you just might end up painting the same room twice. Or, if you’re super anal, three times. Hypothetically speaking of course.

Every paint site seems to have their own tool, some more sophisticated […]

It’s things like the CIMA ladder that make me want to become an industrial designer. Call me superficial, but I would trade our beat up old wooden ladder for this lime beauty any day - and it doesn’t even have a place to put my paint bucket.
It could never do the job of our Werner […]

Back when we first bought our house (almost 3 years ago… time flies when you’re stripping paint) I had wild fantasies about creating a schedule in Microsoft Project to keep us on track. I used Project in my previous job at a software company, so I knew how powerful it was to see things all […]

Blame it on all the doll houses I had growing up… I have a real thing for teeny tiny versions of regular sized objects. Case in point: my cat-sized dogs. So these mini-tools from Atwood Knife and Tool totally make me want to whip out the credit card. I mean, how cool would one look […]