I've been thinking a lot lately about the yourself part of DIY.1 When we moved into the house I had grand images in my head2 of us doing all the work going forward, little by little, turning to YouTube, WikiHow, and Red Green to learn all the new skills we would need, and becoming masters … Continue reading To DIY or not to DIY…
Sergiu (almost) finished with our attic pantry space today! Significantly fewer trips up and down to the basement are in our immediate future!1 Aly's Motivation For almost a year now, we have been using a cabinet in the basement as our household pantry. It's been great to have a dedicated and fairly secure spot in … Continue reading Using Space Efficiently
While most of the house will be restored using the original lath/plaster design, certain spots it makes more sense to use drywall. A little over a month ago (Sept 2020) Bridgette & I took on a very small drywall project while Elliot & Sergiu were out doing other stuff1. And we did a moderately bad … Continue reading Hanging Drywall
Remember the gate? I was unhappy with it, but also just happy it was up? Gate looking shiny on its first day... before it started sloping downward into the mud. Well, over the following weeks/months it just kept slowly (not that slowly) sinking down to the point where it was pretty much unusable. I thought … Continue reading Gate part two!
It's like a dream come true. After 2+ months of lugging hot water from the kitchen to the bathtub every time I needed to not be gross anymore,* we actually have hot water in our bathroom now! Only 3 days after my live-in plumber** moved in, I have hot water in the bathroom! But that … Continue reading The Joys of Hot Water
Once the paint is scraped (good grief, that's an annoying job!), it's time to patch the damage and prime it fast* so that it can stop being disintegrated by the weather 🙂 Good grief, that is a lot of windows. The house is pretty solid, structurally, but there are a few (thousand) points of vulnerability … Continue reading Scraping – Patching – Priming: Windows
Getting down to crunch time, with our move imminent (T-14 days -- max), and the floor in the attic apartment is not yet done. But what's there looks awfully good. It is taking a long time, but I'd like to point out (to myself, mostly) that there are a lot of angles and corners, and … Continue reading The Floor (almost).
The house didn't come with a mailbox, so I went on a quest to find a glorious old one that would fit the aesthetic of the house. Total fail - I found one, but definitely cannot justify spending $700 on an antique Victorian mailbox, no matter how cool it is. I also found a pretty … Continue reading The Mailbox
It's amazing what running water will do for morale. It almost makes it like a real house! But I'm getting way ahead of myself. Nick (with the flame) and his colleague (I'm so sorry, I forget your name!!!) fixing the first of... a few... broken pipes The day after the electric was turned on, a … Continue reading The Water.
Does the house have a septic tank? *shrug* Stock photo - not a picture of my house/property. At the time of offer, negotiation, and closing, I had no idea what the answer was. We waived inspections as part of our offer, so I was basically just hoping for the best. What I did know was … Continue reading The Septic Tank
The Wassaic Maison 