We’ve recently had rain. Serious rain… frog stranglers. It was exciting to see the storms approach, to hear the tornado sirens, to watch my garden overflow with water… to see the rainwater pour off of the roof – laughing at the gutters (OK…. so they were packed with pine duff)… to watch the pond that formed alongside my home… to… (more…)
Let me think back in time, to reminisce about garages that I’ve known. In fact, I think I need a reminder… yes, let me check the dictionary for a moment. Garage: a shelter or repair shop for automotive vehicles. Merriam-Webster says that it’s from the French word garrer – to dock, and maybe even from the Old Norse vara –… (more…)
Time to use Building Character as a force for good. My brother-in-law and his family have their house on the market it Seattle. It’s a beauty… Jeff & Chris did all of the home renovations themselves. AND Jeff just added a bathroom upstairs – the paint may still be drying… Whether or not you’re in the market for a house… (more…)
I have grown to appreciate how the living room opens into the kitchen, the kitchen opens into the dining room, and the dining room opens into the living room. This allows my kids to ‘orbit’ the house – which is particularly important on cold winter days. Funny though, they always seem to orbit counter-clockwise. I’ve learned to enjoy this –… (more…)
So, you bought the house from the [insert previous owner's last name here]‘s. You may or may not have been lucky enough to meet these people to put a face with the name. All of the pleasantries of closing are behind you – they have moved on, and you have moved in. Now you really get to examine the place.… (more…)
It was clear what the first project was to be… the office. We relocated to Madison for Eric’s job. I left a great job in Houston to improve our quality of life… but now I had to figure out how to employ myself. So – along with my business partner, I started a geologic consulting company. I would work out… (more…)
We purchased our first home on Valentine’s Day, 2003. We searched for 3 days and toured about 24 homes… our home was the fourth one we saw on the first day. It was a house that I found on the local MLS site… and when we pulled up to it and realized that it wasn’t the cutesy bungalow that we… (more…)