I need some wood cut

Stephanie ODea — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 10:52:43 -0500

and would like to come over.

my dad built our home we grew up in. I have the most amazing memories of carrying reinforcing steel down a steep driveway to a lot the whole town deemed unbuildable. We spent every spare second on that house.

20 year later, my mom still doesn't have light fixtures or doorknobs in some rooms.

but it's okay.

I hope for the same memories for my kids some day.

xox

steph

A Year of CrockPotting

The Love of Homeownership

alijansen — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:22:52 -0500

I too have been entrenched in dust numerous times. I am married to a builder and help out on the jobsites. Over the past 30 years we have built five houses for ourselves. We swear we are never moving from this last one.

The lucky thing for you is that you have a hired contractor. That means your project will be completed! When your contractor is your husband there is never time to finish your home because the clients come first. Boy, do I ever envy them!

The great thing about owning your own home is that you can do whatever you want with it: splash colors in the walls, make built in book cases, let the dogs run and put scratches(character marks) on the floors or anything else you have the time and energy to do.

Enjoy your project and the dust it brings with it. There is nothing more satisfying than knowing you own your home and have paid for the dust.

Reasons I Love My House, No Really

chris — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:15:14 -0500

Subtitle, even though most days I think it is killing me slowly.

For the past two weeks we have had a contractor doing work for us. Jacking up the floor, installing a new support beam, repairing plaster, hanging sheetrock - all of these things the messiest things that you can imagine going on in house that you are still trying to live in.

Yesterday I was sitting in my family room and I looked across the room and realized that there was so much sheetrock dust settling in the house that I could see footprints in a layer of gray white dust that coated the room.

Home Restoration wrote:

Last year at this time I remember sitting in our makeshift kitchen with a blanket over me trying to keep warm because the thought of another $600 a month heating bill was giving Mark a near coronary. “Let’s make a list of why we’re glad we bought this house”, I said. And so we did.

I love this idea and I am shamelessly stealing it.

As I sit here in a house coated with sheetrock dust and a non functional kitchen, I am thinking about the reasons I am glad we bought our fixer-upper.

1) It is a unique piece of history. There is not another house like it anywhere. It may have been added onto all hodge podge and crazy-like, but it is our crazy hodge podge house. You won't find one like it in a subdivision. This house has a soul.

2) It is huge and there is enough room for everything. Of course this is also a negative when it comes to heating it.

3) We rescued it from what might have been a sad and slow death.

4) It has a Butler's pantry, which the original cabinets still in place. As well as stained glass windows and ornate wood trim.

5) We can walk or ride bikes to the library and town center.

6) We have a private yard. Mostly due to the fact that our neighbors own lots of acres. This has the added benefit of not having to mow acre upon acre of grass, since it doesn't belong to us.

7) A huge wrap around porch. In theory, on a hot day I sit out there on my porch swing and sip my iced tea while reading a good book. In reality, my kids rollerskate across it and throw their sports equipment all over like it is their personal closet. That is when my husband isn't using it as his personal workshop, setting up his power tools right there next to the front door. Really nothing says, "Welcome to my home" quite like a table saw greeting you. In fact I like to think it welcomes people and asks, "Drop by if you have any wood you need cut!"

8) That it is almost done and I will never, ever do it again.

The Bungalow Chronicles writes:

I am so ready for this to be over! Despite most of the furniture being covered in plastic, there is a fine layer of dust over absolutely everything — kind of like when you come home from the beach and you’re thinking, “Whoa, how did sand get there?”

I have found dust inside of closed sealed drawers. It is insidious. Ballardia writes:

On my last Lowe's run, I took advantage of their glass sales & cutting desk and had them cut a piece of glass to match my broken pane in preparation for actually replacing the cardboard 'Listerine' sign which just shouts out "Come back next week, ya'll might find a toilet on the front porch!"

She writes that as if there is something wrong with having a toilet on your front porch.

When she isn't writing about her life at Notes from the Trenches, Chris is working to rescue her house from a century of neglect and bad taste. She can also be found at DIY This N'That, where she blogs about home improvement and design ideas.

BlogHer - Reasons I Love My House, No Really - Comments

I need some wood cut

The Love of Homeownership

Reasons I Love My House, No Really