The Mechanics of It All

It’s just as well we didn’t get a flow meter installed on our water line when we were supposed to, although what this really means is more money needing to be spent on a new house. Yesterday an employee of the plumbing company owned by our neighbors arrived to install the flow meter we were […]

There’s No Place Like Home

At breakfast last Sunday, where we covered a wide range of topics in a very noisy place (one of our topics was this modern notion by restaurateurs that noise is cool), I was asked at some point — or maybe it was a statement — about missing my old house. With thought, I have decided […]

Full Steam Ahead

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A contractor, an electrician and a homeowner walk into a steam shower — Oh? You’ve heard it before? Okay, but I think this is the last time I get to tell it. I hope. Dusty the contractor and Shawn the electrician arrived yesterday afternoon for a process […]

The Last Piece

When my family used to do jigsaw puzzles during the holidays, I would rarely sit down to help, but I would swipe an unplaced piece off the table so that I could come along and put the final piece of the puzzle in. This worked spectacularly (at least, I thought so, even if I was […]

The Heat is (Not) On

Days after discussing how I haven’t really figured out the best way to use under-floor heat, and one day — less; hours (hours!) — after posting/boasting about how warm our garage is, Lynn and I experienced what appears to be yet another failure of a new part. When I look at it closely, it seems […]

Feeling the Heat

The first Dusty-built house we invited ourselves over to tour was a straw-bale house owned by Nancy and Bryan, featuring a concrete floor with in-floor heat. Not only did the concrete (perhaps it was adobe) radiate the heat from the pex tubing woven throughout; it also absorbed the heat of the sun coming from the […]

Two-Car Garage

Ta-da! A two-car garage with — count ’em — two cars inside! Now, it’s not pretty and we’re still overstuffed, and I’m not altogether sure how Lynn reached her car door this morning, but as winter weather might be encroaching, two of three cars have a place to be safe from the elements. (The third […]

Bonfire of the Vanities

Dusty thought he was done with our house. Yesterday was going to be his last day, except for one replacement part. But no, ‘twas not to be. And can you guess the source of the problem? Why, my bathroom vanity, of course. The sub-contractor who caused him the most grief on our build, the concrete […]

Projects Awry

It may be beyond my genetic make-up to put in a full day at work, and it is beginning to look like I will never be done abandoning work to tend to new-house projects. Yesterday morning I spoke with the tow truck driver who was going to move our shed, and he was going to […]

Nooks and Crannies

I didn’t really think we built any nooks or crannies into our new house, but it seems as though there’s at least one, because every evening we lose Marrakesh. Aided by numerous fox sightings, we have managed to hold firm to our resolve that he not go out once twilight arrives. This does not make […]