home-improvement

It’s nice to be a homeowner, but it’s also a lot of work. The new gnomestead is slowly coming together. We’ve accomplished most of our “move in” goals, although we’re still searching for a good local (Seattle) contractor to help us with a few of those last mile tasks. Seems all of the good ones are busy! We had the House Doctors come out and assemble a bid, but they wound up asking for twice as much as what it might normally cost. They’re reliable, but I don’t know if Ponzi and I are really in a position to pay a premium for that.

Read more on Weekend Projects…

We moved into our new house a few months ago (early December, mere days before getting married). Since then, we’ve had a regular stream of traffic coming in and out – contractors from far and wide. Some were recommended to us by existing (trusted) service providers, and others were suggested via sites like ServiceMagic. Results, thus far, have been both good and bad.

Read more on Dealing with Seattle Contractors for Home Improvement…

We moved into our new house a few weeks ago, and I think we’ve emptied just about every single box! As you can see from the photo thumbnails, Ponzi still has to empty the boxes for her new home office. Seems like she’s been doing laundry non-stop, and we finally got all the clothes picked up off the bedroom floor and sorted semi-appropriately (seeing as we don’t have any drawers in our new master closet). It’s been slow going, and I’m very anxious to feel that “settled in” feeling before too long.

Read more on Pictures of our New House…

As if life wasn’t difficult enough right now, we came home from dinner the other night to discover that the ceiling in our master bedroom had partially crumbled.

This is a rental unit (an actual house). We’ve seen our fair share of problems in the past, but these issues are further exacerbated when it rains. Nothing has ever been this bad, though. Thank goodness we had started doing laundry that morning, otherwise it would have been even worse on the closet floor.

Read more on Closet and Ceiling Repair…

Ken Thomson in San Francisco, CA sent me an email this morning with a handful of helpful hints – especially if I’m trying to build the geekiest Fort Knox on the planet:

Read more on Home Security and Electronics…

So, if one wanted to take home improvement into his or her own hands, where should one begin to look for help online? I really want to become my own handyman, if only because I’d rather “DIY” than wait around for someone else to do it for me. I can change light bulbs like none other, but beyond that – I’m useless. Awl I know is that I need to start collecting simple tutorials for common problems around the house. Let the link love begin!

Read more on Home Improvement Tools…