Bathroom Renovation: Custom Woodwork
I spent a lot of time thinking through the design of our bathroom, particularly how I would maximize storage without making it look cluttered. Finding a medicine cabinet that worked…
sanding
New Windows
When we renovated our first and second floors, we talked about replacing our windows but decided we didn’t want to spend the money. Windows are expensive and not as exciting…
Christmas 2023
For several years now, we have taken scrambled to complete major renovation projects in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Christmas seems to be a hard and fast deadline that…
Backyard Renovation: Floating Deck (Phase 6)
Phase 6 was supposed to be the final step in our backyard renovation plan. Our garage was supposed to be done in early May and I’d have all summer to…
Planter Box Revisited
Two years ago, I built a planter box for our backyard out of pressure treated 2x10s and some leftover cedar from our deck. Over the years, a combination of sun…
New Basement Stairs: Part 5 – Handrail
It’s been more than 3 years since we built our new basement stairs and we’ve been living dangerously without a handrail – on either side! – for the entire time.…
Deck Refresh
During our kitchen renovation in 2019, we also built a new deck off the back of the house. Our contractor built the structure, but I then spent many weekends with…
Basement Family Room: TV Wall
With the drywall up and the walls painted, we knew that we had to do something interesting for our TV wall because it was just one giant white wall. I…
Basement Family Room: Media Unit
After scouring the internet for a few weeks, I decided that nothing online met my criteria for our basement family room media cabinet. I wanted white oak to match the…
Basement Family Room Renovation: Framing, Drywalling and Painting – Part 2
Last winter we finished the first half of the basement family room because I was returning to work after my maternity leave and I needed a relatively clean space to…
Building a Planter Box
Little by little, we’ve been trying to make our backyard a bit nicer. While perusing the internet at all hours of the night, I came across a really nice planter…
Basement Family Room Renovation: Built-In Sektion Cabinets
We absolutely love the built-in storage under our basement stairs. But we filled it quickly and knew we needed more! As part of our family room design, we decided to…
Basement Bathroom Renovation: Backerboard and Drywall
After months and months of delay, I was finally at a place where I was ready to install walls in the bathroom. I cannot even explain how excited I was…
Basement Family Room Renovation: Framing, Drywalling and Painting
Because our basement bathroom renovation project was so delayed, we decided to shift gears and make progress on the family room – basically a second living room in the basement…
Basement Bedroom Renovation: Framing, Drywall and Painting
Once the back of the basement was clear of our crap, it was time to start framing the back half of the basement. The hardest part of the basic framing…
Building a New Deck
When we started out kitchen renovation project, we knew that we’d have to replace our deck at some point but planned to push it off until next summer. Unfortunately the…
Kitchen Renovation: Part 8 – Framing and Drywall
Once the window and doors were installed, it was time to frame the interior and install the subfloor. This was probably one of the most exciting steps in the process…
New Basement Stairs: Part 3 – The Railing
Once the stairs themselves were finished, I still had to sort out how to build the handrail. I knew that I wanted it to match the style of what I…
New Basement Stairs: Part 2 – Building the Stairs
Once the stair opening was ready, it was time to install the stringers and build the stairs. Substairs Our contractor was originally supposed to only install the stair stringers, but…
Load-Bearing Wall: Part 6 – Patching Hardwood
After we removed the dining room wall, we were left with a small trench in the hardwood flooring where our wall used to be. We were planning on waiting to…
Load-Bearing Wall: Part 5 – Removing the Wall!
I’ve had a hate-hate relationship with the wall in our dining room since we moved in. Even though we managed to make it slightly less ugly, my issue was with…
Front Door Face-Lift
I’m going to sound like a broken record here, but we’ve spent so much time on the inside of our house that we’ve really failed to care much about the…
Learning Tower
Now that Adam is older and starting to be interested in, well, EVERYTHING, I wanted to build him a little stool so he could stand at the counter on his…
Wooden Baby Gym
Now that we have a baby, we’re doing less construction. But my natural inkling to build stuff is still strong so when I was looking for a non-ugly baby gym,…
Baby Bookshelf
When shopping for nursery furniture, I fell in love with Oeuf’s mini library. The only problem is that I really couldn’t justify the $895 price tag. Especially for something that…
Replacing Baseboards on the Second Floor
One of the final steps in finishing our second floor renovation was installing the baseboards. Our floors were installed and finished, our walls were painted and we were ready to…
Stair Upgrade: Part 2
Once the floors were finished, we were ready to finish our stair upgrade. Handrail During our design, we determined that both the handrail and baserail would be exactly 2½” wide.…
Stair Upgrade: Part 1
We originally planned to hire someone to come and rebuild our stairs – both in the basement and the handrail on the second floor. But as our basement work progressed,…
Hallway Closet Renovation
We have a tiny little closet on the second floor and we wanted to turn it into a linen closet. It’s a very narrow but deep space, measuring only 20½”…
Drywall Nightmares: Part 3 – Back Bedroom Demolition
We’re now all set up in the master bedroom, so it’s time to deal with the back bedroom. When we went to get the back bedroom walls ready for paint,…
Building Access to the Attic: Part 2
Installing the Attic Hatch A couple of months ago we installed our new attic ladder. We then had to install an attic hatch. This was probably the most complicated part…
Exposing Brick
One of the walls in our bedroom is uneven because the chimney juts out. It’s also in an awkward spot because we want to put our bed against that wall,…
Drywall Nightmares: Part 2 – The “Professionals”
Once we finished our demo work, it was time to find a drywaller. We learned a very valuable lesson: Drywallers are not the most reliable tradespeople. We had three separate…
Replacing Baseboards: Part 2 – Installation
Once our baseboards were cut, we had to paint them. We first made sure to number each baseboard so we knew exactly where it belonged! Painting We sanded each baseboard…
Fauxdenza
Now that Alex and I are done most of our major construction projects, we are working on updating some of our furniture – particularly those old Ikea pieces that we’re…
Replacing Hardwood: Part 8 – Sanding and Finishing
Alex and I are tired. Over the last few months, we poured concrete, tore up our floors, built a wall and installed new flooring. With winter definitely here, we were…
Painting the First Floor
Once the subfloor was installed and the load-bearing wall was finished, it was time to paint! Choosing a Paint Brand There are a lot of paints to choose from: Benjamin…
Load-Bearing Wall: Part 4 – Drywalling and Pot Lights
This wall has made me both hope for a beautiful future together and wish harm upon it. These days, it’s the latter. Actually, if the stupid thing wasn’t holding up…
Fireplace Renovation: Part 7 – Finishing the Hearth
On Sunday we (mostly) successfully poured our concrete hearth. It was quite the feat – both in mind and body. Here’s what it looked like when all was said and…
How to build a wall: Part 2
We’re getting there. It’s not pretty, but we’re getting there… We’ve been working for about a week straight, and we’re getting cranky about it. We let dad take Friday night…