Are you kidding? In this market? Of course not. We sold our house for roughly $5,000 more than we paid during the 2006 bubble, but that figure doesn’t tell the whole story. We estimate we invested about $35,000 in improvements: new bathrooms, a new kitchen, updated flooring, replacement windows, a new roof, a patio, a … Read more

And now for the paneling update. Hold on to your hats — this one was a wild ride. We’ve painted paneling before, and although removing it was an option, that would have meant taking down and rehanging all the cabinets that sit in front of it. With old plaster walls behind the paneling, ripping everything … Read more

Woo-hoo! We’re celebrating three wonderful years of sharing our home improvement adventures (and occasional misadventures) with you in this little virtual home of ours. That means blogiversary fun is officially underway. As we head into year four, we have more projects lined up—big and small—and we like to use blogiversary week to give a little … Read more

We delight in the generosity of strangers, especially when it plays out in community swap forums like yard sales, flea markets, or online marketplaces such as Craigslist and eBay. That’s why we wanted to revisit one of our earliest—and still favorite—posts: The Power of Craigslist. I’m still amazed the experiment worked. Essentially, we invited strangers … Read more

Everyone knows that beyond a fresh coat of paint, curtains are one of the easiest ways to add polish and style to a room. They introduce height, softness, and drama, so we finally added long floor-length $5 Ikea panels to either side of the bamboo shades in the den—just like we did in the living … Read more

Note: This is a retroactive post I put together in December 2011 to create a full month-by-month recap of our first year in the new house. I admit I’m a little Type A. Below is what we tackled in May — styled like a high school yearbook. Most Improved: Organizing the insanely cluttered “playroom” (more … Read more

We thought this would be the final chapter of our basement makeover, but because we tackled two separate DIY projects — building a screen to hide our unattractive water heater and frosting the windows for privacy while keeping light — it made sense to split the content into two posts. That way we could show … Read more

Ugh — it’s August, which means September is right around the corner and summer is winding down. Time flies. To avoid burnout and keep our momentum, we like to pause and look back at the past month: highlights, fun moments, and a few things you might have missed. It can’t stop the world from turning, … Read more

It’s official: new research shows many of us aren’t using all the square footage in our homes, yet we continue to pay for it—mortgage, heating and cooling, decorating, and cleaning. This week we explore a study that pinpoints the specific spaces that go unused, and suggest what to prioritize instead of obsessing over house size—even … Read more

Let’s talk about what we want to finish before this baby arrives. When we prepared for Clara’s arrival in our first house, we spent the nine months tackling a few remaining projects (mainly the full bathroom and the nursery) because much of the house was already done — the kitchen renovation was complete, the hardwood … Read more