Farmhouse chair

Here’s the shabby farmhouse chair I mentioned earlier.  Josie and I went to St. Vinnies to look for furniture while Missy shopped for fabric at Jo-Ann, and we found it for $3.  Unfortunately, it’s virtually the only thing in the guest bedroom now that the captain’s bed is gone.*  “Thanks for coming, guests!  Here’s a [...]

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Re-gifting

I think I’ve written before that my parents’ house is often a model for ours.  Not design-wise, necessarily (my mom’s taste leans slightly more cottage than ours, although I bought a chair at St. Vincent de Paul yesterday that I have no doubt she’ll try to steal), but in that certain intangible, homey je ne [...]

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Another life, perhaps

Living in a house I love doesn’t mean I have to stop dreaming about other houses, right?  They’re perfectly natural homeowner urges.
For example, I found this 4br brick craftsman on Craigslist this morning (innocently searching for “Craftsman” to find tools).  Marion would be an hour commute right now, but when I get denied tenure in [...]

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Heated leather bupkus

When we get a second vehicle, it’s going to be an ‘87 Jeep Grand Wagoneer.  Can you imagine how many bags of insulation it could carry home from Lowes?  Hundreds I bet.  And with twenty times the panache of our Elantra.

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An orgy of curtains, a carnival of savings

So Linens-n-Things is going out of business, right?  TO-night, in fact, all the stores’ lights are being turned off for good – no more linens, no more n-things.   We were only planning to stop at Bed, Bath & Beyond tonight (orderin’ up a little Christmas present to ourselves, with a 20%-off coupon, natch), but we [...]

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Back to work

One whirlwind tour of northeast Nebraska later, we’re back to work on the house.  Thanks to a number of very generous family members, the car was packed with tools for the return trip (few of which were new, and few of which were Christmas presents).

From Brother Kyle: a shiny new wood-handled finish hammer
From Dad: a [...]

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Awesome^2

Awesome Thing Odin: My Uncle Kirk is giving me one of his power compound miter saws!
Awesome Thing Dva: We won one of the $100 Home Depot gift cards at One Project Closer!
Immense thanks to you both, and I promise the gifts will be put to hard work.

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Jason vs. Winter, Round Two

(Round One was the insulation, in case that wasn’t obvious.)
The folks at Bangor Bungalow guilted me into this.  They probably didn’t realize they did, but that’s just the nature of competitive houseblogging.
I knew we needed to put plastic on our windows – known for a while, in fact.  Most of the windows downstairs are sealed [...]

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To R-infinity – and beyond!

There’s a reason the previous owners listed our house in the spring.  It has wonderful cross-ventilation – especially in the attic, where there wasn’t any pesky insulation to get in the way of the breeze.
With temperatures dipping below zero overnight and wind chills in the negative double-digits, it was high time to bump this up [...]

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Unfair

It was 40 – forteeeee – degrees last night.  I scooped the slush off our driveway with just a hooded sweatshirt on.  Not even gloves.  Let that sink in.  Not – even – gloves.
But this is what I woke up to this morning -

It’s a good thing I found time to insulate in between stacks [...]

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