One of the features that initially sold us on our little bungalow was its incredibly intact stained woodwork. And while the wainscoting, box beams and pocket doors made us swoon, we especially loved the built-ins sprinkled throughout the house. Pretty AND practical - what’s not to love, right?

This particular latch adorns the doors of both the china cabinet in our dining room and the bookshelves flanking the living room fireplace:

Viewed from the front, it’s not the most exciting piece of hardware I’ve ever seen, but I’ve always thought that the interior latch is especially funky and unusual-looking:

Continue Reading »

A year ago today marked my the end of my fifth week of “house arrest” (otherwise known as bed rest.)

Chloe, the older of our two daughters, was born prematurely and spent roughly six weeks in the hospital. So last May, when baby number two threatened to make an appearance two months ahead of schedule, I was advised to stay off my feet for SIX LONG WEEKS.

Being confined to bed rest in your third trimester is excruciating. Not in terms of physical discomfort (although there is a bit of that.) Rather, it’s the psychological distress that’s unbearable. Not only are you steeped in worry over your unborn child, but you’re locked in this perverse battle of wanting - or perhaps more accurately, NEEDING - to give in to the all-consuming “nesting instinct,” yet you know that your baby’s health depends on ignoring that desire/need. Ultimately, you end up glued to the couch for a month and a half, obsessing about everything that isn’t getting done. Continue Reading »

Yet another of our examples of the obvious. A year and a half ago, I re-shingled our porch roof, which had been leaking badly. As part of that project, I adjusted the gutter to slope towards the downspout, thinking that maybe, just maybe, it’d be better to have the water head in that direction instead of just pooling up in the front and constantly spilling over the lip. While that was likely an admirable idea, it turned out that the downspout had been installed too high on the side of the house, so I wasn’t able to reattach the connecting piece, as it would have only worked if water somehow started flowing up instead of down. And like so many house projects, once the major part is done, it’s oh so easy to let the little stuff fall into the “I’ll get the parts and fix it next weekend” trap.

Fast forward to a year later, and we gradually began to notice cracking on our porch floor. At first I thought it was my imagination, but eventually it became obvious that the crack was growing. After a bunch of head-scratching, I figured out that the right side of the porch (near the aforementioned gutter) had sunk about 1/2″. While that might not sound like much, apparently it was too much for our megalithic concrete porch, so something had to give. And unfortunately, that something was the top deck of the porch, right in front of the door. Seeing the damage and seeking to head off any additional expense to our future repairs, I sprung into action and “solved” the problem by propping up a board with some bricks to force the water to drain away from the porch. But don’t worry, we’ll do the permanent fix next weekend…

In addition to the many lovely offerings at Rejuvenation and Schoolhouse Electric, all sorts of reproduction glass light shades (from schoolhouse-style shades, to etched Victorian glass shades, to lovely craftsman-style shades which would be happy in just about any bungalow) are now available at House of Antique Hardware. Continue Reading »

It seems as though there’s a lot of confusion about VOCs. I’m hoping this post might, if you’ll excuse the pun, clear the air a bit.

The term “VOC” stands for “volatile organic compound.” The definition of a volatile organic compound really seems to vary depending on who is doing the defining, but basically, a VOC is an organic (carbon-based) chemical compound that will evaporate at room temperature.

As volatile organic compounds evaporate - changing from liquid form to gas/fumes - they will enter the atmosphere and contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone and smog. They will also enter the lungs of, say, someone who is painting. What’s the big deal about that? Well, here’s what the EPA has to say about the health effects of VOCs: Continue Reading »