We will be warm by summer

The back staircase has always been a little cold. For 4+ years, we just assumed it was due to missing insultation that was also absent everywhere else in that end of the house.

But Jeff found a hole in the coat closet where the insulation was dried up and pitiful.


This shot is looking down at the floor of the closet on the left and the stairs on the right. Notice the gap. So typical of this house.

This explains the cool breeze in the stairwell. I wish I'd kept a running tally of Great Stuff cans used this winter.

PSA: Blurb update

Blurb.com is supporting Blogger once again!

Scrape ice when the sun shines

The mid-winter thaw that started yesterday gave us the opportunity to scrape this much ice off the driveway:

to clear a path for this:

Life in New England. When it hits 40, bust out the mittens, boots, and the training wheels.

Something DIY-ers will find funny

Crushing the list

Our mortgage is refinanced. We're taking our portion of the TARP in the form of lowered interest rates. 30 year fixed at 4.365%.

1 resolution down, 5 to go.

Measure twice, cut once

Although the project tracker on the sidebar says we are 100% complete with the kitchen, we still need to add the finishing touches.

We need curtains for the front windows, curtains for the slider, and I still have to figure out what to put in the upper glass cabinets. I'm a little bored of thinking about the kitchen, I just want it to be done with minimal effort on my part.

So I went to Calico Corners to just have them make curtains to get it over and done. I got to the store nice and early when it was empty, and I spent some time with the saleswoman figuring out what I wanted, I even brought my paint-chip to check the colors. She wrote everything up and I choked on the estimate. Seriously, who pays $400 for 2 pairs of sheers?? Maybe next time I shouldn't drive my Bentley to the store...

Once I recovered from the sticker shock I decided to just purchase the fabric and sew them myself. We wanted a bold fun print for the curtains and I was excited to find this pattern in my favorite shade of blue.

Anyway, here is the first part of the effort, fully-lined cafe curtains for the front windows.

I am waiting for another shipment of fabric for the slider, to which we also added sheers, ($20 each. Not $400). I'm sure our neighbors appreciate it.

We hung the curtains on rings to make it easy for the Beechnuts to pull open the curtains without taking the whole thing down. Its already cut down on some of the echo in the room.

Like most things, once I made a plan of what to do and made sure to measure twice and cut once, sewing it went pretty smoothly.