http://hellohouse.polishoperative.com ...good-bye bank balance. Wed, 07 May 2008 20:41:56 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Our bathroom redo is now rolling along nicely after being dormant for nearly a year. It is fitting that on the anniversary of the original demolition of the walls, we should pick up steam again and, uh, actually finish it. One of the small jobs i have been working on ... http://hellohouse.polishoperative.com/2008/05/metal-plating-in-chicago/ We have been doing research on multiple rooms, and as posted before, there aren't too many photos of "working class" rooms. Typically you see photos from magazines or advertisements that are a little fancier that Jane + Joe Steelworker could afford (Hey! Just like now-times!). I am personally obsessed with ... http://hellohouse.polishoperative.com/2008/05/historic-kitchens-or-look-what-the-po-removed/ Glory be, it's gardening time! You know, we've been working on our gardens here at Hello House for 2.5 years now, and there's still so much work to do. Which I think is great. How sad would it be if all our planting was done in the first year? One of ... http://hellohouse.polishoperative.com/2008/05/dripworks-part-one-the-order/ I have to admit, i'm not a fan of Angie's List. I'm a fan of the concept, and the reviews, and the site looks ok, but in practice we have yet to hit upon a great contractor. We have had some pretty big jobs with very mediocre to sad results. ... http://hellohouse.polishoperative.com/2008/04/q-whos-our-best-friend-now-a-northwest-plumbing/ "... discovery of man!" Mysteries in my life bother me. A lot. They don't bother me in the way that an unresolved movie intrigues me, or how you might see a single shoe on the side of the road. I know that they will live happily ever after (once the snake ... http://hellohouse.polishoperative.com/2008/04/drawn-by-quest-for-fire/ My family rented the whole time I was growing up. Between that and living in Florida, our houses were pretty much always plain, with few or no interesting architectural features. Needless to say, these days I'm a sucker for nice accents in my house. (And not a single room is ... http://hellohouse.polishoperative.com/2008/04/urns/ A while back, our next-door neighbor (who lived here all her life) told us about when the previous owner of our house got her new storm door. Apparently, she was very excited. We're not sure why. Here's that door: We decided to replace it with a solid cypress, Craftsman-style door made ... http://hellohouse.polishoperative.com/2008/04/a-new-front-storm-door/ Who doesn't hate vinyl storm windows? Seriously. They're ugly and they don't work well. Because we kick it old school, we ordered a custom-made set of traditional wooden storm windows from Adams Architectural. These babies have drop-in screens and window panes, so we never have to take the storms themselves ... http://hellohouse.polishoperative.com/2008/04/storms-of-the-century/ My baseboards project is taking a lot less time than I expected. Between that and totally missing the smell of singed paint, I decided to strip a doorframe or two while I'm on vacation. Here's the bathroom doorframe: before, during, and after. That's about as far as I can get without ... http://hellohouse.polishoperative.com/2008/04/strippin-in-my-free-time/ After a couple of ridiculously tough months of work, I'm on vacation this week. And like the Good Book says, there's no better remedy for creative burn-out than a week of manual labor. So this week, I'm staining, shellacking, cutting, and installing the cap and shoe for our living-room and ... http://hellohouse.polishoperative.com/2008/04/a-restorative-vacation/