Sixteen months ago we got the keyses, Back when the ‘Baby had contagious diseases, In that time, I’ve made heaps of friends, With lovely people – and some Australians, Thank you all for making this fun, And cheering us on until we’ve won. Christmas letters are for bragging of babies, How about this? Ours no [...]
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Biggest benefit of having a blog where you admit, daily, you don’t know what you’re doing? Lovely people spoon-feed you good ideas and stellar research. You guys have seen Jessica‘s helpful tips in comments, but behind the scenes are plenty of emails with even more advice – by an easy estimate she’s saved us $200+ [...]
Last time I showed off my weirdest Google search results, I just let you have them. But I’ve realized something: we must provide what the people want. This is a humanitarian crisis. They’re asking, we’re answering. Will you share your wisdom? Life’s biggest mysteries - can you help? ‘does shopping suck sometimes?’ ‘why are pageant moms so [...]
Ever seen a paint brush, tray or roller be cleaned on an HGTV show? It doesn’t happen. So here’s an overdue piece of painting honesty. I’d never have told anybody this, until my brother reacted with uncharacteristic speechlessness. Then I thought… why not make it global knowledge? Renovating an apartment. No outdoor hose pipe. No [...]
Add it to the list of things that, pre-renovation, I never thought possible: writing 600 words on door knobs. Surely life’s too short? Here’s our old, ugly door handle. Want to lick it? Yes that’s a mustard yellow door & Viking era door handle. It made a fetching combination for these fine friends: You need new [...]
Americans: I think you’ve got some gluttony planned this week. Will guests be involved? Canadians, Rest-of-World: it’s a month ‘til Christmas and I hope your schedule’s filling up nicely. Me? I’m wondering who will win in a month-long battle of Ikea butcher block vs gallon-measures of mulled wine. Given that it’s likely your home is/has been/will be [...]
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Want to perform surgery with my door handles? You could. They’re clean. But it’s taken a while. From sooty walls, to greasy cabinets and that carpet, we’ve seen a lot of filth, haven’t we? More Really Dirty Baby than ugly, the cleaning has been just as much work as renovating. Now that it’s finally clean [...]
Scary bathrooms? I’ve known a few. Only one left me too frightened to scream. Vancouver on a student budget can be grim, and university years were a parade of bad-to-worse rentals: basements, studios, hovels. Just not nice. The prettiest place tricked me. After surviving half a dozen genuine horror houses, I found a charming one [...]
A long time ago, Shannon asked if I was ever going to help Paolo. On the contrary. I see my role as more of an entrenched reporter; all the stories, none of the bloody parts or heavy lifting. To that end, here’s something sweet. I’m pretty sure Paolo doesn’t read this – so I share [...]
Exciting news for boys: today’s story has a surprise violent twist. One step forwards, two steps back — after dealing with our padded room problem, we now had a lone box-spring to tend with. If no one wanted a second-hand mattress… they weren’t going to jump for a second-hand box-spring. Especially one that was, well, [...]
"An ugly baby is a very nasty object and the prettiest is frightful when undressed". -- Queen Victoria
“There are but two ways of dealing with a room which is fundamentally ugly: one is to accept it, and the other is courageously to correct its ugliness”. -- Edith Wharton, The Decoration of Houses (1897)
“[T]o create a beautiful home,
you need a bit of ugly”. -- Deborah Needleman, The Perfectly Imperfect Home
"The uglier the wallpaper, the harder it is to remove.... Ugly wallpaper just sticks better. It's a fact" -- Julie Sussman, Dare to Repair
