The Friday Post

Our oldest is home from college for winter vacation! I picked him up from the airport at 5:30 this morning. Yawn. Since he goes to school so far away, he does not come home at all during the semester. Everyone is used to that by now, but it sure feels nice to have him home for a few weeks. 

While he is home, I plan to update his room. His bedroom and our bedroom are the only ones we have not touched yet. When we moved into BHH, out of necessity, our first projects were bedrooms for the middle boys. That entire wing of the house suffered ice dam damage, and we could not wait.  

Next, we renovated our daughter’s room and the doll apartment. We never moved our oldest’s room to the top of the list because aside from the windows, it was in decent shape. Also, we figured he would be moving out soon anyway. 

At the very least, I will be building a new headboard because the bed in his room is a sad situation. It is just a mattress and box on a frame. There are also challenges with the lighting. Only one of the two wall sconces works. 

Unfortunately, there is no room in the budget to tear out that tragic drop ceiling. Now that we pulled a similar ceiling out of the library, there are only three rooms plus the sunporch left with those nasty tiles. Progress! Anyway, I received this Pendleton blanket for Hanukkah, and it inspired the entire bedroom project. Over the weekend, I will take some better “before” shots to share next week. 

What Happened This Week?

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If you like that Pendleton blanket that I linked above, check out this adorable dog bed and dog sweater. I die. My sister has a cute French bulldog puppy that needs a Pendleton sweater. Too bad I already bought her a Christmas present. I’ll have to send her the link. She’ll love it. 

I recently found artist Chris Toledo’s Instagram account called ibuildsmallthings. He builds early 20th century reproductions in 1:12 scale. His work is fascinating and so perfect. I could get lost for hours poring over all the tiny details. Just look at this kitchen! 

 photo credit: Chris Toledo | magazine cover: Dollhouse Miniatures

WordPress, my publishing platform just did a significant upgrade to its editor, and my brain is resisting the change. The update does not seem intuitive at all. It reminds me of the way Google changes Gmail sometimes, and it never seems to be a helpful change. Am I turning into a cranky old person? What online platforms do you use that shake things up on a regular basis? Do you adapt well? Every time this sort of thing happens, it reminds me of the book The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.  

I’ve got bathroom makeovers on the brain, and this weekend refresh by Cathy and Garrett is a beautiful example of working with what you’ve got. 

If you read my Gifts For People Who Are Always Cold post this week, a few people mentioned that they could not live without their heated mattress pads. I found this queen size dual-control one on Overstock for $108 for the next 10 hours. The King and California King size are $116. Is that a good price? Could I do better?

New Year, New Plans

I have been thinking about plans for the blog next year. I invite you to weigh in on what you would like to read. My writing has meandered all over the place the past four years. At first, that made sense because BHH is such a huge project. Getting focused felt difficult when I was spending most of my time putting out figurative fires. Now, I have settled into a routine, and the house is stable. 

In the past when I asked this question, I had a few requests for more information about restoring windows. Someone also wanted to know about my favorite tools. What else?

There’s also the issue of the podcast. I love talking to people about their old houses, but each episode takes hours and hours to produce. Although the feedback about the podcast has been nothing but positive, I struggle. Do you wish there very frequent episodes? Do you even listen to podcasts? Ideally, I would hire out part of this project, but I’m not in a financial position to do that right now. If you had your way, what would you like to happen to the podcast? I’m open to feedback. 

Have a great weekend. Our town turns into a Hallmark Christmas movie tomorrow night with hundreds of people gathering to sing Christmas Carols on Main Street. Yes, really. Surely someone will feel the true meaning of the holiday or figure out that the boss they thought they hated is the love of their life. It could happen.