So, the basement fireplace. I've been vacillating between painting it, cutting the stone mantel off, taking off the steel hood, or covering with paneling or drywall. It's rustic & huge and it's hard for me to envision how to make it "fit" into the overall finished space. We decided to remove the brick hearth in front of the

Greg & I went to Boston last week for the Q Conference. Q's aim is to "Stay curious. Think well. Advance good."  Speaker after brilliant speaker gave voice to their stories: a journalist covering ISIS, university leaders, artists & performers, those on the front lines of racial reconciliation & immigration, entrepreneurs, activists, health practitioners, authors, and thinkers. My

The basement project began last week. It's hard to show in these grainy basement photos what's taking shape because it just looks like a bunch of wood sticks everywhere.  You'll have to take my word for it that my little brainchild is looking pretty darn good. The laundry room: Family room: The wondrous sewer pipe before a fresh

So. The paint color for the exterior. Last week I posted on Facebook that I was going to choose a color, paint my house and move on with my life. I spent that morning analyzing colors, bought a couple more sample pots and had a revelation (a revelation which halted any actual choosing of a paint color).  You

Designing a laundry room isn't terribly exciting because the focus is solely on function (as it should be), but there's a little bit of room to inject some cool factor.  The difficulty factor in this space is an 8 or 9. It's quirky. It's small. There's a very low ceiling, lots of overhead conduit & pipes, fuse boxes