There is a strange yellow glow that fills one corner of our living room when the sun shines through the front window. One front window is obscured by all of the permits Carrie has pulled for our various projects. Yellow is the color of the building permits issued by the City of Pomona. Light shining […]

Not only do I manage to be out of town at the most convenient moment to dodge household crises, I am married to Carrie who appears to relish any and all new challenges our 85 year-old house throws at us.

A lot has happened since I wrote about our early fish rescue efforts. See the story “Fish Pond” in “Old Articles”. Carrie determined that the pond wasn’t getting enough light so we moved it. That required we first dig a new hole on the west side of the Office, temporarily relocate the fish, drain the […]

This might be a role reversal in some families, not ours. I was in the kitchen cooking dinner and Carrie was on the roof of her office ripping off shingles when I snapped this picture. We have the permits and work has begun on replacing the roof of Carrie’s office. Read the Saga about our […]

Two things you don’t want to hear you wife say in the same sentence: There is a bee on your head. Hand me the hammer. We were putting new siding on the Studio. As I held a sheet of siding against the wall for Carrie to nail in place, she gasped “There is a bee […]

With such big repairs as fixing the roof and foundation looming ahead of us, I was surprised at how much satisfaction was derived from replacing the water heater blanket this weekend. You may have read or heard my complaints about how the previous owners of our house were amateurish and/or inept in so many of […]

An old grapevine had been allowed to grow wild at the back of our lot. It had engulfed and killed at least one tree and was entangled in two others. It had also entwined itself in the back fence as well as a (used to be) decorative picket fence. The central mass of the grapevine […]

The first time we walked into what became our new house, we were impressed by some of the original Craftsman architectural details in the living and dining rooms. In addition to the built-in hutch, the fireplace flanked by built-n bookcases, and the crown molding, the sliding pocket doors separating the two rooms elicited a significant […]

This is a bad thing on so many levels. It is hard to look manly when you are running screaming through the house, slapping yourself. If you think it pisses Carrie off when I work on the house wiring without shutting off the electricity, you should see her reaction when the sparks from the resulting […]

Rain takes on a whole new dimension when you live in an 80 year-old house with a bad roof and a foundation that looks like it would wash away if it gets too wet. Add to that the fact that there are indoor electric outlets mounted on the outside of the house and you will […]

Carrie thinks she got a day off because she wasn’t repairing something around the house and she got to do something she likes. But creating a stained glass replacement for a closet window would still be “work” on my list. Luckily for me, she likes making stained glass windows. Carrie finished the designs for both […]

At least twice in previous stories about our new house, I’ve mentioned the fishpond. Tucked up against the Office, about 15 feet outside the backdoor of the house, is a 100 gallon fishpond that the previous owners had installed. It is little more than a plastic liner set in a dusty hole in the ground […]