Even if you are someone who loves to reuse old things.  Even after you have been searching for a few months for a nice old bench for your garden with no luck.  Even after you find two really lovely old wrought iron bench sides at Objects Found.  Even after Reggie Sajauskas gives you an extra good price on them.  When your partner suggests that you could make your own garden bench, you might want to think twice before you reply, “That’s a great idea, honey!” But, if you want a bench you are proud of for a bargain price and you don’t mind a time-consuming and somewhat frustrating project, or if…

Jim and I have been knee deep in reconstruction for the last five months, but this time not in our own home.  Along with Greg and Julia Alexander, we have undertaken to give the building at 701 Frederick Road a facelift. We knew that the Albert Smith House at the southwest corner of Bloomsbury Avenue and Frederick Road is one of the oldest buildings in Catonsville, but we wondered just how old.  Because we had found conflicting dates, we called in a building expert from the Maryland Historic Trust. We also invited Joan Bannon, a descendent of Albert Smith to walk through the house and tell us…

Jim and I have a table lamp on the sink in our bathroom.  This unusual home decorating element can be explained by the fact that we actually have no bathroom.  We have studs and a blue tarp and plumbing but no electricity.  So Jim has rigged up a 'temporary' system which involves the table lamp. This lamp is a critical feature since it is the only light in the room, so when it started to flicker off and on, I got a little nervous.  Jim assured me that fixing it would be a snap.  I am happy to report that I only had to resort to candles on the sink for one night, which actually made for a very…

Anyone who even remotely knows Jim and me has probably heard some piece of the story of the pool.  When we first met and Jim was touring me through his unconventional home, we looked down together over a makeshift railing from the ground floor of the addition into the basement.  Below this space, behind which is a two story expanse of window, Jim had imagined putting a counter current swimming pool.  Both of us are swimmers and once I heard the idea, I wanted it to happen--immediately.  I thought the hardest part would be convincing Jim to buy the pool.  Silly me.  The pool has sat, in parts…

Jim is one of those consumers who buys things when they are on sale rather than when we need them.  I confess that I was skeptical when Jim told me that it was always good to have a spare hot water heater on hand.  But he was right. We have a bathroom on the third floor, so I am used to the sound of water from the toilet flushing.  However, as I sat at my desk on the second floor, I heard a very different sound.  I opened the door to the hallway and was greeted by a gushing new indoor water feature.  “Jim,” I yelled, “Water!” (Yelling that word reminded me of the fake apocalypse scene from …

Jim and I returned from our scuba diving vacation, and I promptly got a nasty cold.  I was lying on the couch, pretty much wanting to die, when Jim said to bring my notebook and camera down to the basement because he was going to replace the wash tub. It’s hard to know what project will grab Jim’s attention at any given moment.  Replacing the wash tub is not something that often needs to be done, but if you should ever break yours by say, dropping a floor joist on it, and if the repair job you did with a plastic sign and glue should begin to leak, you might need to do that job.  Of course, we…

I used to think cement was scary—the sort of thing you had to work with fast before it all seized up in your bucket.  Not so.  Cement is forgiving and even fun, kind of like a cross between playing with mud and icing a cake. To begin with, here’s some terminology: cement is the essential ingredient in both concrete and mortar. Concrete is a mixture of cement, sand and gravel, used for sidewalks, basement floors, etc.  Mortar is sand mixed with cement; it is used for brick, cinderblock and stone.  Be forewarned, a bag of mortar is heavy (80 pounds). FYI, everything that follows here has to do …

If you had asked me if Jim and I had plenty of projects to keep us busy, I would have said, "Absolutely!"  Silly me. Apparently restoring our old home to its former glory and having plans on the back burner to build a "new old" house in Old Catonsville were not giving Jim enough to think about.  Even before the Dixon Sign building at 701 Frederick Road was for sale, Jim dreamed of what it would look like without those hideous display windows that were added in the 1950s when the store was a pharmacy.  With the building's place at the heart of Catonsville and its construction from local stone…

At this time of year, homeowners in Catonsville think about heat.  Is there oil in the tank? Where did we put the storm doors? Do we have enough firewood?  For me, the pressing question is: Will we have heat in the living room?  Jim said this was a small thing.  We already had the woodstove and the wood, we just had to connect the stove to the chimney.  So, Jim set to work.  There needs to be a barrier at the base of the chimney around the stove pipe so all the heat from the house doesn't fly up the chimney (which is why a wood stove is more efficient than an open fire).  To make this barrier…

When my partner, Jim Himel, bought our house in 1986, there was a big square addition to the second floor on the front of the house over the porch.  While we liked the extra space, which functioned as a spare room/closet off the master bedroom, and imagined that one day it would serve as the master bath, we both felt the balance and lines of the addition were all wrong for the house.  Jim is an urban forester and environmental impact consultant by training and livelihood, but his true calling is tinkering.  He had always imagined replacing the addition with a classic Victorian turret.  …