Category: House & Home
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(Eventual) Well Tank Replacement: How I May Have Ignored an Obvious Problem for Years
January 9, 2026 The Signs I Missed Looking back, I think the well tank bladder had been broken since at least summer 2024. It might have been failing for a year or two before that. What I was noticing: the water pressure would drop a little, then go back up when the pump kicked in.…
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This New Old House Part 12: Insulation and Air Sealing – When Tight Isn’t Right (Or Is It?)
When we decided to build our Connor Homes kit house, we had visions of a super-efficient, modern home wrapped in the latest insulation technology. We’d read all about spray foam insulation, tight building envelopes, and energy efficiency. We were going to do this right. Spoiler alert: We sort of did. Maybe. I’m still not entirely…
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This New Old House Part 11: Windows – The Decision Where More Mistakes Were Made.
If you spend a fortune making your house air-tight with spray foam insulation, and then punch 27-29 holes in it and fill them with cheap windows, you’ve basically defeated the entire purpose of the exercise. This is the story of how we did exactly that. The Window Budget Reality By the time we got to…
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This New Old House Part 10: HVAC – The Radiant Floor Mistake?
Or: How Warm Floors Can’t Save You From Bad HVAC Decisions Winter 2009-2010 After the plumbing nightmares, it was time for HVAC. We installed radiant floor heating throughout the house—hot water running through tubes in the floors, heated by our Triangle Tube boiler. It’s actually very nice to have warm floors in the winter. Walking…
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This New Old House Part 9: Plumbing – PEX, Paying Twice, and Poisoned Septic Tanks
Or: How I Paid Two People to Do One Job and Discovered Water Lines Don’t Make Sense Winter 2009-2010 After electrical was complete, it was time for plumbing and HVAC. My friend, who had been coordinating most of the work, had apprenticed to learn plumbing and HVAC. But because of all the equations for sizing…
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This New Old House Part 8: Electrical – The One Thing We Got Mostly Right
Or: How an Electrical Engineer Wired Our House (and What We Still Got Wrong) Winter 2009-2010 After framing was complete, it was time for electrical. This is where having a friend with an electrical engineering degree really paid off. Actually, let me rephrase: this is where we got more things right than wrong, which for…
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This New Old House Part 7: Framing a Kit House (and the Ruts We Left Behind)
Or: How Pre-Fabricated Walls Met Our Clay Field Fall – Winter 2009 With foundation complete and the Connor Homes kit ready to ship, it was time for framing. This is where our decision to act as our own general contractor would really be tested. We had a choice: our realtor’s brother was a professional builder…
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This New Old House Part 6: Foundation, Basement, and Future Regrets
Or: How “We’ll Finish It Later” Became Our Most Persistent Lie Fall 2009 With septic and well in place, it was time to dig a hole and pour concrete. The foundation is literally the base of everything, so naturally this was where we’d make some decisions that would haunt us for years. Jennifer had specific…
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This New Old House Part 5: Water Wars – The Filter Saga
Or: How I Became an Accidental Expert in Water Treatment Through Sheer Desperation 2010-2026 So we had a well. It produced water. The lab said the water was safe. We were good to go, right? Reader, we were not good to go. The lab test for your certificate of occupancy checks for bacteria and major…
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This New Old House Part 4: Septic Systems and Well Disasters
Or: How We Learned That Clay Soil Is God’s Way of Saying “This Will Be Expensive” Beginning Summer 2009 With our land purchased and our house design finalized, it was time to deal with the unglamorous but absolutely critical underground infrastructure. When you’re building off the municipal grid, you need two things before you can…
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Pella Architect Series Windows: The Review I Should Have Posted 14 Years Ago
Why I Will Never Buy Pella Windows Again Product: Pella Architect Series Double-Hung Windows Specification: Double pane, E-glass coating, wood interior, primed Installation: 2009-2010 Review Date: January 2026 (15+ years of use) Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ (1/5 stars – and that’s generous) Note: I should have written this review 14 years ago. Maybe I could have saved…
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450′ Gravel Driveway: A 15-Year Journey of Expensive Mistakes
Plus an Ariens Sno-Thro 926053 Hydro Pro 28 Review The last few days of snow and clearing the driveway stirred up this memory… We built our new old house back in 2009 and, in what seemed like a great idea at the time, set it at the back edge of a small hay field. This…
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This New Old House Part 3: Land, Surveys, and Driveway Drama
Or: How “Temporary” Became Permanent and 14 Acres Got Divided Three Ways Spring-Summer 2008 With our house design settled, we needed the actual, you know, land to put it on. The Land Hunt Finding land was actually easier than finding an existing house, probably because land doesn’t have a leaky roof that sellers are trying…
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This New Old House Part 1: The Impossible House Hunt
Or: How We Learned That “Fully Renovated” Means “We Painted Over the Problems” Late 2007 – Early 2008 My wife Jennifer and I had been living in NYC apartments for years—the kind where you develop an intimate relationship with your neighbors’ arguments and learn to sleep through sirens like they’re lullabies. We were ready for…
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The Gable Epidemic: A Plea to Modern Home Designers
What is going on with all the gables being added to homes over the last 10 years? Seriously, are there tax breaks for the more gables you have that I don’t know about? Or have architects and builders just gotten too lazy to figure out a coherent design plan? The logic seems to be: Design…
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Tub Resurfacing: Many Mistakes Were Made.
Mistakes were made. Back in 2009, when we were building our house, we decided we were going to do The Right Thing™: reclaimed bathroom fixtures for two of our three bathrooms. Reuse. Character. History. Surely the planet would send us a handwritten thank-you note. Except for the toilets. Those had to be modern low-flush versions, because…
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The “Finished” Drain Board: A Concrete Countertop Reality Check
Let me start with the truth: I finally “finished” my concrete countertop drain board refurbish, and it’s blotchy as hell. But here’s the thing—the shape is perfect. It looks exactly like a drain board should look. It’s just that after all the layers, all the different materials, and all my well-intentioned repair attempts, it’s ended…
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The Great Concrete Drain Board Debacle: A DIY Odyssey
When a simple countertop repair turns into a three-week saga involving four molds, toe-damaging weights, and enough failed attempts to question your life choices. The Origin Story: DIY Concrete Counters Circa 2010 Back in 2010, when YouTube had DIY videos but nothing like today’s endless stream of concrete countertop influencers, my wife and I decided…
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The Dryer Saga: My Electrolux Gas Dryer vs. Physics, Common Sense, and My Old LG
When You’re Forced Into A Matching Set Let’s talk about being backed into an appliance corner. With limited laundry room space, we needed to stack our washer and dryer. And because stacking kits apparently cannot be universal (heaven forbid!), we were forced to get an Electrolux dryer to match our new washer. Enter the Electrolux…
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Even that's Odd 