77 articles in this category
Tessa
77 articles in this category
The guest shower dripped for eleven months before I did anything about it. Not a fast drip. One bead every four or five seconds, loud enough to hear from the hallway at night, quiet enough to ignore in daylight. I finally fixed it on a Tuesday morning in about ninety minutes, and the part cost … Read more
I bought the engineered white oak before I ever checked whether my floor was flat. Eleven boxes, acclimating in the dining room for a week while I felt very organized about the whole thing. Then the installer laid a straightedge across my hallway and I watched his face change. That dip cost me $540 in … Read more
My cousin Dana and I replaced our windows the same spring. Same builder-grade white vinyl double-hungs, same white, same low-E package, nothing custom on either end. She did eleven of them outside Columbus for about $9,400. I did nine and paid $14,800. We put the two contracts side by side on a phone call that … Read more
The first guy who walked my basement was down there eleven minutes. He looked at the stairs, looked at the ceiling, wrote a number on the back of a business card, and handed it to me on the way out. Fifty-eight thousand dollars. About 900 square feet, no bathroom, no wet bar. I said thank … Read more
The kit came in a box with a picture of a showroom floor on it. I paid $189 for it on a Saturday in March, spent a weekend on my knees with an acid etch bottle and a roller, and for about a year and a half I was smug about it. Then I backed … Read more
My three DIY fall wreath builds, all under $25: the real receipts, which base survives rain and sun, and how to hang one without wrecking the door.
For four years I blamed the door. The one to our back bedroom never latched, so it drifted open at night, and I planed the edge twice and swapped the strike plate and bought a heavier knob. Then a carpenter friend held a level against the hinge jamb for about six seconds and said, “Tessa, … Read more
The drip started in March and I ignored it until the last week of April, because it was in the main bathroom and the main bathroom is where I put the things I do not want to think about. Then one night I was in bed and I could hear it through the wall. Not … Read more
My dad had his knee replaced in March, and the first night he stayed with us he stood in the hall bathroom looking at our cast iron tub. Sixteen inches of wall to swing a new knee over. He didn’t say anything. He went down the hall to the half bath and washed up at … Read more
The crack in my driveway went from a hairline to something I could fit two fingers into over one winter. I kept telling myself it was cosmetic. Then a chunk the size of a dinner plate came loose under the mail truck, and the guy had to swerve around it, and I stood in the … Read more
The first weekend of September I hauled a bale of straw up my front steps, dropped three mums on top of it, and stood back feeling pretty good about myself. Then it rained for six days straight. The straw went black and slimy, it left a stain on my concrete I still have not fully … Read more
The first time I hired a general contractor, I nearly walked out over a number I did not understand. His bid was $4,200 higher than the sum of the quotes I had collected myself from a plumber, a tiler, and an electrician. I thought he was padding it. He was not. That gap was his … Read more
