118 articles in this category
Tessa
118 articles in this category
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
The laminate in our kitchen had a burn mark shaped like a coffee mug and a seam by the stove that had swelled up like a bad tooth. I put a cutting board over the burn for three years. Then a fabricator walked in, ran his hand along the run, said “you have thirty-one square … Read more
We pulled up the ruined carpet in the basement and there it was: a bare gray slab, dusty, stained from the water heater that let go before we bought the place, and sloping just enough toward the old floor drain that a marble would roll to it every time. My husband called it a problem. … Read more
The concrete around our pool started shedding like a sunburn. Little chalky flakes, first near the shallow end, then everywhere, and by the second July my kid would not walk across it barefoot at two in the afternoon. She would hop. Three quick steps to the grass, every time. That hop is what finally got … Read more
My deck told me it was rotting a full year before I listened. Third summer in this house, I stepped on the second board down from the sliding door and it flexed under my heel like a diving board. I told myself it was springy. It was soft. There is a difference, and it cost … Read more
The first night it kept me up. Drip. Fifteen seconds. Drip. My bathroom faucet had started leaking sometime that spring, and I’d been doing the thing everyone does, which is nothing, telling myself it was one loose part and not my problem yet. Then a water bill came in about $14 higher than the month … Read more
My budget backyard makeover cost $186, not $5,000. Here’s the renter-friendly weekend playbook for cozy outdoor living, dollar by dollar.
Two summers ago I stood in my backyard holding two quotes for the same 150 feet of fence. Wood came in at $3,300. Vinyl came in at $4,600. My first reaction was the obvious one: why would anyone pay $1,300 more for a fence? Then I remembered the two weekends I spent re-staining a wood … Read more
