From the category archives:

House and Home

How NOT to Build a Sandbox

by Jonathan 9 April 2017 House and Home

This weekend, I helped my Dad and Brother-in-Law Jack build a sandbox for my little nephew Andrew. My sister had found plans online at Lowes. I picked up the guys around 10AM Saturday and we headed for Lowes. While on the way, I asked my Dad to read off the list of stuff we were […]

Read the full article →

New Year, New Home Technology, Part 1

by Jonathan 1 January 2017 House and Home
Thumbnail image for New Year, New Home Technology, Part 1

Hi. It’s a new year, and I have an awful lot of things I want to say about an awful lot of things, but I figured I would start on the relatively non-controversial side and talk about some new home technology I’ve been working to implement, and some updates on house projects. Maybe you’re interested, […]

Read the full article →

The Point

by Jenny 18 August 2016 House and Home

Life moves according to some sort of plan. Then suddenly it doesn’t. Everything changes at one single point in time. I bet that everybody who reads this blog already knows about what happened last week, but I blogged today so that future entries on the subject will make more sense. On Memorial Day weekend in […]

Read the full article →

Sometimes It Is Important to Listen to Kitty

by Jonathan 12 July 2016 House and Home

Ah, here it is, an increasingly rare post from Jonathan on the blog! Before we leave for a somewhat longer journey, we needed a test run with our kayaks on the new Yakima roof rack system on the Newbaru to make sure that everything was OK. The old Yakima system we had on Oldbaru I, […]

Read the full article →

Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Sauer Castle Edition)

by Jenny 24 June 2016 History

  This is a short story about why humans can’t have nice things. This story takes place in Kansas City, Kansas.  In a mansion built right after the Civil War. A mansion that the locals all know as Sauer Castle. (Disclaimer: I have only been to Kansas twice in my life. Several years ago, Jonathan […]

Read the full article →

What Really Happens on Christmas Morning

by Jenny 26 December 2015 House and Home
Thumbnail image for What Really Happens on Christmas Morning

A few years ago, in the very, very early part of Christmas morning, Jonathan and I woke up to the sound of breaking glass. “SMASH!” Well, nobody wants to wake up to the sound of glass breaking. Plus, we live in a neighborhood that’s, um, “undergoing change.” So, you know . . . But – […]

Read the full article →

The Good Old Days

by Jenny 10 September 2015 House and Home
Thumbnail image for The Good Old Days

For the first part of my life, my family lived in an old house in a very small town in Central Pennsylvania. My parents heated the house using a wood burning stove. My dad had a permit from the forestry department to cut firewood. Every summer or fall he would go to the top of […]

Read the full article →

Did You Hear About St. Basil’s?

by Jenny 12 August 2015 House and Home

St. Basil (or Saint Basil) Catholic Parish in Carrick was all over the Pittsburgh news last month. They shut down their church festival – their big fundraiser – for safety reasons (social media posts and actual brawling) on opening night. Permanently, I read someplace. They took a large financial hit, and the community lost an […]

Read the full article →

Neat Old Companies and Neat Old Tools

by Jonathan 21 February 2015 House and Home
Thumbnail image for Neat Old Companies and Neat Old Tools

Several years ago, I was in the position of needing a new saw blade for my tablesaw. The existing blade I was using had done a lot of work with some tough white oak for me (including building our front screen door, which was pretty hard on the blade), and it was showing some signs […]

Read the full article →

The Cherry Blanket Chest (a.k.a. Blanket Chest #2)

by Jonathan 24 January 2015 House and Home
Thumbnail image for The Cherry Blanket Chest (a.k.a. Blanket Chest #2)

Sometimes in the shop, things get a little out of order. You might recall that I had a blog entry posted in June about Blanket Chest #1, a dense, heavy affair made almost entirely of white oak. That stuff was some of the toughest wood I’ve worked. It was from a local sawmill (as opposed […]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries