One day, when I wasn’t looking, my once-charming front porch went from shabby chic to just plain disgusting. I waited for the crew from HGTV’s Curb Appeal to show up. When they didn’t come, I decided to take on the job. Here’s the porch I started with: As you can see, I had many challenges:…
At the tile store some time ago, salivating over the $30-per-square-foot tile, I asked the clerk a brilliant question: “Do you have any free stuff?” I was with a friend who is pretty classy, and she gave a nervous little laugh and I wondered for a second if this question was crass. But the clerk…
So what do you do when your prized market umbrella goes flying off in the wind and breaks two spokes? And what do you do when your avocado trees are putting out so much fruit you fear the boughs will break? In my case, with this very scenario, I put a free ad on Craigslist…
Whenever I’m told to test my house for lead or radon or mold or asbestos, I get a bad case of the “yeah buts . . . .” As in: Yeah, but . . . who do I call? Yeah, but . . . how do I collect samples? Yeah, but . . . what…
This morning, as I walked down the hallway toward the bathroom, I felt startled when I saw light coming from there and I thought: “Darn it. I left the light on all night.” But the illumination did not come from a light bulb. It was natural light from a high window that, until yesterday, had…
I haven’t had a drink of alcohol or any other mood-altering drugs for a long, long time (it’s this addictive personality that’s to blame). But every now and again, when I get a feeling of total bliss, I think: Ah, this is why I drank. To feel like this. I’m feeling it now, in my…
I want to let you know about the Pardon Our Dust feature coming up Sunday in the Real Estate section. It’s about two bathrooms that were gutted and redone in 14 days. But I also want to share with you something that did not fit in my article but that touched me personally as I…
Big changes, people! On the Fourth of July, this blog will move to my own website at www.kathyprice.com and I hope you will join me there to continue the conversation. I plan to blog more about my own projects, as well as the projects of others, green remodeling, the rebuilding of New Orleans and my…
As you know if you’ve been keeping up with my blog, I’ve recently become enthralled and obsessed with the rebuilding of New Orleans. I visited the first time in mid-February and have been there now four times. So it was with some excitement, in my own Southern California neighborhood, that I came across this door…
I was so excited about this new shower curtain, which was a gift for my husband. It was at about 35,000 feet, breathing airliner air, when I saw in a magazine this really neat shower curtain. The clear vinyl on the top would allow our dark and narrow shower stall some needed daylight. And the…