House Tour Part 3: The Parlor
YOU'VE ALREADY SEEN the Music Room and the Entrance Hall in this 185-year-old house that I happen to call "home." Shall we have a look at the parlor? You can access this room either through the pocket...
View ArticleHouse Tour, Part 4: The Dining Room
DID I MENTION that we are only the fifth owners of this old house? It stayed in the same family from 1826 until 1975. And in 1975, new owners gutted the original kitchen wing -- which included a dairy...
View ArticleHouse Tour Part 5: The Kitchen
THE KITCHEN FOR THIS 1826 HOUSE was originally located in a separate, 2-story wing. That wing, as I mentioned in Part 4 of our House Tour, was gutted in 1975 by non-preservation-minded owners. These...
View ArticleEntrance Hall Makeover
JUST IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, my ancient entrance hall is getting a makeover. That is, we're about to apply reproduction 19th-century paper on the room's (19th-century) walls. A look at the paper,...
View ArticleThe Entrance Hall, Before & After Papering
AS MOST OF YOU KNOW, we recently redecorated our entrance hall. Would you like to see the before and after pictures? Actually, I can take you way back. Back, in fact, to how the hall looked in...
View ArticleMusic Room Restoration, Part 2
I PROMISED to keep you up to date on the restoration-work in the Music Room. This is the 1850 wing of our house that had been built atop a dubious -- and downright dangerous -- foundation. Crumbling...
View ArticleHouse Tour Part 6: My Bedroom
YOU'VE ALREADY SEEN the recently-restored downstairs rooms of the 187-year-old house I call "home." Shall we head upstairs? Here, in Part Six of our house tour, is the "master" bedroom: A Victorian...
View ArticleMy Case Against Open Floor Plans
How many of you are house-hunting at the moment? Mind telling us what features you're drawn to? If your goal is a new(ish) house with an open floor plan, you're not alone. According to HGTV's "Property...
View ArticleOld House Living: Redecorating the Library
In my latest bit of old-house news, we're redecorating the library. This upstairs room -- it was previously a bedroom -- had become a catch-all for newspapers, magazines, CDs, antiquated VHS tapes, and...
View ArticleA Name Change, and A Question for You
Hallelujah! Many of you have written to say that you like this site's new, clean design. After seven years of blogging, I figured the place could use some sprucing up. I even changed the name of the...
View ArticleFlowers for the September Entrance Hall
There's a hint of autumn here in New York's Hudson Valley, as certain deciduous trees are already dropping their leaves. Consequently I thought I should gather some flowers and greens from the garden,...
View ArticleHouse Tour Part 1: Entrance Hall and Staircase
This week, just for fun, I filmed a tour of Clover Hill — the 1826 house that my spouse and I are restoring. This particular episode includes a brief history of the house, and a walk through its large,...
View ArticleHouse Tour Part 2: The Parlor
As I told you in Part 1 of this video series, Mr. Fox and I are restoring a house that was built in 1826. Part 2 features the green and cream parlor, in which Prudence the Portrait resides. To watch...
View ArticleHouse Tour Part 3: The Dining Room!
There’s nothing to learn from this video. Zero. Zip. Nada. I simply wanted to show you the dining room here at Clover Hill. As you will soon discover, the room has been restored to its...
View ArticleRestoring My Pocket Doors
Why do my 19th-century pocket doors glow? Because I clean them with mineral spirits, and polish them with paste wax. These simple “ingredients” can do wonders for all kinds of old furniture. Naturally,...
View ArticleKitchen Renovation Diary: Day #4 (almost finished!)
Dear Diary: A hurricane hit my kitchen today, as three (and sometimes four) contractors hustled to finish off the renovation project. The project won’t be truly finished until the Lyra quartz counter...
View Article19th Century Pantry
TRUE CONFESSION: Today I had planned to write an engaging post called “Organizing the Pantry.” Then I realized that my own pantry isn’t well-organized at all. So instead of telling you about what goes...
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