Mother Necessity, where would we be?

We've all heard that necessity is the mother of invention. But did you know that home ownership is the granddaddy of necessity? Unless you build a home (and are very active in the design phase), no one buys their dream home. That's a given. So with that in mind, home improvement, repair and maintenance become a necessity. You with me?

When you buy an open-concept loft (especially when it's your first home), those necessities pile up. The gray concrete floors, flat white walls, cheap gray rubber baseboards, nonexistent window sills/trim and more were enough to (almost) drive us mad.

Happily, I've completed all of those projects (except the windowsills, which are in progress). With the notable exception of the floors, I did them all myself. (Aside: we paid someone to acid stain the floors a brown tortoise-shell and seal it with a hard wax. I may think I'm handy, but even I know amateurs shouldn't - for the most part - mess around with hazardous chemicals.)

And that's not all. In coming posts, I'll talk about some of my DIY triumphs, and the inevitable challenges I had to overcome. After all, almost everything I've learned has been through trial-and-error.

Stay tuned.