It’s sometimes easy to overlook the pedigree, or history, some simple things in our lives come with… Easy? Who am I kidding? It’s downright baseline. Who’s thinking history while dodging dodgy drivers on the way to work? But everything has a history and coffee—which I think actually makes up a measurable component of my blood [...]
MyFixitUpLife Reading Room: The Power of Habit
May 11, 2012 By
Despite the title, this is not a self-helpy “rah-rah you can do it” kind of book. While there is decidedly empowering information from The Power of Habit, the longer subtitle may shed more light on what the book really uncovers: “Why we do what we do in life and business.” And if you don’t like [...]
(in)Site: Work Hard and Be Nice
May 10, 2012 By
So I’m on an out-of-command-center excursion on an eat-work mission and am typing this in a local diner. There’s a guy here (every diner has one and I hope I’m not him click-clacking on my keys) with his face buried in the paper, commenting vociferously about why Joe So-and-So is an idiot, which player in [...]
MyFixitUpLife Reading Room: Unbroken
May 4, 2012 By
I’m not much for non-fiction war stories. While I can suspend my disbelief and GI-Joe-it for a while for fictional films, the actual reality of brutality and loss, even when the good guys win, generally makes me too sad. Yet at the same time, the core of many war stories is what’s best in each [...]
Old House, New Roof–Before and After Shock
March 5, 2012 By 3 Comments
So good news: Our old house/new roof installation gets installed as planned. We take a lame-o and withering 3-tab shingle roof and upgrade to a 50 year warranty Bellaforte Slate roof. The 130 year old house gets a roof consistent with the neighborhood and its Georgian pedigree. We also have premium underlayments from Grace, notably [...]
Hyde Multi-Tool at Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
January 26, 2012 By 5 Comments
So here’s one from the “Couldn’t make it up if I tried” Department—and yet another reason why a tool pouch without a Hyde multi-tool in it is an invitation to work harder than necessary. While on set at Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’s Knoxville, TN project working with the show’s project management team I had to [...]
Extreme Makeover Joplin: Tooling Up
January 11, 2012 By 11 Comments
Tooling Up in Joplin’s Cunningham Park with Extreme Makeover. It took 10,000 volunteers and multiple builders to make Extreme Makeover: Home Edition‘s 200th—and final—episode a reality. Seven houses in seven days plus our playground and memorial wall in the tornado-ravaged city of Joplin, MO is no small feat. And like any endeavor where many are [...]
FixitUp FreshStart: Our New Front Door
January 9, 2012 By 11 Comments
Old house remodeling is often half challenge, half opportunity–and always a whole lotta work. And when opportunity knocks in an old house renovation, knock often first refers to knocking something down. Unlike modern homes which are built with conventional framing and interior drywall all neatly organized into a 4 foot matrix (FYI, framing with studs, [...]
Organization at the Gym
December 27, 2011 By 11 Comments
I spend a lot of my time on a home improvement project trying to be efficient, trying to save steps so I can do my best work in the time we have allotted. It’s sometimes boring to clean up a small mess than to keep walking over it and kicking it around, but at the [...]
Tool Review: Stanley PowerLock 25 Foot Tape Measure
December 24, 2011 By 5 Comments
You’re going to love this. Here is a tool review of a brand new tool that I’ve had in my pouch for XX years…I mean xx years…since high school, how’s that? I bought my first tape along with my first tool apron and hammer at Town Paint and Supply—a place that was old then. (And [...]
