Our Home Renovation

I’ve heard of nails referred to by “pennies” since I was a little kid and somewhere along the way I heard the explanation for that reference. The other day, however, I found myself trying to remember which was bigger, an 8 penny or a 16 penny nail. Somehow I had gotten it switched around in my head. So, I did a quick double-check, figured it out (I’ll never forget again) and thought that there might be others that don’t know the explanation or want a quick refresher.

(That large nail is, I think, a 16d finish nail. It’s the only one I found - they must’ve had a hard time getting that piece of crown to stay up!)

The penny reference goes back a ways, apparently to England. Pennies were sold by the hundred, and the penny reference was how much 100 nails cost. So, 6 penny nails were $.06 per 100. Simple enough.

Curious how I got confused? I was thinking that the penny number was how many you could buy for a penny. Hence, 16 penny nails were 16 for $.01, and 8 penny nails were 8 for $.01 - the bigger the nail, the fewer you get. But that’s wrong, so don’t get that idea in your head or you’ll get confused like me.

But, you say, I’ve heard them referred to as “16d” or “8d”, etc. Apparently (thanks again, Wikipedia!), the ‘d’ stands for denarius, a Roman coin equivalent to today’s penny. In England, ‘d’ was the original symbol for their pence, or penny as we know it here in the USA.

This is a nail that didn’t want to go into the wall, apparently. I thought it was cool. Amazing that they pounded it hard enough to get that whole thing in the crown moulding.

One of the hardest things in renovating a house is figuring out what to do first. Especially since I love to start new projects, but I am horrible at finishing them. With our house, I can remember gutting the bathroom at the same time as I started reglazing a window from another part of the house and at the same time as tearing out carpeting in the house and at the same time as tearing out the previously-enclosed front porch. It’s been that way all along, but lately I’ve been getting better at pushing myself to finish a project before moving on (as much as possible).

These were all taken on the same day (the day we closed on our house - April 17th, 2005):

As we started working on the Sheridan House, we decided the first priority HAD to be the roof. It was in really bad shape and there were several leaks. So that was an easy decision to do first. We decided the second priority overall needed to be the front exterior of the house. If we do end up selling the Sheridan House, we want the curb appeal to be there as soon as possible - if there are a few details left inside that need to be finished up, there’s no reason a ‘for sale’ sign can’t go up out front. If the front of the house still needs obvious attention (or lacks the eventual curb appeal), then we’d be shooting ourselves in the foot (feet?). With our current house, the outside has ended up being the last priority - the inside of the house is almost complete and here we are 2+ years later and the outside (front of the house, anyway) still hasn’t had anything done to it really and we have yet to paint the house and give it any measure of curb appeal. But, that’s what the priorities are all about - we decided that livability was the highest priority overall, whereas with the Sheridan House, visual appeal was.

Plumbing was up there on the priority list, though, because it’s really hard to work without running water. (Thanks, neighbors!) Getting the bathroom done is high up because, again, it’s hard to work without any toilet or sink. The electrical service upgrade was essential because that would allow us to sleep at night not having to worry about the ancient electrical service.

Personally, I love problem soving and planning out priorities is really just one big puzzle; you just have to figure out the best place to start and then put the pieces together one by one. Hopefully this gave a little insight into the method behind the madness when starting to tackle a project like this. It’s been a lot different not living in the house while we’re working on it.

On a different note, it’s been hot this week (90+) and working inside without A/C is killer, especially when it’s as humid as it has been. I’ve still been getting work done on the house, but unfortunately at a bit slower pace than I would have hoped. Expect more progress updates this weekend.

I’m a big fan of word-of-mouth recommendations, so I’m hoping to periodically recommend services and products that have been useful to us and that we love enough to want others to experience them too.

Vonage - we’ve been using Vonage instead of a regular phone line for almost 6 months now. It’s been great. Not a single complaint. We pay $24.99/mo for unlimited long distance (within US and Canada) plus an extra $5 for a Vancouver number so that our family there can call us via a local number and it doesn’t end up costing us or them anything (day or night). We haven’t had any problems, so I can’t speak for their customer service. You provide the broadband internet (cable/dsl/etc.) and a phone, and they provide the rest. Shipping was surprisingly quick, and you can even transfer a normal phone number if you’d like. One of my favorite features is the ability to log in on the website to instantly and easily set up call forwarding and other features. We’ve got call forwarding set to ring at our house for 15 seconds and then forward to our cell. Email me or leave a comment and I’ll send you an email that will get you the first month of service free (and we’ll get credit for it too). There’s also no contract, which is really nice to know that you can cancel at anytime.

Note: In the interest of full-disclosure, some of the things we may recommend might offer incentive to us to get people to use them or sign up for them. Regardless of whether there is incentive, we’ll never recommend a product for that reason alone - we’ll only recommend something that we thoroughly use and love and want others to use and love too.

Friends and family have been amazed at some of the deals we have gotten. Specifically an almost brand-new Maytag washer and dryer that was originally over $1300 (I have the original receipt) that we bought for $350. Then there was the brand new Frigidaire stove that we got for $100. Oh, and the real wood blinds (the really nice, expensive, wide kind - 3 of them) for $90. The latest purchase was a 2-week old Porcher-brand soaker tub. For $50. No, I didn’t forget a zero on there, though that would still be a steal. I’ll write more about the tub soon (we pick it up tomorrow evening), but for now I’ll just share the secret: Craigslist.

Just pick your city from the right side of the page and peruse the free ads. They’ve got an RSS feed for each category, which is how I keep track of the few categories that I monitor (tools, household and furniture). If you’re close to a one of the cities that is listed, keep your eye on the free section, too. There are often old windows, doors, etc listed there. We’re too far away from Chicago to get anything that is free - it’d be long gone by the time we got there.

A few examples in Chicago: (these may be gone by the time you read this)

• Nice Pedestal Sink - $225
• Awesome industrial stove/oven - $400
• A fantastic old entry door with all hardware - $75

So, there’s my tip for the week. Make your renovation money stretch further by using Craigslist.