Exploring the intersection of people, their homes and communities.
  • Vergennes Laundry

    This Is Where We Live

    A little bit of lovely from publisher 4th Estate for the end of a grey day.  And good luck trying to not count the books that you’ve read as they pass by….

    READ MORE →

  • Living Inside the Belly of a Whale

    A Thule Whalebone House, circa 1,000 a.d. “One thousand years ago, a group of people began a trek across the far north, up above the Arctic Circle.  They were following the bowhead whales that they hunted for food.  The whales gave them other things as well.  The whale bones were the building materials for remarkable…

    READ MORE →

  • Jake’s House of Joe

    You may live in the back-of-beyond with no decent coffeehouse in sight. But there’s no need to wait around, bemoaning your sad fate, when you can start your very own “Jake Hortons”.*

    READ MORE →

  • Deconstructing the Beverly Hillbillies: When the 99% Became the 1%

    Looking for some family entertainment over the holidays,  I found the entire nine seasons of The Beverly Hillbillies in the $5 and under bin at our local evil chainstore.  In case you are a young ‘en or grew up abroad, this wildly popular sitcom ran from 1962 through 1971 and featured the Clampett family –…

    READ MORE →

  • It’s Hard to Get a Life (But That Doesn’t Mean You Shouldn’t Try)

    Take a couple of minutes to check out this August 14th, 2011 post from writer/blogger James Hoffmann on his site jimseven. I love that he differentiates between ‘consuming’ and ‘making’, and recognizes that he has been doing more of the former than the latter. He’s chosen to stop writing the blog he loves, quitting cold…

    READ MORE →

  • Getting Up, Dusting Off, Moving On

    Apparently, to my chagrin, there is a limit to the number of balls I can keep in the air without running around like a chicken with my head cut off or forgoing sleep altogether.  New blog entries and housecleaning fell hard and fast off the virtual priority list.  But it has been an intense and…

    READ MORE →

  • Quebec house

    This is the House That Jack Built

    A morality tale from 1967 that is, sadly, equally relevant today.  Forty-four years have passed and the enormous difference between then and now is the accrued environmental and sociological damage as the world chases the (frequently unsatisfactory) “American Dream”. oehttp://www.nfb.ca/film/the_house_that_jack_built

    READ MORE →

  • Kingston Ontario mural

    What Can You Do When You Live in a Zoo?

    When our beloved Cocker Spaniel, Devon, died of cancer five years ago I vowed that we would not add another dog to our existing menagerie of kids and cats.

    READ MORE →

  • A Tale of Two Hotels – The Drake (Part 2)

    We checked out of the Gladstone, Husband headed to the financial district, and I strolled down Queen Street to the Drake Hotel.  I didn’t want to leave the area without getting, at the very least, a cursory look at the Gladstone’s kissing cousin. The building began its life in 1890 as Small’s Hotel, catering to…

    READ MORE →

  • Creative Houses From Recycled Materials

    He builds new homes using 70 to 80% recycled materials. As he describes it “I feature blemish. I feature organic process.”

    READ MORE →