You will often hear real estate professionals, personal finance gurus, and know-it-all relatives talking about how home renovation choices can affect your resale value. And while I don’t think that these experts are necessarily wrong, they often only tell half of the story. Homeowners should embark on home improvement projects because they want to live [...]
In theory, making all your holiday gifts sounds great. Not only will you save money but your recipients will be charmed and love that you put so much thought and effort into your gifts and not only that, you’ll be striking a blow against materialism and consumer culture. Except when that doesn’t happen… No matter [...]
Learning to repair cars yourself is perfectly doable. Maybe one of your parents taught you the basics as you were growing up, but even if that isn’t the case, there are plenty of books, websites and actual experts out there that can help you figure out the nuts and bolts. But what about more extreme [...]
Each summer, my husband and I find ourselves paging wistfully through home improvement magazines and wandering through the aisles of the local hardware superstore. Since we are old house enthusiasts, we certainly always have projects that we could (and should) be working on in our 1940 Cape Cod. But for right now, we need to [...]
Cooking is a skill that everyone, on some level, should master. While it is an admirable trait to be able to follow a gourmet recipe, however, I believe it is much more valuable (and affordable) to be able to whip up a tasty meal sans directions, measurements, and cooking temps. Here are the excuses I [...]
I baked my first homemade bread out of desperation. I had just arrived in the US. I was pregnant, far away from family and friends, and homesick. I missed home terribly – especially home cooking. I scoured the supermarket shelves for familiar items. One of them was pita bread. Great! I thought. This will be [...]
