Bringing Outdoor String Lights Indoors
I counted them last week, mostly out of curiosity and slightly out of dread, and it’s fourteen. Fourteen strands of outdoor string lights currently living in a tote in my…
Outdoor Floodlights Indoors
I was in the garage on a Tuesday night trying to fix the pull cord on the shop light, the cheap clamp one from the hardware store that’s been hanging…
Coal in a Chiminea: Hotter Than Wood
The reputation coal has around chimineas is that it’s basically wood’s hotter cousin, same fire, just turned up a notch, and you can just swap one for the other without…
Chimineas and Charcoal: Heat and Clay
I checked the smart plug data for the porch string lights the other night, mostly procrastinating on grading, and worked backward from it to figure out how many nights I’d…
Billy Bookcase Without Its Back Panel
I used to hear “you can’t take the back off a Billy bookcase, it’ll fall apart” and just nod along like everyone else, because it sounds like it should be…
Rug Doctor on an Area Rug
I rent a Rug Doctor about four times a year, which sounds like nothing until you do the math on what that’s cost me since 2019, and I did the…
Patio Heaters and Canopies: Heat Rises Right Into the Fabric
The reputation here is that this is a nothing question. Ask anyone with a covered patio and they’ll wave a hand and say “of course you can put a heater…
Using a Cracked Chiminea: Do Crack Sizes Matter?
My mom sent a photo to the family group chat last month of her chiminea, the metal one that’s lived on her patio since basically forever, with a crack running…
Ceramic Vases and Hairline Cracks
I was standing at the sideboard on a Sunday evening, the one that belonged to my grandmother and has survived two moves, a flood in 2019, and one memorable Thanksgiving…
Signs on Light Poles: Who Actually Owns the Pole?
I was standing on the corner of my own street with a roll of packing tape and a stack of flyers for a lost cat that was, as it turned…