Other’s Art: Days with my Father

Days with my Father

I saw the above website from another photographer’s blog.

Very touching. Especially since I haven’t been by my parent’s side for 4 years. Haven’t seen them for 4 years. Haven’t done what a daughter really should do for 4 years.

I hope they know I don’t love them any less because of the distance.

Book: All the Way Home: Building a Family in a Falling-Down House by David Giffels

About a year ago, Justin and I bought our first home. Even though it was an older home (40 years) it is still in very good condition (the inspector said so!) and the main changes we have to do are mostly cosmetic – though I have to say we have some rather stubborn wallpaper border that took me forever to take down in just one room (yes I tried everything from vinegar, fabric softner, DIF, paper tiger and steamer.) I swear when we buy our next house I won’t get anything with wallpaper/border!

When we were looking for our house, we were always drawn to the old houses, like 1920’s old. I love how much characeters they have. I love the dark wood trims and wood floors. There was one we really like in Solder Fields, with an usual layout and plaster wall – though our realtor saw that one of the plastor walls was buldging, and warned us about it so we didn’t end up getting that house. We saw another lovely old house that has lots of potential but as they say in real estate, location, location, location; that house wasn’t in the best location so we said no. Plus we both aren’t very handy, and this being our first house and all, we don’t want to get into a money pit (no I haven’t seen that movie…) knowing that we don’t have the funds or skills to restore anything. But still… It was said to see some of those old houses not being taken care of.

So when I stumbled across this book, All the Way Home: Building a Family in a Falling-Down House by David Giffels, I wanted to read it. I couldn’t imagine undertaking such a big house, and in such bad conditions! It is a pretty easy to read book and it does make me want to go get the rest of our house ready (no, the house is still not ready after a year, because there are more wallpaper borders to be taken down argh!) since well, what we have to do seems like almost nothing, compared to what David and his family had to do to get the house into living condition – pests, hole in ceiling (or rather, no ceiling in some parts), unstable bricks, water damage, no plumming, partial electricity… I wish they include more pictures in the books as I really want to see the “before & after’, as there are only like 4 partial pictures of the house. I did find some pictures online though

13 pictures here

Another 7 here

All the way home from amazon.