This husband and wife design team, Cortney and Robert Novogratz, take old decrepit buildings and houses and renovate them into fabulous spaces, coining a design style that is all their own: vintage nouveauxx. Their design firm was named SIXX Design after their six children. They have since had a seventh child. Many of the spaces that they design have children in mind.

I love the photo walls. Hanging multiple photos can be very tricky to get right. I know, I have tried. But after looking at the way they have done it here I am thinking that I need five times as many photos and frame that are similar but not identical.

Also I need that hallway and stairwell too. Do you think they sell them in the aisles of Target?

One of their houses is in Great Barrington, MA, and is actually not that far from where I live. Do you think if I drop by I can be their eight child?

I love the bright airy nature of this kitchen. In New England where it is often too cold to spend much time outdoors for a few months in the winter, a kitchen that employs good use of natural light is wonderful.

I could see snuggling on this sofa, under a bunch of cozy blankets, reading stories to the kids.

Not an oxymoron anymore!

Modern. Stylish. Contemporary.

Designed by architect Christopher C. Deams, this mobile home takes a much maligned type of dwelling and shows that it could be revitalized and made more contemporary for today’s consumers.

After spending all that money on your brand new countertop, not to mention the time and energy deciding on the countertop you love and can live with for a long time. You want to make sure that you take care of it properly so that it will last for years to come.

The goal of sealing your countertop is to give it a protective layer that will make it impenetrable to spills and stains. Natural stones are notorious for the porous quality.

How do you know if your countertop needs to be sealed? An easy way to test this to place a few beads of water on it. Let the water sit for about 30 minutes and then wipe away. If the countertop darkened, then some of the water was absorbed and it needs to be sealed again.

How do you seal your countertop? First you want to thoroughly clean your counter off. You don’t want to seal stains INTO the countertop. Use a special countertop cleaner to thoroughly clean and disinfect the countertop.

After allowing the countertop to dry, you want to apply the sealer with a brush or clean cloth. Work in small areas. After 3-5 minutes you need to wipe off any excess with a clean dry cloth. If there is no excess it means that all of the sealer has been absorbed into the countertop. If that is the case you will want to go over the countertop again with more sealer until the countertop is unable to absorb anymore. Allow it to completely dry.

Enjoy your new countertop, worry free.

Frozen water pipes. No other words can strike such fear into the hearts of homeowners in cold climates.

Most houses, especially older ones that are not as energy efficient, have an area where the pipes tend to freeze. In my house a powder room in the front of the house has the pipes for the sink run through a crawl space under the bathroom floor. They freeze every winter. So far we have always caught them before the burst.

In 2007, there were about $150 million in insurance claims nationwide for damages caused by frozen pipes, said Jeff McCollum, a spokesman for State Farm Insurance in Bloomington, Ill. Figures haven’t been calculated for 2008, but Mr. McCollum doesn’t expect a decrease in claims. “I’ve seen four or five this week alone,” he said.

What can you do to prevent the pipes freezing?

In our bathroom we have solved the problem by putting a space heater in the bathroom and heating the small room to a very warm temperature. If we will be away from the house for any sort of extended time, like a vacation, we drain the pipes and turn the water off to the bathroom. On bitter cold days when the temperature drops to the negative digits without the windchill, I turn the faucets on to drip in the other faucets on the first floor of our house.

One way to prevent those pipes from freezing is to lay electrical heat tape along their length. The tape, which contains wires that become warm when plugged into an outlet, comes in lengths of 6 to 50 feet, and costs $4 to $5 a foot at hardware stores and home centers.

Foam rubber or fiberglass insulation can also be used to cover all exposed lengths and joints of the pipe if electrical solutions are inappropriate.

If the area where the pipes are freezing are concentrated to one specific area, you can direct a heat lamp towards them, similar solution to the one that we employ by heating up the tiny powder room.

Insulate, insulate, insulate. Block the incoming drafts.

This Old House, love the show or hate it, it is the one that started it all. I remember way back in the Dark Ages when This Old House was the only home improvement show on television. My husband and I would sit and watch it on our PBS station and dream of one day being able to buy and remodel an old house of our own. It never occurred to us back then that the This Old House budget was virtually unlimited.

This Old House was the catalyst for many in the DIY movement. Because if they could do _____ (fill in the blank) then so could I! Because they just showed me how to do it! And surely plastering my walls with home made horse hair plaster is not that difficult. Right?

Now This Old House is having a contest. The second annual best remodel contest, whether you have done an entire house or just gave your home some much needed curb appeal, all categories and budgets are welcomed.

First prize is $5,000, with 5 runner-up prizes of $1000.

Now I am looking around my house trying to decide what room I should enter into the contest. Hmmmmmmm.

In the past week, we have had TWO holes in sheetrock that needed to be repaired.

One was from a water leak. The other from a child who “accidentally” punched the wall and “accidentally” made a hole.

Repairing holes in sheetrock, while annoying because they COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED, are relatively simple repairs.

Step One:

Curse, stomp, and generally let everyone within earshot know how put out you are feeling.

Step Two:

Gather your supplies: sheetrock, sheetrock knife, putty knife, self adhesive fiberglass tape, joint compound, piece of scrap board.

Step Three:

Cut out the damaged area. Make it a nice smooth even square or rectangle. Remember that you will be measuring and cutting an exact replica of the space out of sheetrock to fill the hole.

Step Four:

Screw the scrap board into place. This acts as a support under the new patch of sheetrock from the backside of the wall. Is that confusing? Basically you want a board that extends horizontally beyond the edges of the hole by a couple of inches. You will then screw this into place through the existing sheetrock. Now you have something for the new piece of sheetrock to lean against so that it doesn’t just fall into the dark abyss. Depending on the size of your hole, you may need more than one board.

Step Five:

Use the self adhesive fiberglass tape on all the edges to secure the sheetrock piece in place.

Step Six:

Use a drywall or putty knife to apply an even coat of joint compound over the patch and fiberglass tape. You will want to extend the joint compound well over the edge of the fiberglass tape. Remember your goal is to create a seamless patch. You will want to taper and feather the edges so that it blends.

Step Seven:

Allow to fully dry. Lightly sand. LIGHTLY being the keyword.

Step Eight:

Repeat steps Six and Seven.

Step Nine:

Once the patched area is smooth and even with the wall, it is time to paint.

Every year HGTV builds and then gives away a Dream Home.

This years Dream Home is located in Sonoma, California… wine country. The home’s 3,600 square feet on two floors includes three bedrooms, three-and-a-half bathrooms, a home office, gourmet kitchen and a two-car garage. Outside, the house welcomes visitors with front and back porches and a landscape designed with outdoor entertaining in mind, and a two-car detached garage.

Enter here for your chance to win. You can enter daily from now through February 19, 2009.

Keep this part in mind though while you are dreaming of living in your new Dream Home:

All costs, taxes, fees, and expenses associated with the prize or the acceptance and use of any element of the prize not specifically addressed above are the sole responsibility of the winner. All federal, state, and local taxes on prize are winner’s responsibility. Grand Prize Winner will be issued a 1099 tax form for the ARV of the prize. (ARV is over 2 million. Dollars, that is.)

I personally like to imagine myself winning and then selling the house so that I can buy myself a Dream House that I can actually afford.

Don’t you want to go all out and decorate your house with your team paraphenalia?

Like this fireplace screen?

No? A little over the top for you? Or maybe your wife?

Maybe a team hammer instead?

Carpeting made from corn is just the latest in the environmentally friendly movement. Seems everything else is being made with corn, why not floor covering!

This new product replaces the need for petroleum based fibers and was just unveiled at the latest building products show.

Mohawk currently makes an environmentally friendly product that uses recycled plastic bottles. One out of every four bottles recycled in North America becomes Ever Strand fiber.

The next step for the company is marketing the Smart Strand fiber carpeting and utilizing our excess corn production.

According to the This Old House website: The fibers require 30 percent less energy to make than comparable nylon, the production of these fibers produces fewer emissions, and nearly every spill on the carpet cleans up with water so you won’t need to worry about using many cleaning chemicals.

Look for this carpet line soon in stores near you. It will retail for about $16 per square/ yard.

An ice dam is a ridge of ice that forms on the edge of your roof and prevents the melting snow and ice from draining off into the gutters. The water then begins to go backwards up beneath your shingles and then into your house.

You may not be able to prevent an ice dam from occurring, but you can prevent the damage that they cause by taking a few simple steps.

Those icicles that hang off of the roof and look so pretty, really are not desirable.

How do ice dams form?

First off it snows and you have a nice layer thick layer of snow covering your roof.

Then either the sun, or loss of heat from your home, cause the snow on your roof to melt. Water begins to flow under the snow on its way down the roof. If the air temperature is below freezing, the temperature of the roof deck, gutters, valley flashing and downspouts very possibly will be below freezing. When the melting water hits these cold surfaces it begins to rapidly freeze and the gutters and downspouts are choked with ice.

The ice continues to build up at the edge of the roof or gutter. If the water is melting at a faster rate than it can freeze, it begins to back up underneath the roofing materials. This is when problems arise. Serious problems.

SO what can you do?

If it is possible, shovel the snow off of the roof. Without snow on the roof there can be no ice dam formation. This is especially true in problem areas.

The second thing is to minimize heat loss through the roof. Increase the ceiling/roof insulation, at least an R value of 38, to cut down on heat loss.