Every house has its story. What's yours?

Leave it to Google to to help us save energy. How, you ask? Well they are developing a device that will help us all understand many of the following questions:

- How much it costs to leave your TV on all day?

- How much does it cost to lower your air conditioning 1 degree?

- Does your refridgerator or your dishwasher uses more power every month?

- How much more or less energy efficient is your household than similar homes in your neighborhood?    » read more »

Life is full of surprising and intellectually stimulating interludes, particularly when one's household is equipped with offspring of an adventurous and inquisitive nature. One of the offspring contingent of this particular household presented me with an interlude of that sort mere minutes ago by accidentally drawing a thick blue line in permanent marker smack dab in the middle of the kitchen floor--a nice absorbent oak surface.

My wife, the Viking descendent, threw in the towel immediately after taking a few desultory swipes at the blot with some window cleaner.    » read more »

I may have mentioned in a previous post that our house is a rambling, character-oozing dwelling with multitudinous charms, but a bit on the elderly side, at least for this part of the world. Built primarily in 1930, with extensions added in the 1950s and the 1960s, it is festooned with interesting little nooks and crannies. As we discovered the other week, it appears to be festooned with something else as well - pesky little rodents.

Well, not festooned exactly. More like sprinkled.    » read more »

Our new house, a large, rambling, u-shaped one-floor dream house (at least for us), neatly tucked away on an island in the Stockholm archipelago, came equipped with an unexpected pleasure (or curse, depending on how you care to look at it): in particular, a swimming pool.    » read more »