New York Renovator

Spring Time Chores

Posted on04. May, 2009 by Mrs. Mecomber.

As we Northeasterners have been crawling out of our hibernation, spring slowly arrives. My spring flowers are now blooming. Spring came early this year for Upstate New York– i.e., no snow in April! Usually, we don’t allow those sporadic 70-80 degree days to fool us. We know a snowstorm could (and has) happened. But this [...]

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Installing a French Drain

Posted on20. Aug, 2008 by Mrs. Mecomber.

Old houses often have water problems. Mine sure does. Last year, the kids and I worked all summer on building a huge drywell area, to lead rainwater runoff from the roof away from the foundation of the house. You can read more about it here and here and here.

It has helped our water situation, somewhat, [...]

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It’s Done!

Posted on28. Jul, 2007 by Mrs. Mecomber.

Our drywell project is completed! We sweated it out on one of the hottest days of the summer to finish it. I’ll keep the narrative brief, with photos:
Below: Filling with rocks.

We elimated our “rock pile” with this project. Our rock pile was a collection of various rocks, bricks, broken asphalt, and broken cinder blocks, all [...]

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A Smashing Job

Posted on23. Jul, 2007 by Mrs. Mecomber.

Today we progressed more on our drywell project. The hardest of the project is behind us!
Last week, I bought a very large plastic garbage barrel (I could not find a regular rain barrel) and drilled a 4-inch hole in the bottom side.

The kids laid about a foot’s depth of rocks at the bottom of our [...]

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Progress!

Posted on14. Jul, 2007 by Mrs. Mecomber.

We’ve been really pushing ourselves, working all day on our projects (and eating nothing but leftovers, too). We have two teams going: one group is out in the trench for our drywell (the Outside Crew), the other is inside working on the plaster/lathe removal and wall/chimney repair (the Inside Crew). Here’s some great progress we’ve [...]

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