A Year in the Life of

our home. We keep a "home journal" which records significant repairs, remodels, or changes to the house. This book serves as an overall progress report and a reference for us and whomever might own our house in future years. Here's a summary of what got recorded in this book in 2009:

Changed the filter for the water purification system;

Installed a new door handle on downstairs bathroom, finally to make it latch properly ("antique brass" color);

Installed new toilet seat in upstairs bathroom;

Cleaned gutters and applied gutter seal to seams;

Built pellet shed on the end of the screened-in porch;

Finally had a pro get our boiler working properly (wrong air/propane mixture);

Same guy that fixed our boiler replaced our water pressure switch;

Had a false alarm in water filtration system (turns out the pump was plugged into a dummy outlet--oops);

Pros came and performed annual cleaning on our pellet stove and chimney;

Our favorite vinyl window guys came and replaced 6 windows (praise the Lord for tax credits!);

Applied tar around the flashing on the chimney, to keep water from leaking into our bedroom;

Erected lattice fence to keep our daughter out of the creek;

Same super-duper heating and plumbing guys fixed the zone valves and aquastat on our hot water tank--long, hot showers, here we come;

Changed water filter again (To be done every six months? Oops); and

Replaced door and latch mechanism on the candle room door ("satin nickel" color--so much more chic than "antique brass").

Whew! That's enough to make you take the winter off, eh? Alas, with one more year of tax credits and plans for a new bedroom closet, I think 2010 will see a few more entries in our little home journal. I guess it's all part of owning a home. What a blessing.

~emrys