Seeing your old houses changed by new owners can be harder than you expect. This week we talk about coping with that feeling, finding the silver lining when someone undoes your work, and how we moved past the sting of those changes. Back at our current home, we finally took a long-overdue, surprisingly easy step to make the driveway more kid-friendly. We also cover items you should avoid buying secondhand, why Sherry is back in braces for a bit longer, and how our beach house has an unsettling connection to a local true-crime story.
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What’s New
Hallelujah — our driveway is finally paved. The photos show lighter and darker patches because it had just rained, but you can also see how out of control weeds had become along the driveway edge before the work began. The kids wanted a smooth place to scoot and ride their bikes, so this upgrade was as much about safety and play as it was about curb appeal.
The crew we hired worked quickly, and it was oddly entertaining for the whole family to watch a messy, weedy driveway transform over the course of an afternoon. If you need a kid-friendly home improvement that doubles as entertainment, paving the driveway is worth considering.
Also, in case you were wondering about Sherry’s dental update now that her Invisalign treatment has been extended, here’s a still from a short clip she shared. She’s leaning on a playful dog filter to distract from the elastics and aligner accessories.
What’s Not
- We discussed a recent list of items you should avoid buying used and why secondhand shopping requires caution for certain products.
- We also referenced guidance on the kinds of things that make sense to buy secondhand, and how to tell when you’re getting a good value versus taking an unnecessary risk.
Listener Question
- We linked back to photo galleries of our first and second houses so listeners could see the projects and spaces we mentioned.
- Sherry was right — we had actually talked about our first house being for sale way back in Episode #13. I was surprised I forgot that detail.
- Below is a photo of our bedroom as we used it, featuring built-in closets on either side that added important storage. We don’t have a photo of how it looked after the new owners removed those built-ins, but it essentially reverted to the room’s original appearance before we added the storage.
We also shared photos showing how the fence at our first house changed the feel of the yard. One image shows the lower-profile fence we installed, which kept the yard and driveway visually connected. A later photo from a visit a few years on shows a taller, more substantial fence. It’s well made, but it does separate the spaces more than our original design did.
We also reflected on choices we would reconsider in our last house’s kitchen layout, specifically an opening to the dining room that, in hindsight, we might have designed differently. You can see the kitchen’s distinctive “P” shape in the project photos we referenced.
And in a lighter moment, I mangled a pop-culture reference while trying to recall advice from an interview, but I captured the general spirit even if the wording got fuzzy.
We’re Digging
- I’m currently reading a book about a series of arsons on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, not far from our beach house. The story has kept getting more compelling as I’ve dug deeper into the investigative thread and local history.
- The photo above isn’t from the book; it’s a landscape shot Sherry took earlier this year in the county where some of those fires occurred. It evokes the abandoned homes and the sadness of those events.
- We also wondered aloud about a trendy new beverage Sherry likes — is it truly healthy, or are there hidden downsides? We didn’t come to a firm conclusion, so we encouraged listeners to weigh claims carefully and consult reliable information when in doubt.
If you want a master list of projects and resources we’ve mentioned on past episodes, we keep an organized list of everything we’ve been digging into across shows for easy reference.
Finally, a thank-you to our sponsor Grove Collaborative for supporting this episode. As a note, the post included a sponsor promotion and imagery for our listeners to check out.
Thanks for listening, everyone!
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