Renovating My Old House

  I suppose I should entitle this post: What does it mean to me to own a home? My thoughts about home ownership have evolved since when I first started this blog many years ago.  Back when we first bought the house we were so young, had so much energy and were amazed at this complicated but wonderful house we now owned.   A lot of life happens in people's homes.  It is a place where some of your happiest memories are made, and it can be a place where you experience great suffering, which can come in the form of illnesses, and grief. I think in the early years I didn't really understand what home ownership meant.  You cannot just live in a house.  You have to constantly repair, replace, clean, update and upkeep.  I know we were doing that a great deal in the beginning, but we had a few years when we were busy with having kids, and forgot about it for awhile.  In that timeframe several things went wrong with the house.  We had major plumb...

 Asbestos--despite being carcinogenic to human life--would have otherwise been a very useful building material.  I read somewhere that the ancient Greeks or Romans had asbestos napkins which they would throw into the fire to clean (the internet is not clear on whether it was the Greeks or the Romans).  The napkins would not burn and would come out clean and white.  It may be surprising to us now, but even the ancient Greeks & Romans noticed that the slaves who worked with this material would prematurely sicken and die.  Why did it take modern society so long to do anything about it? In most homes today you will find asbestos in tile flooring, external house siding, joint compound, attic insulation, and maybe even insulation around hot pipes.  Before we started any project in our house, we often did check and worry about possible asbestos.  Every time I had to check for asbestos I would wonder: what were the people who built with this stuff thinking...