Author: c-ville-abode

The younger Staffords, Elizabeth and William, are getting an early education in small-scale viticulture.

When they talk about the vineyard in their front yard, Philip and Martha Stafford—he a C&O founder and Michael Shaps’ partner in Virginia Wineworks; she the Charlottesville Cooking School proprietor—show an appealing mix of seriousness and self-deprecation. “I do think of it as a vineyard,” says Philip of their 50 or so vines, running in four rows down the slope of their yard toward the driveway. “There’s probably an Italian word that denotes a very small vineyard, but I don’t know what that is.”

It is small, but it seems to be flourishing. The spot faces the morning sun and sits on high ground—good for avoiding late frosts. And it’s well-loved. Actually growing grapes was a dream of Philip’s through a career “in restaurants, retail, the parts of the business where you move wine around…One of the reasons to come back here [from New York, where he and Martha married] was to try to grow some grapes.”

Six years ago, the Staffords came to this brick house on Dairy Road. “We thought, well shoot—it’s not much, but it’s a great spot,” Philip says.

Now, the vineyard is a family project, pulling in 13-year-old Elizabeth and 6-year-old William. The Staffords have already made wine at home, using grapes grown elsewhere—crushed by Elizabeth “and a bunch of her little friends, with their pants rolled up to their knees,” remembers Martha—and this year they hope to produce their first vintage from a homegrown crop. “It could be the ultimate boutique wine,” Martha jokes. “Stafford Front Yard Wine.”—Erika Howsare

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Philip: “They’re all red wine grapes. I wanted to see what some grape varieties would do that aren’t normally planted in Virginia—zinfandel and pinot noir. So it’s an experimental vineyard. And it’s a microcosm, because we’re buying tons of grapes from local vineyards [at the Wineworks], so I can go out in the morning and see what’s happening here and get a sense of what’s going on [at other vineyards].

“For example, last week we had bud break. You can see the difference in the vines; some bud earlier than others. They came out four or five days ago, and it’s been cold so there hasn’t been much growth. But now that it’s sunny, they’ll grow.

“Elizabeth goes out and helps, and William, our son, will help. They seem to have a good time. Elizabeth just helped me put in a couple of posts. Both William and Elizabeth came out and did some pruning. You prune severely; otherwise you get way too much growth.

“They’ll probably help put the netting up for the deer. That’s a family affair. We have a lot of deer here. They took most of our grapes last year. I knew they were coming; I’d ordered the deer netting. But I was three days too late. It came two days after they got the grapes.

“At the harvest, everybody will be out there. We’ll have our pruning shears. We’ll dress in native garb and sing harvest songs.

“We’re hoping for a few hundred pounds of grapes. That would make five or six cases of wine; that’s not bad. That’ll last us a week or two. [They laugh.] We’ve got the whole [setup] for making wine in the basement. You need something to ferment in, you need a press…you have to go down twice a day and mix it up.”

Martha: “We’ve had neighbors come in and mix the grapes when we’re away.”

Philip: “You can make wine at home. It’s like cooking. If you don’t start with good ingredients, it’s not going to be very good. But if you start with good ingredients and keep everything really clean, you can make some good wine. Better than plenty of wines on shelves.

“We’re trying to get the neighbors to grow grapes. There’s a neighbor there with a few vines, a neighbor there with a few….We’re trying to encourage Dairy Road to become a wine-growing region. Really! If we had three or four neighbors with 10 vines apiece…”

Martha: “That would slow traffic down on Dairy Road.”

Main Street USA

Location: Gordonsville
Price: $199,900
MLS#: 464380

Within walking distance of downtown Gordonsville, this 2,000-square-footer shouts “Americana!” Maybe it’s the blooming backyard camellias and magnolias—maybe it’s the stained glass windows and 1935 bungalow-style chic. Either way, we can totally see Ma, Pa and the kids sitting down for dinner in the big dining room or reading bedtime stories in the topmost bedroom, one of four. Oh, the good ol’ days.

 

Rock away

Location: Amherst
Price: $385,000
MLS#: 459401

Longing for a rocking chair retreat? Built in 1802 and still as spry as ever, this farmhouse sits on 30 acres of rolling hills, country lanes, and Blue Ridge vistas. Inside, there’s heart pine flooring, five fireplaces, and all the modern amenities; plus, standing sturdy at 2,732 square feet, it’s got plenty of peace and quiet. Not to mention all the front porch you can handle.

 

Get your feet wet

Location: Spotsylvania
Price: $279,000
MLS#: 448785

Grab your towel, trunks, and flippy-floppys and hit the deck! If vacay for you and the gang means splishing and splashing, this Lake Anna condo offers lake access and is said to sleep 10—no small feat, with 1,344 square feet and two bedrooms. That requires some family togetherness, but the layout is open, there are extra beds, and not one but two balconies for admiring that lake view.—Lucy Zhou

Buy green, borrow green

So, you’ve greened your utilities, duds, and diapers, but what about your mortgage? Green banks such as New Resource put an eco-minded spin on your finances. More than going paperless, these banks offer options such as equity lines for solar homes and a concern for the environment as well as the bottom line.

How do you say “green” in Pig Latin?

However, don’t think that a big green sticker automatically makes eco-banking a better option than your credit union or neighborhood Wachovia, since local banking itself means some waste reduction. Some stuff to ponder: in Green America’s recent attempt to rank banks’ green responsibility, Wachovia and Suntrust beat out Bank of America, but they could all stand to improve. Also, comparing mortgaging and home equity options, green often means slimmer pickings and less generous terms.

How do you know if green financing is right for you? If you’re thinking about building an eco-friendly home, banks like New Resource and E3bank offer financing options specifically designed for green projects; they also tend to be more flexible with funding for green retrofitting, and may offer advising services on the available options for those still brainstorming. Green loans for green houses? Makes sense to us.—Lucy Zhou

The market report

If it hasn’t already gotten underway, your favorite farmes market will probably kick off the season this month. Charlottesville’s big, beloved City Market has been going strong since April, every Saturday from 7am to noon, but a raft of smaller markets will join the scene in May and June. Rejoice!

Farmers markets are here, and strawberries are just the beginning!

Crozet Farmers Market starts May 2 and will brighten up your Saturday mornings, 8am-noon.

Forest Lakes Farmers Market kicks off June 3, bringing the good stuff to the 29N crowd every Tuesday 4-7pm.

Scottsville Farmers Market is underway now and happens not once but twice a week: Thursday 3-7pm and Saturday 9am-noon.

The City’s other market, in Meade Park, will start May 27 and run every Wednesday thereafter, 3-7pm.

More distant locales: Fluvanna Farmers Market has already begun (Tuesdays 3-7pm), the Nelson Farmers Market starts May 2 (Saturdays 8am-noon), and the Orange County Farmers Market starts May 2 (Wednesdays noon-5pm and Saturdays 8am-1pm).—Erika Howsare

Milling around

The black metal InSpire Wall is an amazingly simple, nearly cost-free way to heat industrial buildings.

When it’s your home, it’s okay to be fussy about the details—that’s why we’re delighted with the new Fluvanna millshop run by Better Living Building Supply, recently trumpeted for its green-thinking design. The facility, designed by local architectural firm The Gaines Group, was awarded a silver medal in the 2009 Governor’s Environmental Excellence Awards, and makes some snazzy trim and moulding, to boot.

What caught the committee’s eye? Gaines Group architect Charles Hendricks lists a ton of green features, but the solar savvy InSpire Wall stands out. The wall, made from black metal and designed to capture solar heated air, is the facility’s main source of heat. “It’s so simple that it blows me away,” says Hendricks. “It lets the owner heat the whole 24,000-square-foot facility pretty much for free.”

LEED-certified, solar savvy, and water efficient, the BLBS millshop appeals for its dedication to green principles as well as offering custom millwork next time you need to replace a baseboard. While it specializes in period restoration, never fear: the millshop keeps it real with current equipment and green innovation.—L.Z.

Fertilize this

Fertilize the fishy way.

If you’re like us, you’ve got a nice little selection of young plants in your garden right now—cherry tomatoes in a container, kale in the ground, maybe even some garlic you planted last fall. It’s great to give those little guys a boost, but if you find yourself standing over the plants with a chemical fertilizer in hand, stop! Instead of the artificial stuff, which ends up in the watershed and creates sci-fi plant growth that, frankly, we find creepy, try organic fertilizers like Neptune’s Harvest (made from fish!) or plain old compost. Bigger yields and a nonpolluted planet? Everybody wins.—E.H.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Calling all ingredients…

Open your refrigerator crisper. It likely contains something which has been long forgotten and transformed into some primordial juice. So this month’s challenge? Let’s try using ALL the food in the fridge, whether from the farmers market, your CSA share, or the grocery store. Here’s how.

Take inventory and make a plan. Before you go shopping, check your refrigerator for the foods you already have. This allows you to incorporate those items as well as avoid doubling up on any one ingredient. If you need help, log on to recipezaar.com where you can type the list of ingredients for which you need a recipe.

I swear by making a weekly menu. This helps me overlap ingredients, which is money-saving and food-saving.

Despite our best efforts, we may still have some neglected items. Popular ones, especially this time of year, include kale, beet greens, collards, and spinach. This frittata recipe is great for potluck parties. Make two and freeze one.

Check out Better World Betty’s local green living resource list at betterworldbetty.com and blog at cvillebettyblog.blogspot.com.

 

FRITTATA

4 cups of chopped kale or swiss chard or other green (take out the stems)
8 large garlic cloves (roasted with olive oil in a skillet or oven)
6 large eggs
1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese
olive oil

Beat the eggs, kale, garlic, salt and pepper.
Oil a 10” cast iron skillet with olive oil. Pour in the egg mixture, top with cheese and cook until the eggs set. Cook the remainder for two minutes in an oven set on broil.

What’s the hatch?

What’s going on here? A door is repurposed as the centerpiece of an attic hatch. Watch your step.

Though we dream of converting the attic in our house to a master bedroom, for now it remains an officially unfinished space. Therefore, our renovation loan required us to close off the attic with a temporary hatch. A simple piece of plywood laid over the stairwell would have sufficed, but what kind of class act would that be?

Instead, we decided to use a leftover interior door. It’s just like all the other doors inside the house, but it would lie horizontally at the top of the stairs, making a kind of visual joke, Alice in Wonderland-style.
 
The stair opening was much bigger than the door, so we had to surround it with a frame that we quickly built with 2x4s. Quickly, yes, but sturdily—we thought it would be good to be able to walk on this hatch if we were ever up in the attic working on a project. So we built the frame the way we would have built a wall, with studs 16" on center, then attached it to the door. Some cabinet-grade plywood to face the frame around the door, and our hatch was done.

If you guessed that this thing is heavy to push up over our heads every time we make a trip to the attic, you’re right. We just think of it as good exercise. And besides, it’s only temporary.

 

The drill of it all

If you’re hanging a picture, changing out a switchplate, or attempting any sort of carpentry, it’s likely you’ll be reaching for a power drill. Since the drill itself is basically just a motor that makes things rotate, you can use it for lots of different tasks depending on what bit you load into it. It won’t wash dishes, but it does almost everything else.

Bit by bit, this is your (almost) all-purpose tool.

First of all, of course, it drills holes—into wood, brick, concrete or tile—and there are many types and sizes of drill bits for different jobs. If you’re just putting a pilot hole into a 2×4, a basic “twist bit” will do; if you want to drill into your basement’s concrete wall, you’ll need a masonry bit. More complex projects might require specialized bits like forstners or dowel bits.

You can also put driver bits into your power drill, turning it into a screwdriver for any type of screw (Phillips, flathead, etc.). And don’t miss the fun of using a hole saw to create large round openings in wood or plastic.

For most folks, a battery drill will be just fine; a more powerful plug-in drill might be worthwhile for really big projects. To change bits, some models use a “chuck key” with which you loosen the tool’s grip on the bit, and others are keyless and can be changed by hand. Check the manual, or hit up a handy neighbor for help.—Erika Howsare

Come over for coffee

Looking for the best coffee tables in town? We’ve done the hunting for you. Put on a pot of joe and dust off the biggest, glossiest book you own.

Double coffee table from The Second Yard
Hello, storage! With book and coasters tucked on the bottom shelf, the top will stay uncluttered—in theory, anyway.

Mirror table from The Artful Lodger
Silver-leaf legs and a mirrored top make this table a shiny conversation piece, and lend a modern touch to a classic shape.

Mission table from Classic Furniture
We love the warm finish and the proven style of this Stickley-inspired piece. It’ll make an understated focal point for a room.

Reclaimed teak and iron table from Quince
With its hand-hammered base, eco-approved top and industrial profile, this one says “loft” loud and clear.

Oval bamboo-look table from Kenny Ball Antiques
This luxe beauty’s got very pretty legs, brass-and-glass contrast and an urban, Euro-influenced feel.

Northern highlights

Move over, Ikea: Andrew Hollingsworth’s Danish Modern has all the clean lines and lean, economical curves you could ever desire. Showcasing classic, more-than-modern stars of Danish furniture design against swathes of white space and interesting historical tidbits, this quintessential coffee table book comes complete with coffee tables, furniture care instructions, and the little voyeuristic thrill of peeking into other people’s bedrooms.—Lucy Zhou

 

 

Scoop me up

Suckers for copper anything—lighting fixtures, pots and pans, roofs—we couldn’t help but be attracted to these ladles, handmade by Bruce Hansen and sold at Vivian’s, that combine copper, brass and silver for a coat-of-many-colors look. We also like that the utensils could do as much for the appearance of your kitchen as for its function.

 

 

 

 

 

Balance your portfolio

For some reason, as I contemplate the candy-colored bulbs of spring, the old warning against putting all your eggs in one basket keeps occurring to me. Diversity pays off in the garden perhaps even more than in the financial world—Mother Nature doesn’t do bailouts, and a wide variety of daffodils insures against a truncated flower season.
 
As usual, capricious temperatures lured early Narcissus into bloom then laid them low with a couple of single-digit nights. Picked the next day, these blossoms were fine for the house, but their longer outdoor display was cut short.

Handily enough, daffodils are toxic to deer.

Scattered among varieties with different bloom times (categorized, like daylilies and peonies, into “early, mid-season and late”), daffodils don’t all open up at the same time. And though a few stalks might fall over during early arctic spells, you can count on later bloomers to come in waves through at least part of May.

Daffodils are botanically named Narcissus for the ancient drowned youth who was turned into the flower after trying to kiss his reflection in the water (those Greeks!). They grow wild in southwestern Europe, in a swath from Spain through Switzerland, Italy and Greece into bits of northern Africa, and the bulbs are adapted to temperature extremes as well as drought.

Because they are toxic to deer, squirrels and other varmints and increase over the years, unlike the more difficult tulips, daffodils play a major role here in our hollow. Flowers began this year in late February with the miniature ‘Tete-a-Tete’ blooming its little double heads off in nosegay clumps as small as 4 to 6 inches. They keep growing as they flower, ending up 8 to 10 inches tall, a far cry from the great honking ‘King Alfred’ trumpet types that max out over a foot.

I love the miniatures because their small bulbs are easy to plant and their delicate form shows up nicely against the fieldstone edges of our borders but our collection includes most of the other divisions of the genus Narcissus as well, including the star of mid-season, the lovely old white nodding species “Swan’s Neck.”

The small cupped ‘Ice Follies’ were laying on the ground after the last 9-degree night while the miniature ‘Segovia’ and later poeticus varieties, whose flowers will mark the tail end of our daffodil season, have hardly put up their first green shoots.

Explore this world in Brent and Becky Heath’s definitive Daffodils for American Gardens (Elliott & Clark, 1995).

Temperature differences are also key in the new vegetable/cutting/kitchen garden created by the deer fence. The lower bed is a good 18 inches downhill from the upper bed, and has a bit of shade, so we are presented with a cooler, moister bed for the lettuces that I hope will extend our season later into the summer for cool weather crops. The upper, sunnier bed is perfect for heat lovers like tomatoes and peppers and will give warmer soil for earlier planting.

An inexpensive soil thermometer stuck into the ground on successive afternoons, much like a meat thermometer, reveals a difference of 8 to 10 degrees between the two beds in March. My trusty Territorial Seed Catalog gives the optimum temps for germination. Lettuces can sprout as low as 40 degrees, but parsnips risk rotting in soils cooler than 55. Keeping records in our old garden notebook of planting dates and temperatures makes us feel like Thomas Jefferson.

Don’t miss Virginia Garden Week (VAGardenweek.org), April 18-25, for a chance to see stately country homes in Free Union and, on April 21, guided tours at the University’s Pavilion Gardens and Carr’s Hill.—Cathy Clary

Preen that patio

Winter’s waning, and we’re guessing that those long months of rain, sleet and snow have left your lawn chairs and patio set looking woebegone. Before potluck and barbecue season sets in, here’s how to get your outdoor furniture looking prim enough to face any nosy neighbor:

Mild detergent will clean your porch furniture right up.

1. Soak dirty cushions in a tub with detergent and water. A little bleach can do a lot of mildew-killing good for white cushions, but you’ll simply have to wash that flashy fuschia-pink set more frequently.

2. Hopefully you’ve stored your wood furniture inside for a winter siesta, but yearly cleaning will give it some extra shine. A garden hose and some mild detergent will do; give the furniture a good scrub and avoid high pressure hosing to prevent painted wood from flaking.

3. Aluminum furniture benefits from a little polishing paste to stop oxidation, but avoid alkaline cleaners, which will do just the opposite; a 1:1 mix of white vinegar and water will do the trick if your furniture is only lightly affected. You can protect both aluminum and cast iron furniture with regular cleaning and a few coats of auto wax to keep out moisture.—Lucy Zhou

 

 

Store up the sunshine

Winter is fading into memory, but it is still quite some time until local vegetables are truly in abundance; it takes the sun even longer to sweeten any fruit to ripeness, although strawberries should be making an appearance in May. 

Lemon zest can improve everything from the flavor of your French toast batter to the odor of your trashcan.

When last lingering in the produce department, the organic citrus seemed to be shining—indicating the end of the season, when ripeness is peak and price is low. Look for vividly colored rinds and fruit that yields to the touch. Citrus can be stored at room temperature, which will allow it to keep ripening, or in the refrigerator, which will keep a ripe fruit from going soft.

When you spring for organic citrus, double your money by zesting the fruit before you eat it. The zest is the outermost layer of peel—just the part that is colored, not the bitter white rind underneath. The zest can be stored in the freezer or “preserved” by burying it in salt or sugar (which also infuses the crystals with citrus oil). It adds a zesty flavor to French toast batter, meat marinades, salad dressings, baked goods, bar mixes, and chocolate truffles. Finally, adding zest to vinegar, oil, vanilla, and even booze will offer whiffs and sips of customized condiments. If you run out of ideas, you can always sprinkle some in the bath or the bottom of a stinky trashcan.—Lisa Reeder

Small but mighty

For a fine, light dusting of zest, it pays to invest in a microplane zester. This device comes with a sheath like a sword, and is indeed just as powerful. Its handled design is knuckle-saving (as opposed to the box grater), with tiny holes and sharp teeth that, when applied with gentle pressure, remove the zest from even the ripest citrus without mashing the fruit. Microplanes are also perfect for tiny curls of aged cheeses like Everona Piedmont or Parmigiano Reggiano, or for grating chocolate on top of your cocoa. Available at the Seasonal Cook (seasonal cook.com).—L.R.

Orange Bread Pudding

The Inn at Court Square gave us this recipe, a zesty winner for breakfast.

Bread pudding
2/3 cups milk
1 2/3 cups whipping cream
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
2 tsp. grated orange or clementine zest
1 tsp. vanilla extract
24 slices of croissants, 1/2-inch thick
1/2 cup toasted pecans, chopped

Put 1 2/3 cups each of milk and heavy cream in a saucepan and add the sugar. Warm over low heat, stirring to dissolve sugar. Remove from heat and cool. Add the eggs, orange zest and vanilla and mix well. Arrange half of the croissants in a buttered 9- or 10-inch baking dish. Sprinkle half of the pecans on croissants. Arrange remaining croissants and sprinkle on rest of pecans. Pour egg mixture evenly on the croissants. Soak for 30 minutes.

Press the top layer of croissants into the liquid once or twice. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Set the baking dish in a roasting pan. Add enough water to the pan to come halfway up the side of the dish. Bring to a boil. Transfer to oven. Bake for 40 minutes or until the pudding is set and golden brown on top. Sprinkle top of pudding with sifted confectioners’ sugar. Serve with clementine syrup.

Clementine Syrup
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup water
juice of half a lemon
4 clementines, sliced

In a non-reactive 2 1/2 quart saucepan, bring the sugar, water and lemon juice to a boil and caramelize to a deep amber. Using caution, add the sliced clementines. Caramel will bubble up as clementine juice is released into the caramel. Reduce to desired consistency and strain through a sieve. Let cool.

 

Plummeting home prices, low interest rates, foreclosure properties galore—if you’ve been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the opportune time to buy a house in this otherwise scary economy, the current tax season may be the perfect time (that is, assuming you still have a job). The federal government’s newly signed stimulus package has expanded the first-time home buyer tax credit in 2009 to $8,000 (up from $7,500 in 2008), or $4,000 for married individuals filing separately.

“$8,000 represents roughly 3 percent off the purchase price of the average $240,000 home,” says real estate agent Amy Bender Webb of Nest Realty Group and real estate blogger at ahomeincharlottesville.com. “That’s a significant price decrease.” Here’s an overview of what the new tax credit is and isn’t, and whether you qualify for it.

What it is

Fundamentally, the newly expanded tax credit is an attempt by the federal government to spur the economy by nudging people into homes which previously couldn’t find buyers (in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of houses like that these days). The sellers of those homes are in turn freed up to become buyers; on and on it goes until the housing market is in full steam again.

The new credit is just that—an actual credit that can be claimed on a buyer’s 2008 or 2009 federal tax return. In order to qualify, a home needs to be purchased between January 1 and December 1, 2009 and must be lived in for at least three years. Regardless of when you buy a home in ’09, you can still claim the credit on your 2008 tax return due April 15; for homes that close after that date, simply request an extension or file an amended return. Or wait until next year to claim it—if you think you might have less income in 2009 than in 2008 (thanks to the crappy economy), it might make more financial sense to wait until then. 

What it isn’t

It’s not a loan, unlike the $7,500 tax credit of 2008—aimed at first time buyers who purchased a home between April 9, 2008 and December 31, 2008—which had to be paid back in full in 15 years, starting two years after the credit was claimed.

Neither is the credit a big fat check you get in the mail. It simply lowers your tax bill dollar for dollar. If the credit is worth more than your total tax liability, you receive a tax refund.

Lastly, it’s not applicable toward second homes or rental properties.

 

Who qualifies

Technically, the credit is aimed at “first time” home buyers, but anyone who hasn’t owned a home in three years can take advantage of it. It’s also aimed primarily at middle-income earners. The credit begins to phase out for individuals making more than $75,000, or $150,000 for joint filers. And people earning more than $95,000, or married couples earning $170,000, are not eligible.

How to file

The credit is claimed using Form 5404. Go to irs.gov for more information.

A lot of couples—80 couples last year —see Claire Goodman as the figure who presides over one of the most important moments of their lives. She’s an interfaith minister who officiates at their weddings, and it’s up to her to not only blend various family and religious influences, but to lend an air of holiness and calm to the proceedings.

Yet she’s also an entrepreneur who’s been in business for herself for five years. She maintains an active wedding blog, books weekday wedding packages, and, she says, “I always have an idea or two or three or four in the hopper.” Goodman works from home—specifically, from her bedroom—and her workspace is an interesting blend of the spiritual and the practical. Her bookshelf, for example, holds several dozen volumes of wedding traditions from all nations and religions, alongside Blogging for Dummies.

The room, which she calls “the primary reason I bought the house,” is tucked under the eaves of a small bungalow in Fry’s Spring. A dining table serves as the desk, facing a large bed and beyond that, the backyard. Out a side window is a big dogwood tree. The workspace is small, but crisply organized: “I don’t like to waste time looking for things,” she explains.

Over her calendar, Goodman has pinned up a quotation: “Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.” About her work, she says, “It’s never boring.”

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“I do a lot of things here, but I don’t meet people at the house—all the insurance stuff about having people come to your home. Plus, when you work at home, it’s nice to have a reason to get out. I go to C’ville Coffee [to meet with engaged couples]. Toan [Nguyen, owner] knows me and knows what I’m doing there; I’ll often introduce him to the couple.

“This is my iMac, which is my friend. I love my iMac. And each couple has a folder; these are all couples I’ll be marrying this year.

“This is my family’s dining room table. It’s not in very good shape, but it’s well loved. Initially this table was here [against the stairwell]. [Moving it here] gave me a whole other wall and separates it from the bed. This was my husband’s TV table. The TV—I don’t watch much, but sometimes I have it on for background noise. I watch ‘Oprah’ occasionally.

“I’m not at my productive best until the afternoon. I come in the morning, check e-mail, Facebook, then go away. I clean the house, go out for a cup of coffee, meet someone for breakfast. I make a point of getting out of here. But I do often work until 9 or 10 at night.

“[In this economy] people are cutting back on guest lists, limos, but I’m less expendable. I’ve been really fortunate to have a good flow of inquiries.

“A couple last year wanted to do a ritual called the Bell of Truce. They said it was Scottish; they had Scotch-Irish heritage and wanted to honor that. I had never heard of it and couldn’t find it in my books. But I found it online.

“The idea is, when you’re getting into it together and there doesn’t seem to be a place of compromise, one of you can ring the bell, which you keep in a prominent place in your home. You have an agreement that you’ve made ahead of time that the argument then ends, you go to your corners, and you come back to it when the heat is gone. So we got a bell, they had it engraved, and we explained it [during their wedding ceremony]. And we all wished them well and that it would be a fabulous tool for them.

“I do a lot of interfaith couples—Hindu/Christian, Jewish/Christian, agnostic/Buddhist….I meet so many unique couples. In May I’ll hit my 300 mark. But I still meet with couples who want things I haven’t done before.”

Our house had been the victim of some puzzling attempts at renovation before we bought it. For example, one of the two windows in the bathroom had been removed and a storm window tacked into its place. We wanted the real window back, but—alas—it was long gone.

Knowing that, if we ordered a brand-new window for this spot, it would inevitably look a little different than its original mate in the bathroom, we started looking for other options. We found the answer in the kitchen, where there was an original window exactly the size we needed. And we wouldn’t mind removing it because we plan to, someday, put a French door in that spot. For now, we could find a used window at the Habitat Store, and our bathroom would have its matched pair.

Habitat came through like a champ (window cost: $35) and we spent just one evening swapping the kitchen windows. Taking out the old window involved a lot of prying and some Sawzall work on old nails, but it wasn’t too tough. Chilly air poured in through the opening while we quickly measured and cut some extra framing, since the Habitat window was a little smaller than the original. Once that was attached, the window itself slid in easily, and we checked it with the level in every direction before screwing it in place.

A second evening went toward installing the old kitchen window in its new spot in the bathroom. A D.I.Y. sleight-of-hand, not too puzzling at all.