So it's 5 degrees outside and our furnace broke!! You have to admit, that's pretty amazing timing on it's part.

We could get it fixed for more than we want to spend on an old bottom-of-the line furnace, but we thought it would be money better spent on getting a more efficient model. We'd really love a heat pump, but that just may be too pricey. Any ideas?

Oh, Wait! Our Living Room Ceiling is Gone!

So I just created this post to tell the world that my husband had a good idea. Now, our living room ceiling is gone and we certainly didn't rip it out without thinking how on earth we were going to replace it. We were prepared to install drywall but we were afraid that with ceilings like we have that are so visible and get lots of light bouncing off of them that if we didn't do the drywall just right, it would be so obvious that we didn't know what we were doing. Since we're completely redoing the living room/kitchen this year, we can't really afford to hire it out. So, that's when my husband mentioned that we could cover the rafters in simple tongue and groove wood paneling and just paint it. Well, we're pros at woodworking and surprisingly, we've found that it's cheaper than hiring out the drywall work. I thought this was a very good solution. So many Cliff Mays have the exposed rafters and decking. We obviously can't have that as it isn't the way our house was designed, but this is the next best thing really. We plan to do it for all of our ceilings when the time comes.