Home Improvement Projects at a Country Home in Verona, WI
A week after having our offer accepted for the new lake house, we have listed the old lake house. As always, it’s amazing to see how good of a job professional real estate photographers can do of making a house look its best. Here is a gallery of the photos they took: They also took … Continue reading Old Lake House: On the Market
We had been casually looking for an upgrade to the lake house for a while now, and the broken leg provided an opportunity to ratchet up the search. Thanks to our realtor Nicole (the negotiations took much longer than expected and were a little bit of a rollercoaster), we were able to find and get … Continue reading New Lake House in Merrimac!
This is tangentially related to home improvement, since the incident happened on the lake house steps that I’ve spent so much time working on over the years, and because the injury is preventing me doing much home improvement while I recover. In mid July, I had just returned from a day on the lake, and … Continue reading Broken Leg
While traveling in Europe this summer, I added two showpiece watches to my collection: a Rolex and a Breitling. I had a basic watch valet on my bedside table, but for these watches I wanted something that would both wind them, and show them off in the master bedroom. This was a basic purchase on … Continue reading Watch Winder
Back in 2014, I had applied my own epoxy coating to the floors of the main garage at the Verona house. I did an okay job, but I probably didn’t prep the surface as well as I could have, and old school epoxy floors are notorious for failing after a certain period of time anyway. … Continue reading Garage Resurfacing
When the new deck was put in last summer (and then subsequently repaired after storm damage), the crew who built it recommended to wait to stain it until this spring, to give the treated lumber time to dry out. I agreed with their suggestion, and was very happy with the result when they came back … Continue reading Lake House Deck Staining
As has been the case every year, I worked through my normal spring landscaping and yard clean up tasks throughout the months of April and May. Here is a gallery of some of the work I did, which will look familiar from previous years: Another critical part of every spring is opening the lake house. … Continue reading Spring Landscaping 2026
This spring, I traded in my Porsche for a McLaren 570GT. It’s my first true supercar, and has been unbelievably fun to drive, even if driving something that exotic takes a little bit of getting used to compared to something more traditional like the Porsche. It fits in very well with the rest of the … Continue reading New McLaren + Garage Shrine
After my wife sadly lost her parents a year and a half ago, we inherited their elderly cat “Little Orphan Annie,” who had mobility challenges due to her age that made it safer for her to live in my wife’s office as an appartment. Given the messes inherent with that, it didn’t make sense to … Continue reading Updated Guest Bedroom and Office Flooring
The last of the lake house roof repairs are done. The restoration company did a fantastic job matching the trim color and the 1970’s style soffits! All that’s left now is to stain the new deck in the spring, and then we’ll be all set. We’re getting into late fall in Wisconsin, but the views … Continue reading Final Fall Lake House Repairs
