Hardin Home: Home Improvement Projects at a Country Home in Verona, WI
Home Improvement Projects at a Country Home in Verona, WI
Over the past few months, I’ve been hard at work organizing and inventorying the contents of the library, both books and sports cards. It initially started as a project for insurance purposes, since in order to get specialized insurance for my collectables I had to know what specifically was being insured. There was a lot … Continue reading Library Inventory
We managed to avoid snow for the most part through the end of 2023, but January 2024 has brought a ton of snow. Earlier in the month we had snowstorm after snowstorm, resulting in a huge amount of accumulation around the house. Despite all the snow, both the Verona house and the lake house have … Continue reading Snowstorms
Earlier in 2023, my wife inherited an antique piano from her parents. It’s an upright piano from roughly 1910, and while it had great bones it was in desperate need of a full restoration. I worked with Farley’s House of Pianos (yes, those Farleys) to restore it. The process took several months and required a … Continue reading Piano Restoration
I was a big fan of our previous dining room rug, but unfortunately the cats were as well and chose to mark their territory accordingly. Despite numerous attempts to purge the smell, it never really worked, and so I opted to remove it. Once I did that, the smell immediately went away, so thankfully nothing … Continue reading New Dining Room Rug
After the grass I planted around the pool came in nicely, I turned my attention to the rest of the yard. There were quite a few bald patches of grass that needed some love, due to a combination of the drought this year and leftover damage from the pool construction the previous summer. After planting … Continue reading Fall Grass Planting and Cleanup
Shortly after returning from a trip to Barcelona, Southern Wisconsin was hit by a number of large storms, which included very high winds. Up at the lake house, this resulted in numerous downed trees, and left a lot of chaos. While it was disheartening to see some of the railing that I’d recently worked on … Continue reading Lake House Storm Damage and Railing Repair
It’s hard to believe that the pool is almost a year old… Aside from spending time enjoying swimming in the pool, I’ve taken the time to make some minor updates. First on the docket was adding some additional furniture, including an outdoor living room area: After that, I added a small cosmetic fence around the … Continue reading Pool Updates
After clearing the damage and breaking up all of the rocks, I was left with a pretty usable beach area at the lake house. However, the last approach from the end of the concrete stairs to the water involved a fairly steep, sandy hill. One option was to build additional stairs, but that would have … Continue reading Lake House Beach
Over the winter, a series of large sandstone and limestone boulders were dislodged from the bluff above the beach at the lake house, and they crushed the dock deck and the stairs leading down to the dock. It was pretty shocking when I first discovered it, but it shows the power of Mother Nature. Instead … Continue reading Lake House Stair Reconstruction
As my sports card and sports memorabilia collection has grown, I’ve had to expand my display and storage space in the guest house, the library, and my upstairs office. Here are a few photos of some of the recent expansion: Continue reading Memorabilia Displays
