Ah, winter: a time to hunker down, hibernate and contemplate. And we’ve certainly got plenty on our minds as this dreadful year draws to a close. But “going within” also means making your house as cozy and engaging as possible. Toward that end, in this issue we visit a farmhouse with a stunning fireplace, an…
Last month, I had a heat pump installed in our Burlington home. The centrally ducted system helps address the climate crisis by replacing some natural-gas-fueled heat during the shoulder seasons with heat generated by electricity. Burlington’s electricity comes from all-renewable sources — the wood-chip-fired McNeil Generating Station, hydro and wind — rather than fossil fuels.…
Until about three years ago, I had never lived alone. Throughout my twenties, and a little bit of my thirties, I bounced around from apartment share to apartment share, racking up more than 30 roommates in the process. Almost every new abode was fully furnished by the people with whom I’d moved in. This kept…
Upon first glance, Macao Bravo’s backyard man cave isn’t a structure that immediately beckons for further investigation. From the street outside his Winooski home, the decades-old outbuilding, which once served as a garage and toolshed, looks like nothing more than a dry place for stacking firewood — that is, until one notices that its creatively…
When my girlfriend and I set out to buy our first home over the summer, our list of must-haves was pretty minimal. You can keep your white kitchens and man caves. For us, the ideal home basically needed three things: yard space, a soaking tub, and a wood-burning fireplace or woodstove. As a native New…
In the spring, my spider plant had a baby. I can take no credit for this development. I missed labor and delivery completely and only realized that new life had emerged when it was already established, a tiny baby spider plant dangling from a long stem. I clipped the baby and dunked it in a…
In February, the phone rang in Erin McCormick Torres’ Colchester home. The caller was Kim Negron, a mortgage broker with whom Torres had worked before. “Hey, Erin. I think I can save you about $250 a month if you refinance now,” Negron said. Torres was surprised. “I’m a Realtor, so I live and breathe this…
