Our friends Jeanne and Aaron Olson of the Houseblogs empire are (part of) the subject of a recent Vancouver Sun article by Shelley Fralic on houseblogs. (Unfortunately, they didn’t bother to link any of the sites to the article, which pretty much ignores the entire point of the Internet.):
For those who spend weekends stripping layers of paint off
balustrades, or ripping up linoleum in dank bathrooms, there is an odd
vocabulary that comes with restoring an old house.
It has to do
with money, and energy, and having both sucked right out of you, to the
point you start mumbling wistful phrases like "whatever doesn’t kill me
makes me stronger" and "no pain, no gain."It’s the kind of experience that, as most old-house renovators know, is best when shared.
And these days, there’s no better place to spread that sweet misery than through an Internet blog.
By
way of definition, a blog is a contraction of the words web log. By way
of popular culture, blogs are unedited stream-of-consciousness diaries,
personal and very public, an on-line spillfest of emotions, opinion and
subjective information.A good blog, of course, is like a good
conversation. You have to work hard to find one because, like much of
the nonsense on the Net, a blog can be a slog.Except if you’re an old-house junkie.
Because then it doesn’t much matter.
All
that matters are the details being shared by the DIY blogger, from the
diaries to the before and after photos, from the Q&As to the
impossible projects, from the vendor lists to the advertising links to
old-house hardware and restoration companies.The renovation blog
is the new hands-on seminar, an intimate, honest, real-time
encyclopedia of the triumphs and defeats of restoring a period home.
