About This Site

This is a how-I-did-it site, as opposed to a how-to site.

I consider myself to be an average home-owner.  In 1996, when I was in my late twenties, I purchased my first house in a working class neighbourhood.  Once I realized the extremely high cost of hiring professionals, and inspired by PBS home improvement shows like This Old House and  Home Time, I soon recognized the value of doing things for myself.  As I gained confidence, I tackled bigger projects and  had reasonable success.  

In the spring of 2003, my wife and I bought our "forever" house, a one and a half story home with a large family room addition.  It is out of the city and on a nice sized piece of property (over half an acre).  Unfortunately, the house needed much more work than we anticipated thanks to some shoddy work done by the previous homeowner.  The sheer magnitude of the work needed to bring the house up to code was beyond my comfort level and we hired professional contractors.

I am far from an expert.  I am basically self-taught in most areas of home renovating.  I will be the first to admit that, for me, many projects have had a steep learning curve.  I believe in doing things right the first time, and will spend a lot of time pondering the best way to do something.  I tackle most projects using what I learn from reliable sources on the Internet, books, magazines, and from numerous home improvement shows on television. I believe my workmanship is on par with many professionals, even if my speed lags far behind.  Most importantly, I know my limitations.  There is no shame in calling in the pros when the project is overwhelming.


The purpose of this website

Home improvement television programs have an unfair advantage.  Everything is condensed into half hour or one hour  shows, so we rarely see any mistakes or  head-scratching.  The people working on the shows are all experts in their fields who have already gone beyond the learning curve, and there is usually a large crew working on the project. 

This website intends to show what a weekend handyman can accomplish working alone or with a helper (if I can do it, anyone can).  It will also illustrate the consequences of shoddy workmanship, such as the extensive structural damage done by the previous owner of our current house, to serve as a warning.  And finally, it will showcase some professional renovations, including restoring structure compromised by shoddy workmanship.  Whether you are a do-it-yourselfer, or someone who prefers to hire professionals, you will find something on the website that will interest you.

 

Privacy Issues

Some people may claim that I am hiding when I choose to use a pseudonym.  However, my privacy is important to me and my family.  This is a personal website, not a business website.  Divulging my real-life identity would serve no real purpose and I would like to avoid having strangers calling my home phone number or sending mail to my home address.

Brief History

ThumbandHammer went online in the summer of 2000, hosted by Freeservers.  Within a few months, I moved the site to GeoCities where it was hosted for a couple of years.  In the fall of 2002, I decided to go "dot.com" and move the site to a "real" server.  However, with the chaos of moving into another house, and being up to my eyeballs in renovations before I could blink, the new Thumbandhammer.com website was not launched until the fall of 2003.

Over the years, the site has been modified a number of times. The earliest version was composed entirely in FrontPage, using tables for the layout.. Then I made the leap to CSS and revised every page line by line. A couple of years later, with the focus on standards compliance (mainly so the site looks the same in all browsers), I again revised every page, line by line. In the spring of 2008, the site was exploited by a hacker, and as a precaution, I removed all the special features such as the blog, message board, and gallery. As I picked up the pieces, I used the opportunity to revise the site yet again. With each revision, I have focused on making the pages simpler, leaner and faster. The latest revision which was completed in 2010 involved not only an ambitious face-lift, but also an extensive revision of much of the content.

Dedications

This site is dedicated to a number of people:

Thank you.