This year, my wife and I decided that we finally had to do something about our old run-down house. Over the past 15 years, we've done bits and pieces of renovation, mostly by ourselves, and the results have been disappointing (for my wife) and aggravating (for me).

So for the first time, we went to our friendly (too friendly, I think, given how much I was asking for) bank officer, took out a home equity loan and hired actual contractors who brought in dumpsters and crowbars and began r ...

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