December 08: Hot house

  We think this place in the Rugby neighborhood looks just perfect for entertaining. No idea whether there’s an open floor plan inside, allowing hostess to chat while fixing cocktails—it’s more that the front porch looks so nicely sheltered for summer afternoons, and the house’s solid form and lovely trees are as inviting as could […]

December 08: Glossary of the housing crisis

Chances are, more of you reading this are currently on shaky ground with your mortgages than two years or even one year ago. It’s not likely that you’re feeling too great about it, either. But you’ve got to face facts. Shelley Murphy, director of program services at the Piedmont Housing Alliance, will tell you in […]

December 08: Neighborhood on the line

The Willoughby subdivision holds a secret: Hidden in Joelle and Michael Meintzschel’s backyard is the treehouse of dreams.   At a glance Distance from Downtown: 2 miles Distance from UVA: 2.8 miles Elementary Schools: Jackson-Via/Cale Middle Schools: Walker & Buford/Burley High Schools: Charlottesville/Monticello Homes sold in first half of 2008: 10 Median sale price: $263,870 […]

December 08: News and ideas for sustainable living

Red and green go green: LED Christmas lights will make the Yuletide less power-hungry. Green lights If you’re headed out to pick up a zillion-pack of Christmas lights with which to festoon every corner of your house and a tree in every room, skip the standard incandescents and opt for LED lights instead. At a […]

December 08: Recaptured kitchen

Having a back porch is all well and good, but when one’s kitchen is tiny, one may start to eye up the verandah as an area ripe for colonization. Such was the case at landscape architect Gregg Bleam’s 1938 house in Lewis Mountain. Designed by Milton Grigg, the original structure had a cramped 8’x8′ kitchen. […]

Weather or not

If there is one underrated pastime in the book of life, it is that of talking about the weather. I could talk about it all day long to anyone who wanted to talk about it. The subject often gets mocked as boring, but to those weather-haters, I say, “Nay! But what could be more fascinating […]

We Ate Here

In a hurry at breakfast, and not wanting to spend a fortune, we finally clued in to the fact that every Downtown worker and her mother lines up to buy $1 pastries from Blue Ridge Country Store. Hello! At that price, our apple scone suddenly seemed to need an accompaniment, and we found a worthy […]

November 08: Sex Files

More than half of all Americans will get a sexually transmitted infection (STI) at some point in their lifetime. If you’re one of them, how will your sex life be affected, during and after treatment? First, let’s take a quick look at some general facts. The majority of STIs are asymptomatic, which means that there […]