My name is Leslie, and in between work, school, the grandkids, and moments (ok, hours... OK, days!) of serious sloth, my partner Von and I are working on "retrovating" our old house. We call it Retrovating because the previous owners ripped out most of its original character in order to make it into a strictly functional boarding house for college students with maximum bedrooms for maximum income, and our focus is on putting back as much of the "feel" of a house this age and style as we can. Here's my house blog: http://georgetownhouse.livejournal.com. If you're on LJ, please friend me there, but it's open to anyone to read and comment!I joined curbly because although we're reasonably competent do-it-yourselfers when it comes to the functional aspects of fixing up and maintaining an old house, we need a lot of help on the design end of things, and this seemed to be a great place for that.BTW, this picture is one of my favorites of my old-man Max, a 15+ year old pit/whippet mix who was being used as fight bait when I first rescued him off the streets in Philadelphia. He's a classic example of a fearful, aggressive, "there's no hope for him" dog who, with love and patience, turned into the biggest gentlest happiest lovebug out there. And he's a sunbathing fiend!!