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5 Tips for Surviving a Home Renovation
Some sage home renovation advice from Kevin O'Connor
Read MoreKevin O'Connor's Home Renovation
You don't need a contractor to make your house look new again. Kevin O'Connor, host of This Old House, shares before-and-after photos from his home renovation.
Read MoreHousing Authority
Improve the looks of your home with these 15 simple tips from the host of This Old House
When I decided to buy and renovate a tired Victorian Queen Anne home north of Boston five years ago, I never expected that I'd end up scrapping my corporate finance job to become the host of This Old House. Having grown up in a modest Adams Colonial as the son of a civil engineer, I was no stranger to construction projects. I built go-karts obsessively (the secret is to scavenge deluxe baby-carriage wheels) and spent my summers working on my father's skyscraper job sites. My brothers and I were the only kids on the block whose tree fort had real windows and a perfectly hung door.
Read MoreTempted by the Fruit of Another Summer
All my life I've had cravings for that which is ripe and ready to fall—even if I had to take it by force
Before puberty, before the swells and curves of the human body became such an obsession, I began to notice fruit. Coconuts swaying with their palms in tropical breezes from the Arabian Sea, egg-shaped sapodillas nestling slyly in the folds of trees, the flash of the occasional golden tumescent guava hanging just out of reach. Most striking of all were the mangoes dangling in bounteous clusters from the branches of a tree that spread out over our school compound. I stood underneath, enthralled by the mangoes' green smooth-skinned voluptuousness, and willed for one to fall. Each time I found a mango in the bushes beneath, no matter how small or immature, I took a bite. There was something magical about eating food I had found myself, something gratifying about partaking of the tart, even bitter flesh.
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