About Fred

Hi! That’s me over on the right. I’m a 28-year-old home improvement nut living in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland. I’m very happily married to Kim, and we’ve twin sons, H & J. (initials only online to protect their identity). We live in a traditional, 2-story, rectangular colonial - the kind they built by the thousands in the 1980s. We love our house, and will probably stay here for at least 10 more years (or until the projects run out, whichever comes first).

I’m the one who’s really into the construction and materials side of home improvement. I get jazzed up doing projects like framing up walls, pouring self leveling mortar, or power washing a deck. Fortunately, our house needs a lot of that, and it’s where my limited home improvement talent lies. I could look at a color fan all day and all I’d see is a disorganized rainbow. Do the blue and yellow go together? I’m not sure - that’s why we’ve got Kim and Jocie.

As far as hobbies - well, there’s blogging, and working on the house, and blogging, and technology, and blogging. You get the idea. I’m a programmer by trade, so I take care of all the programming on this site. My day job can be pretty demanding, and this is a nice way to get away from it all and do something that’s pure fun. (And, I’m learning PHP and Cascading Stylesheets - you can’t go wrong with that!)

I really enjoy the community aspect of blogging. It’s great that I can meet people like Andy at Build a Better Bungalow, who at the time of my writing is working on a basement in Chicago - 1000 miles away from us - and is facing the same challenges in refinishing his basement. Jennifer, Lisa Rae, modernemama, Amalie - all people I would have never met if it weren’t for the online community we’ve got here. I love stopping by your sites - please keep them up!

You’ll see me around the house-blogosphere - always posting as Fred or Fred@OPC or something like that. I’m glad you stopped by! Come back again soon.