Welcome to One Project Closer… Thanks for Reading!

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It’s been a while since we’ve said welcome to our readership. In fact, the first time we did seven months ago, the article became our about page. Since then, about 300 more readers have subscribed. We think it’s time to introduce ourselves again, thank all of you for reading, and let you know what we’re doing next.

Who Are We?

We’re Ethan, Jocie, Fred, and Kim… four best friends living in the same neighborhood in Baltimore County, Maryland. We’re married (Ethan to Jocie; Fred to Kim), and we have 3 homes between us, a single family and two townhomes (1 is a rental).

We started One Project Closer to share our home improvement experiences, get advice from others, share deals and coupons we find, and recommend the tools we like most. None of us our professionals; we all have day jobs we love. This is a hobby for us. As such, you should treat everything you read here like an amateur friend giving you tips. If you aren’t confident in your ability to tackle a project, you should seek advice from a professional (or at least another friend who can help you through it).

Want to get in touch with us? We answer just about every e-mail we receive. If you’ve got a home improvement question or other inquiry, we’ll do our best to help. Send your message to oneprojectcloser@gmail.com. Or, you can reach any of us individually by writing to name@oneprojectcloser.com, where name is one of our names (e.g., fred@oneprojectcloser.com).

What’s with the Name?

Each of us has a home. Whether we rent, own, or live with other family members, we get up and go to bed in the same place (most of the time). Most of us are working to make our home and community better, either through remodeling, community involvement, or simply painting a room in the house a more cheerful color. Each of us envisions the perfect home and community for our family and our neighbors. And we work to get there – one project or cause at a time.

Anyone who’s owned a home for more than a few years knows that the list of house and community projects never ends. But that doesn’t stop us from tackling them, because every project moves us one project closer to the perfect home, or community, or life. So that’s what the site is about: tips, advice, experiences, products, reviews, giveaways, finances, how-tos, tools, and more that help us build better homes, communities, and lives. Whether we get to the perfect end, well, that’s not really that important, is it?

What Are We Doing Next?

We’re in the process of a major site redesign. We’re not ready to unveil the design yet, but we’re shooting for sometime around New Years Day 2009. That redesign is largely cosmetic, but it will include some new features we’re excited about. Over the next 12 months, we’ll be working on some expansions to the functionality here, including adding features like discussion boards.

In the meantime, we’re going to keep plugging away on our homes and writing about the progress here. We’ll also keep sharing deals and other goodies we find on the web.

Oh yeah… and don’t forget to check out this month’s DIY Network tape measure giveaway. We’ll select 5 winners on November 30. Also, consider subscribing to receive e-mails. You’ll automatically receive 10 entries into every giveaway we run… and December’s giveaways are going to be really great.

Let us know who you are! Leave a comment here or on future posts and let us know what you’re doing in your own home.

Photo based on an original shot by Annie Mole (used and modified under the CC license).