Nitty Gritty | Offbeat Home

This is Offbeat Home's archive of Nitty Gritty posts.

This is our category dedicated to the hard topics of occupancy – the realities of having a home. Nitty gritties might involve dealing with passive aggressive landlord notes or choosing a utility company, but they're the less-fun aspects of having a home.

Most Recent Posts About Nitty Gritty

lots of lamps © by allielovestea, used under Creative Commons license.

When looking at places to live, there are certain things that just don't cross your mind. I never realized how important lighting was until I started to rent. Apparently, I need a lot of light to function. Or, rather, I like having the option of a lot of light.

Growing up, my dad was legally blind, so to help him see better in the house, he installed an 8 foot ballast fluorescent light in the dining room of our 800-square-foot trailer. That was all the light anyone needed in the common living area. That thing was bright! There were also four different windows that let in natural light throughout the day if you didn't want to feel like you were living in a science lab. I got used to this. When I moved to college I lived in dorms that had huge windows and fluorescent lighting as well, so in that sense I was right at home.

Then I got my first apartment.

We moved fast, and found out Internet service in our new building is lacking. Are there alternative options other than "local DSL" and "local cable" internet providers?

It's a bad feeling: walking into your home only to realize that you've been robbed. Coming home after a long day at work, it was a shock to see our front door wide open…and you might be surprised at what DOESN'T get stolen.

Let's Learn a Thing today! I hear a lot of comments on Offbeat Home about the difficulty people have with hanging things, so i'mma put on my Housewife hat and lay it all out for you: how to hang art on notoriously-difficult plaster walls OR! how to break the rules of your lease the smart way. (If you do it right, no one will know!)

Nine months ago I was sitting at this very laptop, surrounded by every other laptop we had in the flat (all of which were logged into different Facebook accounts), plus address books, and lists of names, and my mobile phone had never seen so much use in its life.

My fiancé had passed away early that morning and we'd just finished letting everyone know.

By now the holidays have come, gone, and given way to a heap of crumpled wrapping paper, sugar withdrawal, and perhaps a trail of pine needles. Every year when Christmas is over I realize I am blessed with a lot of people in my life I love…and a lot of STUFF I do not. What do you do when this STUFF is gifts?

Art of Manliness is dedicated to sharing simple knowledge, and the belief that being "manly" isn't about having a penis. Last week, bloggers Brett and Kate taught us all how to break down a door with this illustration by Ted Slampyak.

Read it over, drink it in, and save the information away for the next time you need to bust a door.

One of the weirdest conversations I've had as an adult was the time my husband and I talked about safety in our new home. There had been a few home invasions in the area, where men had entered houses at night and demanded money or else pistolwhipping. Our conversation wandered from deadbolt locks to mace to, "What if we got a gun?"