Expert Advice on Home Improvement TV Host of Emmy®-Nominated Today's Homeowner® and home expert for The Weather Channel

About Ben Erickson

Not long after graduating from college, my wife and I moved from Mobile, Alabama, to the rural heart of the state to live out our dream of building a log cabin by hand. For over a year I cut down trees and notched them in place, working through one of the hottest summers and coldest winters on record. I did all the work myself, gaining a valuable hands-on education in the process.

Once the cabin was finished, I started a home repair business. After working on many of the antebellum homes in the area, I was bitten by the old house bug, whose symptoms include irrational behavior and severe shrinkage of the wallet. In a fevered state, we purchased a two-story, 1850’s house that was built of hand hewed beams using mortise and tenon timber frame construction. After taking it apart board by board, we moved the pieces to another lot and reassembled them, a process that should have qualified me for a degree in engineering.

Before long I developed a common side effect of old house syndrome—an involuntary compulsion to buy tools. As my shop grew, I began devoting more and more time to woodworking, making everything from fine furniture and cabinets to custom millwork for old houses in the area.

I soon began writing articles on woodworking for magazines, as well as contributing to a number of books on the subject. This interest in writing resulted in my novel A Parting Gift, which was published by Warner Books. After living for 20 years in the house we built, my wife and I returned to the Mobile area in 2002.

As web editor at dannylipford.com, I want to share my knowledge and enthusiasm for home repair with you. I’m always interested in your questions and suggestions, so let me know what you would like to see on the website by sending an e-mail to feedback@dannylipford.com