About
Margaret Foley is an editor, educator, and writer based in New York City who has worked for a variety of magazines over her career. She has been contributing to BobVila.com for roughly a decade. When she isn’t sitting in front of a laptop, she spends her time keeping her family of humans, dogs, and one cat fed and healthy and trying to prevent a 100-year-old house from falling down.
Experience
Margaret began her career at the now-shuttered Home magazine, where she wet her feet in publishing, helped produce articles about home design and maintenance, and indulged her compulsion for peeking into houses that were much nicer than she could ever afford. In subsequent years, as she worked at a science magazine, got her teaching certification, and served as a substitute teacher, Margaret and her wife worked with professionals to slowly renovate their 1920s Dutch colonial. Now that the big projects are done—two additional bathrooms, completely revamped kitchen, rebuilt sunporch, leaning garage straightened up—they’re firmly in maintenance mode.
Education
Margaret graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English from Bryn Mawr College and a Master of Science in education from Queens College.
Highlights
- Specialties: Cleaning best practices, household repairs, classic house styles
- Education: Bachelor of Arts in English from Bryn Mawr College; Master of Science in Education from Queens College
- Other work: Home magazine (defunct); Discover magazine
Best DIY Advice
After almost 25 years of living in an old house, Margaret can say with certainty that whatever you’re DIY-ing—even if you’ve planned carefully, measured accurately, and bought everything you think you’ll need—it’s best to assume that it will take longer than you think. That fence that you were going to paint over a few weekends will take all summer; the escutcheon for that new light fixture won’t be large enough to cover the existing hole in the ceiling; the old doorbell wire won’t be long enough to reach the new bell…and then the washing machine will back up and there will be 4 inches of water in the basement.
