Our Story

I inherited a knack for making and fixing things from my mom and dad. My mom sewed wedding dresses, dance recital costumes and prayer quilts for our church. My dad, who was a wonderful artist, was also very analytical at problem solving and could fix anything. Since he had seven daughters and no sons, he passed on these handy skills to us. My parents were loving and so kind. They raised us with grace and instilled in us the same qualities that were so dear to their hearts.

I am a recently retired pediatrician. I graduated from the University of Virginia School of Medicine and trained in residency at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, which is affiliated with UCLA School of Medicine. I practiced in the area from 2004 until 2023. My career as a physician afforded me the means to raise my 4 children as a single parent and support them so that they are now successful young adults. Medicine also helped me find creative yet analytical solutions to health problems for my patients and families, while delivering it with that care and compassion passed on to me by my folks.

So, it is probably also not surprising, that I love to fix other things too! Just as I cherished making children feel better, I love to take broken or worn-out things and bring them back to life! Now that my kids are grown, I have had some time to work on projects for my family and friends. They have encouraged me to branch out to offer some of my things to others, hence Home Remedies, LLC was born!

Home Remedies was a brick and mortar retail store, also offering craft classes and custom furniture refinishing that I lovingly and proudly owned in Virginia Beach for the last 4 years. I scavenged antique malls, yard sales and thrift stores to find furniture and then use creative ways to make them useful and wanted again. My store evolved and I found myself doing mostly custom work for people, along with our craft teacher having well-attended craft classes. So we changed our location with more workshop space for me, and which has a designated room for Sondra to hold craft classes. We have built an online store and interactive website so that if you would like a piece done, you can upload it to the website and I can offer virtual renderings of what we can do, then ultimately refurbish your piece to something that works well with your decor. Our new website affords you the opportunity to sign up for craft classes online as well. We will offer smaller items for sale in our online shop as well. I am extremely excited about our new venture into the e-commerce community.