I have never been more excited in my life. NEVER. My beautiful sister, Kelly, is HAVING A BABY!!! Aunt Courtney is literally bursting with JOY!! I’m going to take that little punkin’ everywhere!! You’ll remember that I shared Kelly’s very poignant and moving story about the miscarriage she had six months ago. The loving response she got from that blog post was so terrific that she decided to continue to blog about her pregnancy adventures:…

One of the reasons we bought a rowhouse in Lawrenceville is because we wanted to live in a walkable neighborhood. Every morning, we Mark walks down to Espresso a Mano and gets us two coffees. Then, we sit for awhile and admire his handiwork. Sometimes, we do a load or two in our NEW washer and dryer. All the while, we are ignoring the reality that awaits us downstairs. Our first floor is still a…

It happened. We thought this moment would never come, but we moved into our house and slept there for the very first time!!! Our bedroom is finished, except for the new windows and blinds we have coming. The furniture might not stay this way, but it’s working for right now. With the bedroom, bathroom and laundry room completed, it’s kinda like we’re living in a one-bedroom apartment. Fine by us…we are just so THRILLED to…

My husband and I are really onto something… Instead of just using your bikes on the roads and trails, you can also use them as stools at your kitchen table! This is uncharted territory folks…pretty soon, they’re going to invite us to speak at TED Talks. (Totally kidding) Most of our furniture is in the house. You can really tell that I have an eye for placing things in just. the. right. spot. We’re hoping…

With move-in day approaching, Courtney’s “Bucket of Boom” (that made an appearance during our demolition phase) became my cleaning bucket. Yuck. The dirt and dust in certain parts of our house was pretty thick. Now, it smells like lemon and lavender Mr. Clean. I’m pretty sure I killed a few brain cells with the fumes. While I cleaned, Mark used the nail gun to put up the last pieces of trim work around the doors….

Sooooo many people have asked me, “How does your husband know how to do all of these renovations?!” Here’s the answer…the handsome Dutch man leaning on the brick fireplace taught the handsome Dutch man in the blue shirt everything he knows. Add in this lovely lady and that’s how Mark got his know how. When my husband’s parents were newly married, they bought a fixer upper in Toronto and did exactly what we’re doing. They…

Folks, we are nearing the end…SOUND the trumpets!!! Let me clarify…we are almost finished with the upstairs. (We still have to do the entire downstairs, kitchen and backyard patio. I will be writing this blog for the next 50 years.) I told you we painted that “Shark” color on our walls. We decided to paint the trim “Gypsum.” Painting trim is still annoying, but it’s way LESS annoying than painting the walls and ceilings. While…

I totally forgot to tell you about one very important moment Mark and I had last week. Normally, my husband is very calm and mild mannered…I attribute some of this to his Canadian roots because those Canadians are the NICEST people on the planet. 🙂 Mark rarely gets upset or angry. Because he’s so good at renovating and remodeling, we haven’t really had any situations where he was frustrated because he didn’t know what to…

Can you guess what’s behind it? It’s my super handsome and fantastic husband, Mark. If the over-the-top compliments of my spouse make you nauseous, I apologize. (I’m the cheerleader in this relationship.) Those beautiful wooden doors we finally finished scraping and sanding are now stained. We kind of had a conga line-rotation happening with these doors…staining one and varnishing another with polyurethane then letting them dry for two hours. While they dried, we stained and…

We asked our favorite person (Jonathan at Westmoreland Supply) to help us find a stain for our doors. We brought along one of our bathroom drawers as a comparison. After trying to find an espresso color, Jonathan decided he needed to add a slight violet tint to the current stain so that it would be a perfect match. Using an old school-looking machine thing (yes, that’s its proper name) Jonathan added a very small dose…