Y’all know that my husband, Mark, is the STAR of this DIY blog. You would think that I (being his wife and all) would be his #1 sidekick. Well, he tosses me to the curb when this guy shows up. Look at them…I swear Mark and my dad are like peas in a pod when working together. We called my dad in because the man could be a professional painter and we need his skills….

I thought our “dusty days” were over. Remember this picture from when we first did our house demolition??? That man has returned… Mark is spending his days sanding our drywall. He mudded and taped all the creases and seams on our second floor, and the sanding smoothes everything out. I follow behind him and wipe the walls with a damp cloth to remove any extra sanding bits or dust. We’re trying to get the smoothest…

Our roof work took a full two days. We had to run back to the store for more “ice and water shield” and we took our time with the project because we didn’t want to fall off. As I mentioned before, it was slightly nerve wracking to be that high off the ground but I got used to it (and actually liked it) pretty quickly. My very wise Nunny would say it was all good…

Fixing our roof isn’t the hard part, GETTING ON the roof is. I am not afraid of heights nor am I a fearful person, but it’s a bit scary climbing a ladder from your second story to the roof. Once we got up there, we were sold…you can see the skyline of downtown Pittsburgh! I think we need to build a rooftop deck…that or a little lounge area so I can come up here and…

This is Steve Shorthouse. His resume is wayyyyyy too impressive and long to help us with our little rowhouse, but Steve is also awesome and thinks every project is worthwhile! We met at our house in Lawrenceville and Steve immediately had like 7 great ideas for furniture placement that Mark and I would never have thought of. Since we’re not ready to buy furniture yet, the conversation moved to paint. I don’t know who thinks…

Alright, I think it’s time for a little GRATITUDE. First of all, I cannot believe how many of you read this blog. When I started writing it a few months ago, I figured my parents and my in-laws would read it…and my sister because I would force her to. 🙂 But this blog has grown into way more than that…I feel like we’ve created a community here. Once we started sharing our DIY experience, so…

My brother-in-law, Kevin, is the total package. He’s smart and strong…and he loves my sister, Kelly, A TON so he’s basically a gem in my book. It’s great having him over because he’s done this kind of renovation work before and he’s a great sounding board for Mark. The two of them started a pretty big and tedious task…leveling our first floor ceiling. Part of the charm of these older rowhouses is that they’re crooked….

Just because we’re sweaty, grimey-looking renovators doesn’t mean we look gross all the time. In fact, we clean up so well they put us in a magazine. Well, they put our wedding in a magazine…and who doesn’t look awesome on their wedding day?! Big thanks to WHIRL Magazine for featuring our summer wedding in their August issue. And look…all these DIY renovations and we haven’t killed each other yet! The magazine article about our wedding…

We’re going through buckets of Sheetrock compound faster than you can blink! We knew there had to be a bigger bucket we could buy, so we went to our home away from home…the East Liberty Home Depot. We got there and realized why NO ONE buys the bigger bucket of Sheetrock… It weighs like 500 pounds!! Even my husband, the freakishly strong man he is, had a hard time picking it up. We got it…

We didn’t work on the house AT ALL for the last 2 days. It’s the FIRST time my husband and I have had time off and we DIDN’T work on the house. I know…it’s like blasphemy. Instead, my Canadian hubby took my American father to Toronto for the Rogers Cup tennis tournament. How lucky for them they got to see Roger Federer!! My dad plays tennis and is a huge Federer fan, so this was…