Normally, my husband and I are calm, cool and collected. We’ve got our little routine down pat and life is just rolling along. And then, one day, everything went wrong and I became a CRAZY WOMAN and Mark had to drink like 20 beers. The dumpster guy came and took our dumpster early… We had the lumber delivered and it started pouring down rain… We had a day dedicated to working on the house and…

My husband, Mark, is a landscape architect. Actually, he’s the best landscape architect in the world. 🙂 He mostly designs city parks, vacation communities and high-end residential spaces. That (obviously) makes him the perfect person to design what we want our house to look like. Thanks to his genius, and his SUPER COOL 3D model program, we have a vision of what our little corner of the world will hopefully be someday. After we got…

We uncover little things every day. Actually, some of the things aren’t so little… That is my mammoth freezer. It’s so old, it has drawers. Check it out… Next to my insanely large freezer is my equally enormous fridge. It is also really old, really LOUD and it’s a power hog. They’re kinda cool but they’re too big for our narrow kitchen and so my friend, Abby, is going to take the fridge and we’re…

I don’t think my 83-year-old Nunny really “gets” why we would want to live in a narrow rowhouse in Lawrenceville when we could get a normal-sized house in the suburbs with a 2 car garage. Every time I show her a picture like this… She kind of gets a look on her face that says her inner monologue is going “Ewwwwwwww!” That said, my Nunny is a saint and she wants to be supportive. Since…

Everyone thinks that when they demo an old house, they’re going to find money and piles of gold in some secret, hidden passageway. Each time I swing the hammer, I’m hoping to hit the jackpot. (Hasn’t happened yet) We did find some old newspapers that were stuck in the brick…a couple of old wallpaper sheets that covered the fireplace (who wallpapers a fireplace?!)…and a really nasty rug that covered part of the bathroom floor (I will…

I like exposed brick.  Our house is going to have that modern/industrial vibe, and I think it will look cool. That said…after chipping off the plaster, some of the brick looks good… The other half looks like someone threw up on my wall… Our architect friend thinks this is one of the original Lawrenceville rowhouses that was built back in the 1850’s.  They used this pumpkin-colored brick that’s kind of porous and it really absorbed…

Everyone loves my husband.  That is how we got the house. I’m not kidding. Lawrenceville is one of those up and coming neighborhoods that’s really hip right now.  We really wanted to buy, but we kept running into 2 problems. 1st problem…many of the rowhouses for sale have already been flipped and they’re going for $400,000. Ummmmm, NO. 2nd problem…all the cheaper houses are picked up by investors who come in with cash and will…

For the last five days, I’ve been doing this nonstop… Chipping plaster that’s been stuck to these bricks since 1850 (our new estimate on when the house was built) is not fun. Call me a sissy, but these blisters are starting to hurt. No pain, no gain…right?! We demo-ed the house for a full five days.  Almost all the plaster is off the brick walls we want to expose.  The upstairs bathroom has been ripped…

I hate dust.  Like…really, really hate it. We’re basically ripping the house down to the studs and starting the renovation from there. We had to pull down the ceiling to see which way the joists run because we’re going to move the stairs, and we have to make sure we don’t move anything that’s structural.  Trying to keep the house from falling in on us and staying alive is priority NUMERO UNO. Every time we…

I am a first time homeowner.  My husband is a second time homeowner.  So, this is a bigger deal for me. 🙂 We got a super cool (and in desperate need of renovation/love) 1920’s rowhouse in Lawrenceville and we wasted no time getting to work. We closed last Friday and 1 hour after the closing, this baby was delivered…. Yes, it’s enormous but thankfully we got the bigger one because it’s filling up fast. Who would have…