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If I would have known how much BIGGER our tax refund is now that we’re OWNERS and not RENTERS…I would have bought a house a LONG time ago! Seriously. Even with a nice refund, they say money doesn’t buy happiness. It does buy a trip to the outlets, though. Happiness, however, comes when the home you envisioned and created in a 3D computer program… Looks almost exactly like what you’ve built. We’ve still got work…

Long blog title…I know…stick with me. One of the main reasons we wanted to buy in Lawrenceville is because we wanted a walkable neighborhood. Don’t even pretend you don’t see Mark’s bunions. It’s okay…special shoes for a special guy. Last night was a perfect Larryville night with our first stop at Grapperia. It’s right behind Piccolo Forno and the people who own Piccolo were tired of everyone going to Franktuary or the Round Corner Cantina…

They always say you shouldn’t compare yourself to others because it will only make you feel inadequate and jealous…but there’s no harm in comparing your current self to your past self, right?! Last April: Versus this April: Living room when we bought the house: Current living room: Newly minted (and very dirty) DIY home renovators: DIY home renovation experts (spending more time celebrating than working): We’ve officially owned our house for one year and one…

Little by little our living room is coming together! We picked out side accent tables from Pier 1. Space is a premium in our rowhouse, so we got nesting tables that slide under each other to save space. Our West Elm coffee table has arrived! We picked this one because it has storage space and the one side lifts up so you can put your laptop on it (or beer.) Mark made sure we had…

I no longer have to live in my bedroom…it is a miracle. We bought a chair…our first piece of legit furniture for our downstairs. It only took an entire year. You’ll notice we also have a rug. A love seat is being shipped to us, and so we’ve got 2 folding chairs in its place. Classy. I know my house is a work in progress, but I think it’s the bomb-dot-com. It definitely won’t be…

With Mark’s work and my schedule, we are like ships passing in the night. We see each other for about five seconds when I get home at night. Mark opens his eyes, says hello and then we both crash. It’s not good or bad…just the current situation we find ourselves in. That means we are EXTRA GRATEFUL for the few hours we have together on the weekends (when Mark’s not working and I’m not teaching…

You know what’s amazing? Not having to put on shoes to walk downstairs. With our newly refinished floor, I can go down in my socks…or barefoot. I can even eat on the floor if I want. (Just a possibility, we don’t really do this) With the floors done, we brought our kitchen furniture and appliances back in. I then promptly put all my dishes and pots back in my stove. That is where you store…

I just couldn’t live with this darker, oil-stained wood floor. It reminded me of an old grandmother’s house with rosary beads and doilies everywhere. We needed it to be fixed. So, we spent a few extra dollars and had our floor guy re-sand the entire thing. I was really glad to see that oily finish come off. After the re-sanding, we had him put down the WATER-BASED polyurethane we used on our upstairs floors. Look…

The happiness and positivity that was OOZING out of my last blog post is gone. I am not a negative person and I don’t like dwelling on what’s “wrong” but I’m really bummed. I hate our floor. Like, totally hate it. When we put new pine floors in our upstairs, we used a clear, water-based polyurethane on them. I know we can’t imitate that exact shade downstairs, but we want that same lightness. Our floor…

The floor sanding has begun, and what a difference it’s made! Our first floor still has the ORIGINAL wood floors that were in the house when it was built in the 1850’s. Some of the floor was painted and carpet covered the rest…it was pretty gross. Our floor guy brought in a really big sander with heavy duty grit paper and got started. We had him go from the front door all the way to…