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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….

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…

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…

I quit getting manicures about three months ago because my hands always look gross. I’ve got splinters and cuts and bruises. But you’re gonna get roughed up when you spend your all your time scraping… And sanding… It’s all worth it, though. Take a look at this beauty. After DAYS of working on it, we finally got our old wooden door down to the grain. What a transformation!! It went from this… To this… To…

I am a person who likes routine is boring. I get up at the same time every day and go to the gym. I eat the same oatmeal mix every day for breakfast. I watch exactly 20 minutes of whatever’s on HBO every night before I go to bed. Our latest DIY task was made for me. We put polyurethane on our new wood floors to protect them. You paint on one coat and let…

We are a socks-only household right now. At least, we are in our upstairs. Even with the unfortunate dying of his air compressor, Mark finished putting in the wood floor. The next task was sanding it. We rented a belt sander and finished fairly quickly and inhaled a heck of a lot of sawdust along the way. Now, we’ve been doing a lot of sitting. Just sitting and admiring our floor. I did a couple…