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I stole that quote.  It originally came from the uber-fabulous Courtney Kerr who said “I’m a B-U-Y girl, not a D-I-Y girl.” And that quote totally encompasses my FORMER self.  I’m not a crafty person or a person who gardens or makes stuff or builds things. I like to buy things in stores and watch TV. 🙂 But this house project is slowly changing that.  My husband, Mark, has always been a “hands-on” type of guy….

Oh, hey there! Don’t mind us…we’re just hanging out. 🙂 We are getting ready to move the stairs, but first we had a lot of cutting to do… All those first floor ceiling joists had to come out… Look how much light shines down from the top back bedroom!! This made me very excited that we’ll have some nice light shining on our new staircase. Mark did all the cutting by himself late one night…

I’m an equal opportunity kind of girl.  Boys can play with dolls and girls can play with trucks…to each his or her own. That said, as I watched my husband build a temporary wall…I was struck at how very manly (and cool) it was. Mark and my brother-in-law are cut from the same cloth.  They both work hard, fast and don’t have to stop to eat or go the bathroom. The two of them built a temporary…

I’m so happy I could cry. And I think I might have shed a tear or two…but then again, it could be from the crazy dust that never seems to go away. All of you have been so encouraging about our “exposed brick” project…you’ve sent in countless suggestions and I’ve read every single one out loud to my husband! I gotta be honest…it kinda feels like we have a team rooting for us and the…

I am tired. My hands hurt. And I hear the “whack whack whack” of a hammer against plaster in my sleep. No one said this would be easy. But they should have said – “IT’S GOING TO BE REALLY FREAKING HARD!” We are in the FINAL STAGE of our demolition…and it’s the most tedious. We are on a MISSION to get the last bit of remaining mortar off the brick. We have a TEAM approach….

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…

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…