My poor, neglected houseblog. It’s been far too long since I’ve written something insightful or useful for our readers. There was a time when so much was going on around our house that I literally could not keep up! Lately we’re stretching if we bother to change a blown light bulb.  And yet, we’ve made the pages of one of our favorite inspirational magazines – Victorian Homes! We’re subscribers, but our copy hasn’t arrived yet so I’m anxious to see how the article turned out.

In any case, welcome! For those of you new to the blog, a little background. We bought our house, a 2,200 sq. ft. Victorian Italianate built around 1880, a little over 3 years ago. It was our first house and we purchased it somewhat blindly. We were young, and naive, and thankfully had no clue how hard renovating and restoring an old house can be. Teague is a handy guy (who has since started his own construction company) and I’m always up for a challenge. We loved historic houses, and Dirty Gert “spoke to us” the first time we laid eyes on her despite the strong smell of cat urine radiating from her floorboards and the giant bulging holes in the plaster walls. The house is unique and charming, and due to it’s state of neglect at the time of purchase, it was also within our budget.

After closing on the house, we spent our first night having a big huge “holy shit” moment. What had we done? How could we ever bring this house back to life? Where would the money come from? And the energy, and knowledge, and determination it would require? By morning’s light we were feeling better. For the next 3 years, we rushed headlong into project after project after project. The money we used to spend on movie dates and nice dinners (which we no longer had time for) got funneled straight to Home Depot. Our house consumed our lives in every way, for better or worse. It was as if we’d fallen in love… every thought, every extra penny, every ounce of energy went straight to the house.

We have fixed, quite literally, every part of this house – from jacking the basement to replacing the main roof, and everything in between. We did nearly all of the work ourselves, with the help of some very knowledgeable friends and family. We cultivated our DIY spirit here. And now? Well, somehow we ended up with a house that is actually quite lovely. It’s a cozy and creative space that we’re comfortable in. So it’s a lot harder to get motivated these days… one of the reasons our blog is so quiet. What do you do when the Fixer-Upper is all fixed?

Of course, it’s an old house. There is ALWAYS something that can be done, or redone, or upgraded. But until we have something more substantial to write about, I suggest flipping through our archives – you can view posts either by category (left sidebar) or month/year (bottom). The “best of the best” are in our Major Projects section. If you’re the visual type, you can go straight to our Flickr albums to see some pretty impressive transformations.

Some of our other favorite bloggers are mentioned in the article too, so be sure the check them out:
The Devil Queen, 1902 Victorian, The Petch House, This Old Crack House, Casa Decrepit, This Decrepit Victorian, and Victorian Restoration

And once you’re hooked on our madness, head over to Houseblogs.net – an invaluable (and time-sucking) site with all sorts of community features for house bloggers and readers alike!