Category: Our Renovation Design Process
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The First Tour Inside Our 1850s Carriage House – Let The Restoration Begin!!!!!
When we first found our farm property in 2019, I knew that our main house (that we now live in) had a ton of potential to be beautiful and the perfect place to raise our family, but this house, this is the one that my heart screamed for from day one. Today you’ll see why,…
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Our 2025 Summer Landscaping Reveal (With Full Process)
I’m currently caught in the “why would anyone live anywhere else” fever dream that is “Oregon in The Summer”, and while I intellectually know there is no perfect place to live, right now, up here, it’s magical (and has been since March – 2025 was a real pretty one). This backyard is certainly serving up…
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Our Regrind Driveway Review – 3 Years Later Would Asphalt Have Been Better?
Now that our latest construction project is done (the garages) and until we start the next one (the carriage house), we have fewer trucks, cars, and equipment wreaking havoc on our property, which made me stare at our regrind driveway with fresh eyes. I just reread the original article, from three years ago, debating all…
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We Found The Best Garage Doors Ever – See For Yourself
I never thought I’d be this excited to show you the prettiest garage doors ever. When we finally agreed to invest in making our garages better, our goal was to make them functional, but we had very low expectations on how beautiful they would be. Our garages aren’t on a street where neighbors can see…
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Can You Use The IKEA PAX Closet In Your Garage? (Look…We Are!)
They did a study once where they scanned customers brains before entering The Container Store and then again leaving (with all the organizational goods) and found that dopamine levels had spiked – and not just because of shopping (which as we all know, does give you a high) but they concluded it was due to…
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Am I A Hoarder? Our Next Youtube Video – Inside The Vintage Carriage House
Today we are discussing two very important things – 1. I am a hoarder of vintage stuff, and I don’t have as much shame about it as I probably should, and 2. We have produced some new YouTube videos in the vintage carriage house that you simply must watch (it’s my favorite video we’ve ever…
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Why We Chose A Clover Lawn Instead Of Grass (This Time)
I feel like I’m about to step into an opinion minefield today. Deciding to do a clover lawn in one area of the property has been oddly polarizing. I’m not an expert, so don’t use me as your sole point of research, but we did opt for a clover lawn instead of traditional turf this…
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How We Built Our Outdoor Kitchen With RTA (Assembled In One Day, Folks)
We are wrapping up phase two of the backyard (which is admittedly a pretty large phase) and I wanted to give you an update, show you the plans, and give you a sneak peek into the new RTA outdoor kitchen (which went from a little “grill area” to full blown kitchen really fast – it’s…
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Repairing Our 150 Year Old Garage (An Update) – We Have Walls Again!
I shouldn’t be so excited about this, it’s just a garage and I don’t even like to drive or know what my own car looks like in a full parking lot (it’s called “car blindness,” and yes, I have gotten in many similar cars that aren’t mine). But as someone who owns probably 19 hammers…
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Design Coaching: Peter And Chrissy’s Builder-Grade Kitchen Plan (I’ve Got Thoughts!)
Oh boy, this is fun. I love inserting myself into other people’s problems (usually when asked) so this whole “help someone else design their house” thing is already making my dopamine spike. After sifting through countless submissions (sooo many good ones–thank you to all who applied!), battling weeks of email hacking snafus, and balancing our…