We celebrated our one year ‘blogiversary’ last week! And like most things on our to do list right now, we’ve been chipping away at this post over the past few days. Our blog began wayyyy back in 2019 when we clicked publish on our very first post entitled “Here’s the Thing” on April 8, 2019.

To celebrate the one year anniversary of The Beck Street House, Inc., LLC (Okay, not quite), we thought it would be fun to highlight some of our favorite and not so favorite projects we’ve been working on over the past year or so. So bustle up on your fanciest evening gown or your finest black tuxedo and get your acceptance speech ready. Oh wait, I think that’s our job.

And the Golden Globe Duck goes to…

BIGGEST REBRANDING – SAYING GOODBYE TO “THE DUCK”

And for the size and popularity of this beast, this project definitely deserves two Golden Duck Awards. Taking down “the duck” was a historic moment in our little town. Bystanders drove for miles to watch (pre-social distancing days), Grandmas took photos on their iPads, and the local press was jabbing us left and right with questions. If you think walking down the red carpet is a big deal, then you clearly weren’t walking down Beck Street the day “the duck” came down. Okay, maybe this was a bit dramatic, but he had served this house well. So long, partner.

BIGGEST “OH F***” MOMENT – TACKLING OUR KITCHEN, DINING ROOM, AND FAMILY ROOM ONE WEEK IN

And we’re still finding deposits of white drywall dust more than a year later. Ever start a project to find yourself in way over your head, trying to make sense of what you’ve gotten yourself into? That was us after ripping off every single type of duck/wildlife wallpaper imaginable to find the unfinished drywall that lived below it. Fortunately we had an entire week of snow days when we first moved in; it was a long and dusty project.

A side note, spilling an entire gallon of paint on new carpet, attempting crown molding, and many, many other projects were nominees for this category as well.

BIGGEST UPGRADE FOR OUR DOGS – OUR NEW COUCH

When we originally posted this picture on Instagram, we wrote “Our dog is going to be so pissed when she finds out our new sofa isn’t a giant dog bed for her.” We’ve since added another dog to our family, and even more white dog hair, and our couch seems to be their favorite place for a morning/midday/afternoon/late-night nap. Jokes on us I guess.

MOST F-BOMBS DROPPED – OUR CHRISTMAS BREAK FROM HELL

Christmas break is usually one of our favorite times of year, but between a broken boiler and a gas leak in our ancient hot water heater, we were just about ready to put our house back on the market. We talked more about the specifics in this post, but we dropped a lot of F-bombs that week, and came to be good friends with our local heating/cooling business. As great as they were to work with, we’re hoping we’re done calling for a while now. “It’s not you, it’s me…”

At least our house arrest quarantine time is making up for our not so fun Christmas break!

MOST DRAMATIC – PAINTING OUR EXTERIOR SIDING

One of our favorite project so far! We went from a sun-bleached beige siding to a dark and dramatic Chimney Gray by Behr. We’ll be honest, no way in hell were we going to attempt this ourselves. We hired it out, and we’re so happy we did…(Sorry, Darlene.) Our painters even gave the original gingerbread trim a fresh coat of paint as well. We watched the outside of our home transform in a matter of hours. A much needed upgrade.

TECH SAVVY-IEST – HANGING STRING LIGHTS WITH OUR FIRST SMART PLUG

Okay, not really tech savvy; we were just a few years behind on the trend. But being able to turn on these lights by just yelling at Alexa — or Alexis, Lexis, or Alex as some of our relatives like to call her — is such a breeze.

SHITTIEST FROM THE START – OUR FIRST ATTEMPT AT DINING ROOM TRIM

We talked about this in a previous post, but long story short, we followed a Pinterest tutorial to make our own window trim, it looked like shit, we hung it, it still looked like shit, and it sat for a year or so before finally taking that shit down.

MOST JOANNA GAINES-Y – INSTALLING SHIPLAP IN OUR DINING ROOM

And again, we covered the details about hanging vertical shiplap in our dining room in our previous post. Even though it’s not 100% done yet, it already looks soooo much better than our previous trim job.

CHEAPEST AND BIGGEST – OUR FREE HOT TUB FROM A COWORKER

We’ve yet to write about this project! Last summer, a coworker put on Facebook that her dad was trying to get rid of an old hot tub. It was free, so we jumped on the opportunity. It’s Russian roulette if it works or not; we had an electrician come out but quoted us at $800 to get it hooked up. We’re hoping to shop around this summer to get some better quotes – again, not a project we’re about to try ourselves.

Just imagine this back corner with string lights hanging from above, a fresh coat of paint on the hot tub surround, and patio pavers on the ground. Oh and maybe peach margaritas in our hands too…

MOST LIKELY TO CAUSE LARYSSA TO GIVE HER RING BACK – INSTALLING THOSE DAMN RECESSED LIGHTS

I’ll be 150% honest on this one; installing these damn recessed lights in our living room did not bring out the best in me. Electrical projects are NOT my strong suit (hence I’m not about to hard wire the hot tub myself). They make me…bitchy. Let’s take a little trip down memory lane to remind us how far we’ve come.

We started with these handbuilt light surrounds made of barn wood and an old lantern that just weren’t our style.

We removed the lantern (still sitting in our garage) and the old lights, wired the recessed lights, and then we had pendants for a few days as I tried to recover from epically losing my shit.

And then we sported an industrial look for, mehhhh, a year or so, with a view that really accentuated the exposed insulation and wires.

Finally, we swallowed our pride (or cried out for help?) and when a local handyman was at our house working on another project (more details coming soon!), we had him patch the ceiling around the lights, and we have no regrets.

So there you have it! Year #1 of the Golden Duck Awards presented by The Beck Street House. We’d like to thank our local paint specialists at Ace Hardware, our handyman, the coworker who gifted us the hot tub, the fans who make this all possible, and of course the academy for this opportunity. And we know that the academy isn’t in any way connected to the Golden Globe Awards, but we’re gonna thank ’em anyway.

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