Oops! Look at us taking almost a three month break from updating our blog and working on any major house projects. Love that for us! Now that summer’s almost over, it’s time to “rock this shit” and get workin’ on a variety of house projects (especially the ones we still haven’t finished) and updating our blog more frequently. But more on that in a sec.

Anyway, yesterday was the one year anniversary of our wedding (which we are going to post about later this week!), and TODAY is the two year anniversary of touring The Beck Street House for the first time!

Cue the lights as we share some never before-seen photos (we think?) of the house we fell in love with exactly two years ago today.

Let us never forget the duck that once lived on the front of the house. So long, partner.

Two years ago today, we not-so-seriously contacted a local real estate agent to look at another house in the area, but it wasn’t meant to be. It had a shit ton of wood paneling, an underground pool that probably was unsalvageable, and a kitchen that needed a helluva lot of work. And when we say we “not-so-seriously” looked at it, we didn’t even know we were suppose to be pre-approved for a loan amount before house shopping. Oops!

At the end of that tour, the real estate agent told us he had a bed and breakfast on the main road that had just been put on the market, and it hadn’t even been posted online yet. I (Alan) didn’t really want to look at it, but we’re so happy we did. We’ve said this numerous times, but it was everything we ever wanted. Closing on it was the biggest pain in the ass, but seriously, everything we ever wanted.

Okay, enough talking! Onto the upstairs!

It’s so much fun to look at these pictures, because some rooms look soooooo much different, and some rooms look the exact same. For example, we haven’t even touched the guest bedroom (photo above), but our office and backyard area look like totally different spaces now.

A few more pictures:

We’ve officially owned the house for about a year and half, and when we first started the blog, we had every plan to update it religiously, but we’ve kinda sucked at that. This summer, we’ve spent a lot of time gardening, landscaping, and camping. We’re both heading into a few busy work weeks, but this fall we’re hoping to dig deep into our friend Andrea Kerbuski‘s online course “The Blog Essentials.” We’re hoping this will help provide some direction for our blog, and help us get in the groove of posting more regularly. We’re also planning to knock out some more house projects as well. But so far, here are some the major changes that we’ve made to The Beck Street House:

• Had our exterior siding, trim, and doors painted (!!!)
• Removed copious amounts of wallpaper in our family room, kitchen, and dining room (which made a huge difference!)
• Redid almost every surface in our home office, including ripping up the old, grubby carpet and refinishing the subfloors underneath, installing a really cool geometric wall, building out a closet, and a few more surprises we can’t wait to blog about!
• In our living room, we took down wallpaper (including the grass wall!), painted, and installed bulky crown molding in our living room, which we still need to finish (guilty, again).
• Replaced our boiler and hot water heater (boring, but so important!)
• Our big backyard project (which we just have a few more things to cross of our list)
• And so much more!

Sometimes, I feel like we get discouraged by the number of projects we still want to do and the amount of duck wallpaper that’s still alive and well, but looking at these pictures remind me that it’s okay for us to take our time, that it’s a marathon and not a sprint. It’s okay for us to think things through, and that we’re just fine to hit “pause” every once in a while.

We say this all the time, but we just love this house so much, and we love getting to share it with you.

A+L