Hi all! We are John and Jen, and we currently live in Oregon. We love old vintage things, and are strong believers that everything in your life and most items in your home should have a story behind them. We are both crazy creative, with Jen being the designing genius and John being the most amazing master craftsman you’ve ever met. In this blog we will share about our crazy journey renovating and restoring our 110 year old craftsman fixer upper and since then our farm and most recently our new 91 year old craftsman, decorating on a dime, throwing fun themed birthdays (Jen’s speciality), projects for your home, gardening, all the little details in between and more.

Our obsession with projects pre-dates this blog by a lot! Even before we met and bought any old house. John loved building things, his motto is, “If you can dream it, I can build it.” and that couldn’t be more true, he is freakishly talented at all things construction. Jen loves crafting, she used to throw parties and plan events as a previous career, and would spend much of her free time antiquing, scouring thrift stores for project items, re-doing furniture and styling spaces on a teensy budget.

In 2012, we planned and threw our own Pinterest worthy wedding, creating and designing all of the decor ourselves, outside of an old barn on a historic ranch, because again the story behind things, and our love of the past reign supreme. We have spent the last 13 years restoring and bringing the character and function back, to make homes what they deserved to be for all those years they sat and bringing back the character (aka. unearthing hidden wainscoting, replacing chair rail that was removed and discarded, etc.), one project at a time as well as bringing them into the 21rst century. We did all of these things on a budget of as little as humanly possible. Our other motto in life! Things like creating Board and Batten for literal free… making our own light fixtures, restoring hardwood floors, and creating our own wood countertops. Old houses are not for faint of heart, but they are so worth it! But also a big reason for sharing our story is that many of the projects we will share here can easily be done on any home!

We also have two wonderful sons, the most loyal dog, 4 crazy chickens, 2 cats and a pond full of fish, which if you read this blog for any length of time I am sure you will hear about.

If you’d like to learn more check out our house tour, blog posts, projects and FAQ.