About This Old New House

First visit to the house. This is the front!

In late 2008, my wife and I purchased our first home. We got a good deal on it. It was offered to us by my step-grandmother, who decided to move in with my parents (this is important because as you’ll see, a lot of the house has been decorated by a senior citizen). As a young newlywed couple, we were excited by the prospect of a “starter home” and the work that would need to be done to it. We saw it as an opportunity to make this house our house. This place has a lot of charm, and a lot of potential, and with a little sweat and some wallpaper glue solvent (vinegar and hot water actually), we think this little cape cod could be something awesome.

Previous to purchasing our new house, located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, we’ve been renting various apartments around Philadelphia and New York City. We’re both designers (web and print respectively) so we like to think we have an eye for things, but we’re both new to the world of home improvement. We’ve been offered a lot of help by our friends and family in doing various things around here, so there should be a revolving cast of characters in this site. Eventually I’ll make a who’s who page if things get out of hand.

This is the story of our house, and our path to making it “ours.” We’ll document our successes and failures in the hope that someone may learn from them. Feel free to offer advice, support, or criticism. For the most part we know what we’re doing is probably not the best or most efficient way of doing it; but sometimes you have to do things the wrong way once, to learn how to do them the right way.

Who we are: Joe and Gretchen, newlyweds who probably get home from work too late and go out of town too much to accept a challenge like this.