Getting Started

Hi. Courtney here. Brian and I have started a LOT of projects around our first home and I've been looking for an economical way to document it all. For those of you that know me well, you know I love to scrapbook everything. I wanted a way to share our renovation "scrapbook" with all of you. So a blog was born. This blog is going to document our journey of renovating our house. I really do hope to provide words of wisdom and advice along the way - on how to save money by doing things yourself. We've only been at this for a couple of months, but we've learned so much already. And I know there's so much more to come. So here you go, our renovation joys (and stresses too) documented just for you.

You might be asking yourself how we got started? Well, it all began with Taco Tuesday, a weekly tradition at the Authement house. One of our friends is an architect so we began inviting him over for tacos and wine just to throw around the idea of knocking down some walls. Just to give you a little background on our house...it was built in 1958 and is a typical ranch-style home. Most of the rooms are small and don't flow very well. And our original thought was to knock down the wall between our living room (at the front of the house) and the kitchen (on the back of the house) and install some sort of breakfast bar in between the two rooms. Over the past several months our ideas and drawings have grown into something much bigger. So what began as something fun to talk about is now a living, breathing renovation.

Meet our House (this was taken the day we decided to make an offer)


BEFORE: The view from the front door, looking into the living room


AFTER: Same view