Kevin and I both grew up in DIY-ing households. The concept of hiring out a job was unheard of; why waste the money to hire someone to do a thing you could do it yourself? We DIYed our entire wedding (from the invites to the food for 300 guests), usually give DIYed gifts, and even plan our own vacations. Honestly... I think we're just cheap. We want to do so much to the Little House, but we also want to have the dinero for our other passions.
2. You and your husband are engineers, has that helped you guys with your DIY? (Boyfriend is an engineer and he can make/fix most things, it's great!)
Being engineers has helped. Kevin’s an electrical engineer and I’m a mechanical, so between the two of us we can figure out just about everything around the Little House. Of course, that doesn’t mean we always agree on how something works. After a ton of trial and error, we tend to go with my gut instinct on mechanical/plumbing/car things and Kevin is our electrical/gadget/tech/computer guru.
3. How do you find time/energy to take on big projects at Little House while you're both working full time? Boyfriend and I sometimes have a hard time managing everything at once!
We tend to make little goals (with rewards) for ourselves. “If we finish painting the deck railing by next Saturday we can both order Mudslides at the movies.” It really helps to break the projects into manageable chunks so that you don’t get overwhelmed. I’m a lister by nature, so I usually come up with a list of milestones on a project and we just work towards checking them off.
Also, it really helps to enjoy DIY and who you’re DIYing with. We view our DIY time as “us time.”
Oh wow. I don’t know if I could pick a favorite! We both love France; there’s just something about it. We would both love to go back to Austria. And then there’s Moorea, French Polynesia. How can you not love a South Pacific paradise?
Our top travel tips would have to be:
1. Pack light. It will save your back, your money, and your trip. Trust me; we learned the hard way.
2. Be brave. Try to speak the few phrases you know of a foreign language. Try the food that you’re scared of. Go out with locals. Some of our best travel memories come from when we plunged headfirst into something.
3. Be prepared to get lost and to enjoy it; you’ll discover places most tourists miss. We try to get lost now, especially in big "tourist" cities.
4. Ask the locals; no one knows a destination better than the locals. We usually ask “Where would you go?”
Our go to recipe would have to be risotto. It’s deceptively easy and so impressive! Over the 4th of July we made it for Kevin’s family and topped it with seared scallops. It was delicious and looked so impressive!
On any given weeknight our go-to dinner would have to be some protein grilled simply, an arugula salad, and some homemade balsamic vinaigrette poured over everything.
6. Do you use a lot from your garden to cook? I'm totally in love with your gutter garden and am thinking about trying that!
We would use a lot from our garden had it survived the wrath of the puppies. This spring Rosie realized that she could jump the fence we’d put around the garden and decided to dig up EVERY. SINGLE. PLANT. It’s now her personal sand box.
We love our gutter gardens! We didn’t get to hang them this year because of our fence restoration, but they’re going up again this fall for a crop of baby spinach and arugula!
Well I certainly didn’t imagine I’d be in Texas, that’s for sure. I hadn’t expected to ever leave Indiana. I love Texas though. And I do think I’ve always wanted to fix up an older home. Kevin, not so much. He originally wanted to buy new, but I (or the Little House) won him over.
8.The puppies! How do they feel about home improvement projects? Mine usually gets confused and hides in a corner. Or eats his bed.
Our girls are pretty blasé about our projects. All they really care about is 1. Is there anything I can chew on? 2. Is there anything I can get on me/on the house/on Mom? 3. Where’s the cat?
For them eating things is a normal everyday occurrence, not stress induced.
9. What should everyone know about you and/or LHBH?
We’re very real people. We both work 8-5 jobs and have to save up for everything we do (trips and projects alike). We don’t know everything, but we love learning and trying things ourselves. We mess up, projects don’t turn out like we planned, and we end up starting over. A lot.
We love Jesus. We love each other. We love Star Wars and Doctor Who and figuring out how stuff works. We love traveling and food. I guess that pretty much sums us up.