Steel City Second Act 2.0

I’ll be home for Christmas…because we literally can’t go anywhere else!

Can I still call myself a #Pittsburghblogger if I never blog? Yeah, I didn’t think so.  In my defense, 2020 has been, well, 2020, and we haven’t been doing a whole heck of a lot.  But yesterday I received a notice from WordPress that my website subscription renewed. So, I dusted off my laptop and brainstormed some topics to write about. 

Since we truly aren’t going anywhere – Covid 19 is rampant in our area right now – I thought I’d stray from writing about things to do in Pittsburgh and share some of our house projects. When Rick and I moved here 5+ years ago, we downsized into a 1930s stone cottage and we’ve redone nearly every room in the house. I’m no Joanna Gaines, but we are pretty happy with the results. 

Isn’t she cute?

Being holed up in the house while avoiding the literal plague outside, we found even more projects we wanted to tackle – having the floors refinished, replacing the windows, fancying up the 85-year-old garage floor, chalk-painting the furniture in the grandkids/guest room – something about being stuck in the house for weeks upon weeks had us (maybe just me?) going ugh, I can’t stand that anymore.

So, we had the floors refinished, (quick side-bar here: Before we moved in, we had the floors “refinished” by some guy I found via good Yelp reviews. Learn from me and NEVER do that. Whatever he did to our floors was peeling up like a bad manicure within weeks. I’m convinced that his stellar reviews were all posted by his mother.) and we had the windows replaced. Here’s another what was I thinking moment?  So, we’re not leaving our house except for essential purposes, we’re only visiting with friends outside and/or masked up and yet somehow I think it’s a great idea to have a stream of strangers hanging out in our house for weeks? Yeah, it was terrific. Rick and I slapping masks on and bundling ourselves out the door the minute the workers arrived, then coming home to throw all the windows open and disinfect everything in the afternoon. I hope there aren’t too many side-effects from inhaling Lysol spray.

Aside from home renovations, we’ve been passing the time by playing a never-ending game of Gin (nine months in, and we’re still only 12 points apart!), cooking up Ina Garten meals (she is a goddess and her recipes are foolproof), perfecting my sourdough skills (I couldn’t pass up that bandwagon), and searching for something decent to watch on television (which begs the eternal question, how can there be sooo many options – cable, Apple, Netflix, Amazon – and so little that’s appealing?)

This first blog post for Steel City Second Act 2.0 is pretty much an essay about nothing.  Like Seinfeld, but not nearly as funny. But I promise the next few will be more substantial. I’ll share some of our favorite renovations including what we did right and where we screwed up. Next up, “Why I love Chalk Paint.”

• 

• 

• 

Coming soon: Adding bookcases and a window seat to the living room, replacing the powder room floor, and the start of our garage makeover.