• Home
  • About
    • About
    • Contact
  • Shop
    • Apparel and Shoes
    • Books
    • Crafts and Sewing
    • Decor
    • Furniture
    • Home Improvement
    • Kid Favorites
    • Kitchen
  • Projects
    • Cleaning
    • Clothing
    • Colonial Farmhouse
    • Crafts
    • Decorating
    • DIY Projects
    • Holidays
  • Adventure
    • Moving to Ireland
    • Living in Ireland
    • Visiting Ireland
    • Travel
    • Family and Parenting
    • Humor
    • Learning
  • Privacy Policy
A Pretty Happy Home

Life, DIY and Random Things That Make Me Smile

  • Home
  • About
    • About
    • Contact
  • Shop
    • Apparel and Shoes
    • Books
    • Crafts and Sewing
    • Decor
    • Furniture
    • Home Improvement
    • Kid Favorites
    • Kitchen
  • Projects
    • Cleaning
    • Clothing
    • Colonial Farmhouse
    • Crafts
    • Decorating
    • DIY Projects
    • Holidays
  • Adventure
    • Moving to Ireland
    • Living in Ireland
    • Visiting Ireland
    • Travel
    • Family and Parenting
    • Humor
    • Learning
  • Privacy Policy
  • Home
  • About
    • About
    • Contact
  • Shop
    • Apparel and Shoes
    • Books
    • Crafts and Sewing
    • Decor
    • Furniture
    • Home Improvement
    • Kid Favorites
    • Kitchen
  • Projects
    • Cleaning
    • Clothing
    • Colonial Farmhouse
    • Crafts
    • Decorating
    • DIY Projects
    • Holidays
  • Adventure
    • Moving to Ireland
    • Living in Ireland
    • Visiting Ireland
    • Travel
    • Family and Parenting
    • Humor
    • Learning
  • Privacy Policy

No Widgets found in the Sidebar Alt!

  • newly rebuilt curved fieldstone wall using lime mortar and natural fieldstone
    DIY

    Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 4, REVEAL Section 1

    August 27, 2025 /

    It’s reveal day for section 1 of our curved fieldstone wall! Can I get a WOO to the HOO? I know some of you made a woohoo sound in your head, so thank you for that! We are fortunate to live on a property that is framed by low fieldstone walls. 250 years ago, our property was much larger than it is now and would have been farmed. We assume the stone walls or fences were built as a practical way of dealing with all of the stones that were pulled out of the soil to make it arable. Fast forward to the present, and there are multiple sections of…

    read more
    annisa 6 Comments

    You May Also Like

    diy copper accent exterior lighting how to add a copper accent to exterior lights

    How To Add Copper Accent To Exterior Lighting

    September 11, 2024
    carriage house gym terracotta floor tiles hidden under dirt

    Check Out The Terracotta Floor We Found

    September 16, 2024
    carriage house interior makeover reveal bar top room divider headboard room divider

    Carriage House Interior Makeover Reveal

    August 1, 2022
  • colonial farmhouse may 2025 exterior sunporch with rhododendrons
    colonial farmhouse

    Colonial Farmhouse Six Year Anniversary

    July 16, 2025 /

    Time flies when you’re restoring, renovating, and generally making a home! We have been the stewards of this colonial farmhouse for 6 years now. The anniversary was actually in June, but I was ankle deep in mortar dust with the Carriage House renovation. Besides, it’s really a blip, as is our ownership, in the grand scheme of this old gal’s 250(ish) year history. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know I enjoy poetry. It is so relatable because it often captures what we are feeling but don’t know how to express with our own words. There’s a poem called Old Houses by Robert Cording. It…

    read more
    annisa 2 Comments

    You May Also Like

    painted white gate

    I Painted Our Front Gate

    September 11, 2019
    The Case of the Closet Mystery colonial farmhouse

    The Case of the Closet Mystery

    January 20, 2020
    colonial farmhouse exterior april 2021

    Colonial Farmhouse Two Year Anniversary

    June 14, 2021
  • buried treasure searching for treasure on a 250 year old property but mainly finding old trash in the ground like tin tiles from vikon tile company in washington new jersey
    colonial farmhouse,  DIY

    Did We Finally Find Buried Treasure?

    April 30, 2025 /

    If you’ve been reading this blog for five minutes, you’ll know that I am unabashedly on the hunt for buried treasure on our 250-year-old property. Surely, surely, there must be something hidden around here somewhere. Preferably, this something would be valuable enough to pay off our mortgage, but I’m not picky. We recently dug a trench alongside our Carriage House and that trench was full and I do mean FULL of buried treasure. I don’t mean the valuable sort of treasure. More like this was someone’s garbage pile. An actual garbage pile that had been buried over time, and now I’m donning my proverbial Indiana Jones hat and saying under…

    read more
    annisa 2 Comments

    You May Also Like

    navy blue sunporch

    Navy Blue Sunporch Reveal

    November 6, 2019
    colonial farmhouse exterior september 2023

    Caulk, Cracks, and Home Maintenance. Oh My!

    October 9, 2023
    Built-In Computer Desk in our colonial farmhouse

    Built-In Computer Desk Reveal

    January 27, 2020
  • carriage house gym expansion demo a fieldstone wall to prepare for repointing removing concrete from a stone foundation with a chisel attachment on a hammer drill
    colonial farmhouse,  DIY

    Stone Carriage House Gym: Part 2, Demo

    April 28, 2025 /

    If you missed it, we are expanding our home gym. This space, that I affectionately refer to as the ‘little torture chamber,’ is located in our stone Carriage House. The part of the home gym we completed in 2024 looks like this now. The other half of the building, where we want to expand the home gym, looked like this (see photo below) last month. It was a tad bit creepy. When I say creepy, I mean that’s where the cave crickets lived. I think they are gone now. *fingers crossed* You can catch up on why we are doing this expansion and feast your eyes on all the creepy…

    read more
    annisa 0 Comments

    You May Also Like

    built-in stone bench ideas

    Built-In Stone Bench Ideas for our Backyard

    October 4, 2021

    Check Out These Old Photos Of Our House

    October 26, 2022
    colonial farmhouse exterior with carriage house in may 2023

    Colonial Farmhouse 4 Year Anniversary

    June 14, 2023
  • recreating historic trim on the exterior of an old house in new jersey from the 1780s
    DIY

    Recreating Historic Exterior House Trim – It’s A Process!

    October 21, 2024 /

    Recreating historic house trim on the exterior of a house. If ever there was a labor of love, this is it. We own a really old home. The oldest section dates back to the 1780s and it has been added onto since. Like many homes of that era, the exterior trim is ornate, beautiful, and rotten in spots. whomp, whomp Guess what most contractors want to do in this situation? Gold stars if you answered, “Take it down and replace it with something you can get off the shelf.” In essence, make it look like every other house on the block. I will also award gold stars if you answered,…

    read more
    annisa 0 Comments

    You May Also Like

    Zero Gravity Chair Repair On The Cheap

    June 20, 2014
    diy scrap wood kitchen cabinet feet

    DIY Kitchen Cabinet Feet from Scrap Wood

    September 13, 2021

    Fixing Nasty Grout Is Pretty Easy

    November 20, 2015
  • fall front porch with paint blue ceiling and potted mums and pumpkins
    decorating,  gardening and landscape

    Fall Front Porch And The Funny Place I Buy Mums

    October 14, 2024 /

    Can we talk restraint? Restraint is experiencing the calendar flip from August to September and knowing you can’t decorate your fall front porch yet because Mother Nature didn’t get the “it’s fall y’all” memo and it is still 85 degrees Fahrenheit outside. So what do you do instead? You console yourself with an apple cider donut (or two, I won’t judge) while you wait for the weather to catch up to the commercialized hype of our existence. I waited 25 days. Twenty five! There are no prizes for this sort of restraint. I know. I checked. Some of you wise ones might say the prize is that the mums I…

    read more
    annisa 0 Comments

    You May Also Like

    DIY wood acorn napkin ring how to make a wood bead and acorn napkin ring

    DIY Wood Acorn Napkin Rings

    September 28, 2022
    Removing Window Decals removing really old window decals stuck to the window

    Removing Window Decals

    January 13, 2020

    Linen Bath Towels: Should I Make the Switch?

    April 3, 2017
  • white colonial farmhouse exterior with sunporch
    colonial farmhouse

    Drone Photos of Our Home

    August 26, 2024 /

    When we had our siding redone, the siding company took drone photos of our home and sent them to me! Best. Thing. Ever. I’m not even kidding. This was like Christmas in August for me. But it was better because I didn’t have to pretend to be surprised by what Santa had brought me. These drone photos remind me of how far we’ve come in the last five years in reclaiming the property and restoring this home. The below photo of the side of our house shows what it used to look like in July of 2019. I don’t know much, but I do know that you shouldn’t “hide your…

    read more
    annisa 0 Comments

    You May Also Like

    navy blue sunporch

    Navy Blue Sunporch Reveal

    November 6, 2019
    colonial farmhouse exterior september 2023

    Caulk, Cracks, and Home Maintenance. Oh My!

    October 9, 2023
    farmhouse black kitchen mini makeover

    Colonial Farmhouse Kitchen Mini Makeover One Year Later

    March 29, 2021
  • saving historic window drip edge trim detail on a 250 year old colonial farmhouse
    colonial farmhouse,  DIY

    Saving a Historic Window Drip Edge Detail

    August 19, 2024 /

    When we had the rotten siding on our colonial farmhouse replaced, the window trim needed replacing too and I was adamant about saving the historic window drip edge detail. It was not a necessary component of the window trim but it was part of the home’s character. I just didn’t realize this decision would cause a bit of drama later. To be clear, we were not able to save the actual boards that made this historic window drip edge detail. They had served their purpose and helped direct water away from the house for decades. Decades! And it showed in how the wood had rotted. Some of our windows already…

    read more
    annisa 0 Comments

    You May Also Like

    Carriage House Interior Before Photos

    Carriage House Interior Before Photos

    July 25, 2022
    winter home inspiration from new jersey

    Our 2021 House Project Plans

    January 4, 2021
    The 1971 MLS Listing For Our Colonial Farmhouse

    The 1971 MLS Listing For Our Colonial Farmhouse

    September 4, 2019
  • colonial farmhouse with hardie fiber cement siding in arctic white how installing fiber cement siding changed our insurance premiums
    colonial farmhouse,  DIY

    How Much Our Insurance Changed With Hardie Fiber Cement Siding

    July 10, 2024 /

    When the wood siding on our very old house started to rot away, everyone told us to reinstall new wood siding because that’s what buyers of old houses on the East Coast expect. Clearly, “everyone” hasn’t had to maintain painted wood siding. We decided to have HardieĀ® fiber cement siding installed instead because our priority for protecting our almost 250-year-old home was to make it fire-resistant, deter wood-eating pests, protect it from severe storms, and add resistance to moisture-induced rot. If an owner of an old house isn’t sleeping well, you know why. We have a lot to worry about! Fiber cement siding protects our home from all of those…

    read more
    annisa 2 Comments

    You May Also Like

    connecting two decks with landscaping

    How I’m Connecting Two Decks With Landscaping

    May 11, 2022
    clearing the bushes

    The Surprising Way We Cleared 75 Feet of Bushes

    September 9, 2019
    nuloom new bedroom rug

    New Bedroom Rug

    January 18, 2021
  • old house construction techniques timber framed home from 1800s mortise and tenon carpenter's marks
    colonial farmhouse,  DIY

    4 Old House Construction Techniques We Found When We Replaced Siding

    July 8, 2024 /

    While putting new siding on our very old house (circa 1780s with later additions), we had a first-hand view of 4 old house construction techniques that blew our minds. Not everyone has the opportunity to see the “guts” of their home, so we’ll use my home as an example so that you’re not shocked someday. Fasten your proverbial tool belt and come check out the 4 old house construction techniques we found. #1 Old House Construction Technique: Timber Framed Construction Our home was built before power tools existed. It was built before electricity was invented. It was built before modern nails and screws were invented. In fact, the frame of…

    read more
    annisa 0 Comments

    You May Also Like

    Built-In Computer Desks One Year Later

    Built-In Computer Desks One Year Later

    April 12, 2021
    colonial farmhouse may 2025 exterior sunporch with rhododendrons

    Colonial Farmhouse Six Year Anniversary

    July 16, 2025
    Carriage House Interior Before Photos

    Carriage House Interior Before Photos

    July 25, 2022
 Older Posts
Hi! I'm Annisa.

Recent Posts

  • Happy List: #404
  • Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 7, The Stairs
  • Curved Fieldstone Wall: Part 6, Demo Section 2
  • Happy List: #403
  • Pared-Down Living Room Gallery Wall

Categories

Subscribe to blog
Loading

$2018 © A Pretty Happy Home
Ashe Theme by WP Royal.