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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

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  • 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

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    Painted Black Doors in our Colonial Farmhouse

    July 13, 2020
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    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…

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  • 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,…

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    annisa 0 Comments

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  • fall front porch with paint blue ceiling and potted mums and pumpkins
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    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…

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    annisa 0 Comments

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    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…

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    September 23, 2020
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    December 21, 2022
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    Stone Carriage House Gym: Part 2, Demo

    April 28, 2025
  • 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…

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    5 Old Books I Found in Our New Home

    July 31, 2019

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    September 14, 2020
  • 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…

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    annisa 2 Comments

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    January 29, 2020
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    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…

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    Entryway Refresh and a New Front Door Window

    April 16, 2025
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    Colonial Farmhouse 5 Year Anniversary

    June 12, 2024 /

    Pop the cork and put on your party hats! We are celebrating five years of living in, loving on, and fixing up this colonial farmhouse of ours. Time flies when your hands are covered in paint, caulk, and lime mortar, to name a few. Our house doesn’t have an official name like some old houses do. If she did have a name, the top contender would be Money Pit. It’s not stately but it does have a certain ring to it. Without an official name, we call it the colonial farmhouse as a descriptor of sorts. It doesn’t have any super distinct architectural markers that would easily identify its style,…

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    July 10, 2024
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    September 23, 2020
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    Caulk, Cracks, and Home Maintenance. Oh My!

    October 9, 2023
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    colonial farmhouse

    Caulk, Cracks, and Home Maintenance. Oh My!

    October 9, 2023 /

    Caulking cracks. Chipping Paint. Rotting Wood. When it comes to this old house we live in, it’s us against nature. Who will win? Nature is unrelenting and seems to be in the lead at the moment. But don’t count out me and Handy Husband. We’re tenacious and industrious problem solvers. When you buy a fixer-upper like we did you have to expect to be in it for the long haul, especially if you aren’t doing a major renovation all at once. For the past couple of months, we’ve been focusing on siding maintenance. Like many old homes in the Northeast, we have wood siding. Wood siding can last decades but…

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Hi! I'm Annisa.

Recent Posts

  • Happy List: #391
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  • Happy List: #390
  • Stone Carriage House Gym: Part 4, Pipes In Stone Walls

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