Chris and I met in the fall/winter of 2004 when I was a sophomore at UCDavis (Chris had graduated a few years earlier) and I interviewed at Tower Records, where he was a manager. A few months later we started dating, and now, well, we’re married, have 2 kiddos, own our own handyman and design business, and are renovating our second house together.

Our first house named this blog – we lived in a Storybook Home on Picardy Dr. in Oakland. We fell in love with renovating and loved the 7+ years we spent there – hell, we even got married in the backyard!

But after having our two girls and diving into our handyman and design business, we found we were outgrowing the space. Hell, Merritt slept in the laundry room! We spent almost 18 months searching for our dream house, and we finally found it: 0.6 acres, 2500 square feet, a workshop. a home office, and still in Oakland. Of course it’s a fixer too – but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Chris has an endless quest of curiosity and a love of building that has turned him into a wonderful builder. I am constantly amazed at how much he knows, how good he is at just about everything he does and his desire to always make things right. I grew up helping my dad on projects around the house because my older brother couldn’t care less and so I have turned into Chris’ trusty assistant. Although Merritt is still too little to walk so we can’t quite tell just how much she’ll love DIY, Zoe does indeed love to grab a paintbrush, or screwdriver, or hammer and help in any way she can. It’ll take us many, MANY, years to touch nearly every surface and create the home we love, but I couldn’t think of a better person to do it with.