Old House My House

Here we are six months after the first sledgehammer hit and also our first time being filmed as a family for a national television show. As you can imagine, the last two months were insanely hectic as everyone involved in our renovation worked to finish the house for the final filming, the wrap party episode.  Now that the adrenaline rush has mostly dissipated, we are slowly reclaiming our house into our family's home.

The kids are having a blast--they adore the yard, their spacious room and the spiral staircase! They miss both whole crews--MRS and TOH--and love to pretend they are Michael Streaman with their toy tools and have memorized all of the dialogue in many of the episodes, including the ads! It's really funny because the parts of the house that were featured on the show seem larger than life to them. 

Kevin and I have been focused on the hard work of unpacking, organizing our lives over three floors and finishing up various things in the house (installing door/cabinet locks, retouching paint after the big wrap party bash, staining windows/doors).

We are thrilled that our last bathroom was finally completed yesterday! We predict that we'll be done unpacking in about two years...

We want to give endless thanks to Michael Streaman, our general contractor (M.R.S., Inc) for being so perfect for this exciting endeavor--for his astute design and functional input, his high standard of workmanship and his total dedication to the project. Thank you also to Mike's subcontractors, some of the best in NYC--Vinnie of SuperCharged Electric, Erik and Randy of Aladdin Plumbing, John Thomas woodwork restoration god and many more--and his own excellent crew, including Mario, Mike, Felix, Bolivar, Joseph Gregory, Jose, Wes, Stevie, Junior, Bobby, Louis and Nestor, for all of the hard, fast work, the long hours and for accomplishing it under the watchful eyes of an Emmy-award winning TV show and 24/7 webcams. Bravo, everyone!!! We are in awe of the results!

A huge thank you to the cast and crew of TOH for coming to Brooklyn, for being so great to work with, for your guidance with our project and for documenting it forever. We will always remember this incredible experience.Thank you also to the TOH sponsors!

And thank you for reading, watching and for your interest in our house.

The Shen/Costellos