Meet Us

Welcome! I’m Amanda and the stud standing next to me is my husband, Matt. That’s us on the day we closed on our very first house - back when we were a couple of crazy kids. We were babies five years ago… we had no idea what we’d be in for when we closed on this small rehab project in our small Connecticut town.

Now we have two babies of our own. Harrison, of the human variety and Griffin, of the canine variety.

Everyone and their mom has told us when you own a house, “It’s always something!” or “Your project list is NEVER done!” and don’t we know it. We bought our fixer-upper in the fall of 2009 and have put a sizable dent in the list of things we want to do to it. I’d say we’re over 50% done, but of course, we know we’ll never really be done. While some people might find it stressful or a pain in the a**, we revel in it. We welcome the problems and try to find a creative, pretty and cost-effective way to solve them.

I think we make a good team. I’m the one with most of the visions for our fixer-upper that are constantly evolving (a nice way of saying I’m flying by the seat of my pants) and Matt brings my dreams to life with his wealth of knowledge in all things DIY. I can normally be found pinning kitchen ideas, scouring gardening books, or browsing house catalogs while Matt grips a power tool in one hand and kills a spider with the other. We knew our 19th century ex-schoolhouse would be a ton of work, but we were ready for whatever it might toss our way.

I wanted a place to keep a record of all of our house projects, no matter the size, for us to reference and share with our friends and family. And so School House Rehab, the blog, was born. I hope you continue to join us on our adventure of fixing up an 1875 schoolhouse and transforming it into a space where our family can be comfortable and happy.

It is so rewarding to see how the house is in a constant state of evolution that mirrors our life path. Thanks for stopping by! Hope you enjoy taking a peek into our world.