When we bought Golden Hour, I wrote about the before, the bones, the potential, the long list of everything this 1928 cottage needed. Now it’s the thick of summer, and I want to pick up where that post left off. Not with a dramatic reveal, but with the truth of how a home like this actually comes together: slowly, in the margins of real life.

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What you may not realize is that I’m doing this while chasing two little ones and booking clients, so Golden Hour has been an ongoing project rather than a race to a finish line. And I’ve made my peace with that. This cottage isn’t a flip. It’s ours. The pace is part of the point.

 

The unglamorous upgrades come first

 

 

Some of what we’ve done this summer will never make a moodboard, and I’m oddly proud of that. We replaced the hot water heater and the oil tank, both old enough to be startling, at least forty years old apiece. That’s the reality of an investment-first approach to your own home: you spend on the things nobody sees before you spend on the things everybody does. A cottage this age rewards you for taking care of its systems first.

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Their room came first on purpose

 

The whole home’s design scheme is now fully developed, which has given everything a sense of cohesion it didn’t have when we moved in. But the first room we actually finished was the girls’ room. That was a decision I made on purpose: my daughters are my priority, so their space got prioritized. I sewed new curtains for them, and getting that room *right* before anything else settled something in me. The rest of the house can be a work in progress. Theirs didn’t have to be.

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Sourcing pieces the house actually deserves

 

A lot of what we moved in with doesn’t quite belong here. It’s furniture for a different house. So I’ve been slowly sourcing antiques that fit Golden Hour’s era and spirit instead.

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Two finds this summer that I love: an antique armoire sourced locally that lived in someone’s family for over fifty years! I love the idea of cherishing it the same way they did. And a very old pine dresser that still has handwritten Italian notes glued inside the drawers. I have no idea what they say. I don’t want to remove them. That’s the kind of history you can’t design in.

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Mostly, we’ve just been living here

 

I don’t want to make this sound like a construction site, because most of the summer has genuinely been about *enjoying* the house and taking care of it.

 

That’s meant a lot of scrubbing. There’s a huge fireplace built of river rock that clearly hadn’t been cleaned in a very long time, and bringing it back has been strangely satisfying. I also repaired the wood-burning stove — treated the rust with stove polish you rub on, so it’s ready for colder months. Next up is getting the fireplace and chimney fully cleaned and cleared so we can actually use it this winter.

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What’s next: the expansion

 

We’re getting closer to finalizing our expansion plans, and I’m excited to share them as they firm up. The vision:

 

• More bedrooms, and a kitchen bump-out that finally brings the laundry up from the basement onto the main level

• A real backyard!! This'll include raised garden beds with plenty of pea gravel, a patio, and a cast-iron bistro dining set (not a tiny one, I want it to seat six to eight), plus a grill and a play area for the girls

• My studio, at last I'm clearing out the garage and refinishing the interior so it can become my workspace

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None of this is happening overnight, and that’s okay. Golden Hour has taught me that a home worth keeping is worth doing slowly. one system, one room, one salvaged armoire at a time. I’ll keep sharing it here as we go.