My name is Rachelle (pronounced Rachel). I am originally from New Jersey. My parents moved my family to a rural Arkansas town (imagine my extreme culture shock) my junior year of high school. I decided to stay in Arkansas after high school and go to college in Little Rock. John is my husband and we met our first week of college. John is also originally from New Jersey and his family moved down to Little Rock, AR when he was in fourth grade. We thought the coincidence was crazy and both realized we were meant to be together and got married in 2008.
We bought our first house together in 2005, when we were both 21 and still in college. The house was a ranch built in 1977 and looked like it hadn't changed at all since it was built. John and I decided to completely remodel the house and really enjoyed the process. John is very handy and has his electrical license so we were able to do most of the remodeling ourselves. Sadly we didn't blog our remodel along the way, but you can check out some amazing before and after pictures on our "1st House" page.
Last year we both took a motorcycle trip around downtown Little Rock. There is a hidden neighborhood there on the national historic register called the Quapaw Quarter. I hadn't known it had even existed really until then. We instantly fell in love with the old Queen Anne and Craftsman houses. So after much daydreaming we looked up how much those houses were, and to our surprise they were very affordable. The area became run down in the 1980s and has only recently begun a renaissance. John and I were thrilled that we could buy one of these houses and restore it to its previous grandeur. After many months of searching and failed real estate deals, we finally purchased a Craftsman style house built in 1915. It had been restored, but we were confident that we could make some changes to make it really our own, while keeping its historic character. We hope to focus this blog mainly on the remodeling of this house.
We have both always been really into traveling, but began to travel even more since we graduated and you know actually are making enough money to take trips. John also has 7 (yes 7) motorcycles, so we also like to go on many motorcycle adventures. We hope to chronicle our travel adventures on this blog as well. Check out the "Travels" page for more information.
Also, I love to cook and am constantly trying to come up with new flavor combinations or recipe ideas. We love to have dinner parties and cook with fresh seasonal items. I have also started a garden this year and plan to incorporate those vegetables into my cooking. Check out some of my recipes on the "Recipes" page.
Finally, John works for the city and sees a lot of interesting things during the day. He always has some interesting stories or pictures and he hopes to share them on here whenever he can.
