How I Started Honey’s Old House

At the end of 2021, I found myself starting over.

I had just gotten divorced after being in a relationship for nine years. We sold our home and made a good profit on it, and I decided I wanted to reinvest that money into a home of my own.

I started looking toward the coast because I had always wanted to live near the ocean. Eventually, I found it: a 1955 home that definitely had some character — and, as I was about to discover, needed a whole lot of love.

When I first moved in, I was so excited. I unpacked my stuff, got settled, and then started really looking around.

And I mean really looking around.

That was when I thought, Wow. This old house needs some serious love.

I knew when I bought it that it hadn’t really been updated, but once I was living there, I started realizing just how much there was to do. The original kitchen. Original floors. Original bathrooms. Original doors. It was basically a little 1955 time capsule.

But honestly? That’s part of what I wanted.

I wanted a project — and I wanted to learn how to do it myself.

Learning to Do It on My Own

During the nine years I was in a relationship, I never really learned how to fix things around the house myself. When that relationship ended, I made the decision that I wanted to spend some time on my own. I wasn’t interested in jumping right back into dating. I wanted to focus on myself, my new home, and this completely new chapter of my life.

And part of that was learning how to take care of my own house.

I didn’t want to feel like I needed to depend on a man every time something needed to be fixed, installed, changed or renovated. If I didn’t know how to do something, I was going to learn.

That didn’t mean I suddenly knew what I was doing. Quite the opposite. 

I was going to research things, ask questions, watch videos, learn from people who knew more than I did and figure things out as I went.

I did have one advantage: I come from a family of electricians, so I grew up around the trades. I was comfortable around tradesmen, tools and construction projects. I just hadn’t spent much time actually doing those things myself.

Now I finally had my own house to practice on.

One Fan, a Few Drinks, and an Idea 

Then one night, after a few drinks, I decided I was going to install a new ceiling fan with a light.

There I was in my denim shorts, working on this fan, when I had an idea:

Why don’t I document myself fixing up this entire house?

But I didn’t want to make another boring home-renovation page.

I wanted to have fun with it.

What if I documented myself learning, fixing things and transforming this old house — but made it a little spicier? Maybe sometimes I’m doing a project in lingerie. Maybe I add some comedy. Maybe things don’t always go according to plan.

Instead of pretending I knew exactly what I was doing all the time, I could bring people along while I learned.

And that’s really where Honey’s Old House began.

One Project Turned Into Another

That first project turned into another project.

And then another.

And then approximately 5,000 trips to Lowe’s......

As I kept working on the house, I also started working on the content itself. I didn’t want to just point a camera at myself doing something and post it. I wanted to come up with ideas that were catchy, funny, entertaining and different from the typical home-renovation content I’d been seeing.

Slowly, Honey’s Old House became about more than fixing an old house.

It became about taking control of my own life and my own home. Learning things I never thought I’d know how to do. Screwing things up occasionally. Figuring them out. Laughing about it. And having a little fun along the way.

In a weird way, I wasn’t just rebuilding an old house.

I was rebuilding my life at the same time.

What started with a 1955 fixer-upper, a ceiling fan and a random idea after a few drinks was turning into something I never expected.

And I was only getting started.