After years of shuttling between New York City and Los Angeles, Mark Goff and Phillip Engel wanted to change their location and their lives. They landed in the tiny town of Healdsburg, California (approximately 1.5 hours from San Francisco in Sonoma County Wine Country, population 11,254). The home they found there?an extreme fixer?was certainly transformative. The work they did on the 1870 Victorian turned the business analyst (Engel) and graphic designer (Goff) into seasoned renovation experts and tested their patience and skill. This week, in our second annual Renovation Diary, the pair describes the joy and the frustration of bringing the decrepit home back to life, a process Goff fully details in his blog, 227NorthStreet.
When Mark Goff (left) and Phillip Engel (right) purchased this house, it was uninhabitable and a bank wouldn't give them a loan for it (creative financing was required). They decided to restore it, primarily themselves, tackling projects that many seasoned DIY remodelers fear.  Seven years later, they are reaping the rewards. They told us: "Some people say remodeling drives a couple apart. This wasn't the case for us."

The house isn?t quite done?we are working on a storage area upstairs and planning on building a garage?but the end is in sight. We just have a mere five million little details to go! Today, we are enjoying it and entertaining a lot. We jokingly call the way we move through the house during a ...