Just do it.

We’ve now lived on our city block for a decade. Over the years—and many family walks—we’ve studied all the neighboring houses. In Center Square, our neighborhood, each house dons a plaque that states the original build date and, sometimes, the name and occupation of the original owner. We’ve loved reading them: “spice merchant,” “architect,” “florist,” “Supreme Court justice,” “prominent dealer in roofing supplies.”

Some homes, we noticed, had an additional plaque.

We became intrigued by a few houses that displayed a second plaque: the Historic Albany Foundation’s Preservation Award. Let me be honest… I thought it would be pretty awesome to have one of those.

Earlier this year, I got in contact with the Historic Albany Foundation (HAF) because I was researching the history of our house, looking for a photo of the original exterior, which has changed over the years.

While exploring the HAF website, I noticed applications for the Preservation Award. Honestly, I knew we had made a lot of beautiful changes, but I wasn’t sure they were significant enough to apply. Tyler, at first, thought we should wait, since we still had so many projects we hadn’t gotten to yet… but ultimately we decided to proceed because I had this hunch that if we went for it, we might just win! Besides, the application stated, “No project too small.” I took them seriously.

It was such a thrill and an honor when we were, in fact, selected for this year’s class of winners! It’s the first award I’ve received since my undergrad years—ha!

We went to the awards ceremony with Tyler’s parents and had a wonderful night reflecting on the past 10 years in Albany. We are, admittedly, not historians and didn’t set out to become renovationists. But we love our home, and we’ve always had the goal of creating a beautiful space that our family would thrive in. As we pursued that goal, the history within our home revealed itself—and we went with it.

So, this experience leads me to encourage you: if you have an inclination (and your spouse doesn’t have objections, lol), just do it! What’s the worst that could happen? Maybe a door closes… or possibly you’ve just won your next victory. What are you waiting for?