1970's House Redesign

First home, Fixer-upper, One Day at a Time

[juliejule]

Happy holidays!

[juliejule]

Fall decorations are up!

[juliejule]

Serious deconstruction of awkward shelving yesterday. Wall is patched. We will prime and paint the internal wall, mount a TV and then do some sort of built in

[juliejule]

Two things: 1. Very belated picture of the sunroom my mother came to help paint back in May. The trim was all dark wood and for the record there are thirteen windows. The walls were beige. It has been a complete transformation. It is a mess currently because the coffee table is a project zone and we are reconfiguring the closet 2. This is what it looks like when someone paints the house on the outside. It is so satisfying to see someone else paint your house after painting the greater part of the interiors yourself. Exterior shots to come soon!

[juliejule]

This weekend we built a bench for the weird area in the kitchen. I saw one in our favorite mid century furniture store and a quick sketch and 30 dollars later (we had the legs at home after thrifting them over a year ago) we were putting this together at home. The first photo shows how I screwed in 1.25 inch screws for each component. The key here was to put scraps of 1 by 2s in between each slat on both sides- so 12 makeshift shims total in order to get the spacing. Perfect. I am a big believer in measuring but appreciate all of the ways that intuitive shortcuts make building easier and more precise. I plan on adding some pillows and some plants (saguaro or a really big pony tail palm) to cozy it up. Initially we were inspired by a dark (near black) finish, but now the raw wood is so pretty we may just seal it up and enjoy.

[juliejule]

End of an era

[juliejule]

The front door has been a slow evolution. The red door has been weird/mismatched our entire time and it has been hard to live with it for so long. Now I am all about painting the front door a funky color. However, in this case, we had some obstacles that greatly limited the color options; 1. The blue shutter and trim color: it is a dated color in the neighborhood and tricky to work with. The challenge is that this blue IS the accent color. It just happens to be outdated and dull. 2. The brick: while it is lovely, it introduces color number 2 to the scenario. 3. Siding color: beige. Unless everything else is beige, it is going to be hard to work with. My brain kept going through the rainbow, trying to think of a bright color that would go with the dull red brick and dull blue. We are all manning to paint the siding and perhaps the blue also. We figured that by painting the door( even though it is better to wait until last)it may get help us choose siding color as well. Yellow seemed to work with the blue. My first hint was when the daffodils bloomed all over the front lawn. It was the first color that really seemed to match. My main concern was the primary color scheme; red brick, Blue shutters/trim and yellow door? So I went for it. I play caked a slightly cool yellow that was very saturated. What you are looking at are the hours of self doubt before arriving at the finished door color. It is one thing to do crazy renovations in the house- something else entirely to do so when the neighbors can see. We will live with the new color and see if it sticks!

[juliejule]

Diamond in the rough

Woke up at 7:00 this morning and went outside to draw on pots. This pot along with several others came with the house. We have been customizing a lot of them recently and this one was front porch worthy.

[juliejule]

Wildlife.... Photo #1: defending raised bed #3 from the wildlifes.... Photo #2: that horrifying moment when you try to plant zinnias in the deck flower bed, and dig up a goose egg stashed away by the fantastic mr. Fox

[juliejule]

Yardwork updates

1. Planted lettuce, carrots, beets, onions and peas in the third raised bed today. (Note: soil supplier #2 is far superior to soil provider #1 from last week). It is also hard to believe that those beds have one and a half cubic yards of soil/compost mix. Unreal.

2. Went “shopping” in the front yard. Previous owners invested in some lovely plant that we just want to relocate to other parts of the house so that we get to use them. The top photos show the area that we transplanted to after dumping some extra topsoil into it to level it out. All of these flowers and plants were found in our front lawn.

3. The mulch pile from an expensive tree removal last year is apparently bottomless. This is really exciting to think about as we haul load after load and silently add up how much it would have cost if we had to purchase it. (Although considering the cost of tree removal, we really kinda already paid for it).

Planting some forsythias tomorrow that were on clearance at Walmart.

[juliejule]

Planted veggies today; tomatoes (heirloom varieties, romas and cherry), three types of bell peppers, basil, zucchini, squash, and cucumber. The last three are outside the raised beds because they take up space. We will fill bed #3 this weekend. I am on countdown to summer. Nine days until freedom.

[juliejule]

Irises we inherited. So pretty! The ones on the right of the deck were bravely moved there on Saturday when we cleared the "weed garden". We are going to move the ones on the left to the left side of the deck at some point to even it out. So thrilled to cover the underbelly of the deck and turn some dirt into greenery.

[juliejule]

Weed garden gone! Future home of four types of tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, squash, herbs, lettuces, beets, tomatillos, peppers, and whatever else we would like. We are shopping for soil this week and will hopefully get this up and running by next weekend!

[juliejule]

New carpet today!!!!

After a weekend and Monday night of marathon painting before carpet was installed, it is finally here!

Exhibit A: a peak at the blue door in the foyer. More importantly, I am sitting on our carpet wearing no socks! (That’s a first. That means the carpet is clean!)

Exhibit B: a while view of the room. I was so excited about the carpet removal that I forgot to snap one last photo of the carpet- it was beige and had darker patches of filth. We learned today that despite our suspicions, the carpet was not original- it was from 2009. It quickly made us more horrified!

Exhibit C. A close up with some light.

It smells so good in here. One more room reclaimed on the first floor. Just the dining room and the sunroom to go!

[juliejule]

Got some work done in the master bathroom this weekend. Still tidying it up but here is a sneak peak

[juliejule]

Remember the bathroom of unfortunate greens? We have finally eradicated the last of the hideous hospital green above. We went for white! 

Here is what we are looking at;

Exhibit a: The before. Except this was not a normal paint job. This was painted over wallpaper removal/drywall repair. The worst time ever. We knew we were not going to spend $$ on retiling the bathroom. So we needed to neutralize the dated color as much as possible. (like our approach with the harvest gold bathroom). Painting the bathroom dark was simply not an option. We needed it to be light and therefore seemingly larger. I am of the opinion that in a few years, people will find these colorful tile bathrooms charming. In fact, some people already are. I think that the rest of the colors will follow soon!

Exhibit b: New mirror. We had a pretty glorious framed bronz-ish mirror that we took down. We decided to get a medicine cabinet to deal with some extra space needs. The light fixture is original. I spray painted it white to cover up the bronze. We don't actually mind the globe lights that much. In such a small space you don't want a lot of things competing so the goal there was to dull down the fixture. We may replace it one day.

Exhibit c: A view of the white paint and the green tile. 

We have a few more projects coming up. You might notice that the window area is strategically cropped out. That project involves a nail gun and more time. The vanity will be staying for now. Deciding on the color it will be. I don't hate the wood but want to paint it to disguise the dated carpentry. We will not be painting it white. Navy seems pretty possible. 

[juliejule]

Last night we replaced the dingy beige-ish curtain. I am still sanding the master bathroom and recovering the drywall so it is nice to have a project that takes less than one hour. It is amazing what a white curtain can do for things. This window is open to the sunroom and we have an energy efficient curtain to keep the heat in. in the spring/summer/fall, it will be open. 

*Don't judge the  dishes. They were intentionally placed to accentuate the before/after. 

Back to sanding.