Mural progress

After two days of painting, our pop art fabric inspired mural is coming along nicely.

Retro Babies

All right. You caught me. It's been a long time since I've posted here. In my defense, I accidentally ended up pregnant and with 4 monbths of terrible morning (noon, and night) sickness. Boy, I never thought making a person would be so much work. Alas, my favorite guest room is now going to have to be turned into a nursery.

Don't worry. Just because there's a baby on the way, doesn't mean I'm suddenly into gingham and pastels. It takes more work, but it is possible to have a retro- fabulous baby room. So, once it was clear that this pregnancy was going to stick, I started flipping through my vintage decorating books. My discovery? If you want an awesome retro kids' room, the 1970s hold the key. It was the era of bright colors and wall murals. Sold!

But what on earth should I paint? The room has bright red carpet and is teeny tiny. Not easy to decorate around. Unless you're a kid. My friend Jenny found an awesome retro kids fabric (pictured) called Alexander Henry's 2-D zoo. Voila. Mural inspiration had. What kid won't like floor to ceiling jungle animals?

I've already moved the furniture out of the room and put a base coat of bright white on three walls. I have one accent wall of red (to match the carpet). The plan is to harang my mom into coming over later this week to help me paint the animals. I'm also painting a palm tree in each corner of the room, with leaves that reach onto the ceiling.

This is my first mural, but I'm armed with an opaque projector to enlarge the animals, a box of paints, and a willing mom to help out. Keep your fingers crossed!

Everyone needs a mermaid...

This lovely lady now hangs over the shower in my main bathroom. OK. I admit it. She's a reproduction. A lady named Sandy makes these from molds she's cast for vintage chalkware from the '40s and '50s. Check her out. She's got everything, and she will custom paint them to match your decor.

Vintage chalkware pin-ups

Ta-dah! Hawaii at home

Well, the walls are painted.The comforter is stuffed with down, the knick knacks are on the shelves and I revamped the dresser. The Hawaii room is for the most part, finished.

The dresser, a vintage 1960s model, was a hand-me down from my grandpa. I repainted it in a color close to its original, just to give it a bit of new life and to cover all of the stains. I found the mirror above it at the Habitat for Humanity store and painted the frame, so it at least looks like it matches the dresser.

I painted the walls and ceiling the sandy color that matches the neutrals in the comforter. It's a little dark, but hey, a lot of that has to do with the lack of windows.

The knick-knack shelf, also inherited from grandpa, holds some of my tiki stuff, plus three geisha girl statues and a large ceramic chicken that used to be my grandma's favorites. (She died last summer, sniff.) The girlie statute was made by this lady Sandy who does custom reproductions of all kinds of cool 1950s chalkware. She did a great job.

All in all, it's my favorite guest room. The bed is the softest in the house and it's very cozy, despite it's small size.

Target to the rescue

I found the perfect comforter for the red guest room. It was so perfect I squeaked when I saw it. The red flower matched the carpet perfectly, and the comforter, which is tropical, has set the entire theme for the room.

It's now going to be-- the envelope please-- the Hawaii room! Yay!

On the way home, I took the pillow sham into Lowes to try to find a paint chip for the walls. There is a sandy beige color in the comforter that will look great on the walls. At least I'm pretty sure. So off to work, transforming what was a pretty depressing room, into a tropical destination.

Guest Room Blues, er reds

I have two spare bedrooms to turn into guest rooms.
Maybe I'm weird, but I really heart theme rooms. I think coming home everyday should be like taking an exotic vacation. The minute you open the door, , you're somewhere interesting and fun, far from the bland drudgery of work and chores.
This is especially true for guest rooms. I want the people who stay over to feel like they had a neat getaway.

Unfortunately, I don't have crap to work with. My smallest guest room is the size of a postage stamp. It's also a problem color-wise because it's got red shag carpet. I really love the carpet. It's in great shape, the color is super bright, but it's also a huge decorating dilemma. How the heck do you decorate around it?

I'm hoping inspiration will come soon.

A small victory

I hardly beleive it, but the bookcases are stained, sanded, varnished, and up and running. It only took four months, but hey. We're relieved because we finally got to unpack all of the boxes of books that have been rotting in the corner, taking up tons of space. The basement is totally "man-spaced" out yet, but it's closer to pimpin' fabulous than it ever has been.

I also managed, miraculously, to coax my father-in-law to install my new fab "bubble" chandelier in the kitchen. It's much cooler than the brass thingee that was in there before. eek. They sure loved that brass in the 80s, didn't they?

It's like I'm a new me! Finishing all of these projects is giving me an identity crisis. Good thing I still have plenty on my to-do list...Up next? Tiki-ing the sunporch and Hawaii-islanding out the guest room. Stay tuned!•

Confessions of a renovator with a short attention span...

As always, I promised myself I wouldn't start a new project until the basement was finished. Alas, two of the four bookcases grandpa made us are still in the garage, unfinished. (Part of that problem is the hubby wanted to make that his project, and I don't want to nag him to get it done because he'll never volunteer again!)

We can at least sit in the basement. But it's definitely a man space, filled with boxes yet to be unpacked, and the sad tiny bits of pretzels that have long ago been eaten, gathering under the sofa.

So I confess. I started another project-repainting the kitchen. When we moved in, it was covered in an awful floral wallpaper, and had a dull red vinyl floor that was peeling at the seems. I mean it was absolutely awful.

The layout of the kitchen is fantastic, though. It's long, plenty wide, with lots of custom birch cabinetry from the 1950s, and an awesomely spacious breakfast nook. We're using that as our dining room, because any 50s architect who thinks the dining-room-at-the-end-of-the-rectangular-living-room thing doesn't feel cramped is crazy.

We've already replaced the floor, with relatively eco-friendly marmoleum in black and white. (It's awesome by the way, very easy to clean and tough as nails).

This is the second time I've painted the kitchen in a year, so Erich looked at me like I was crazy when he saw new paint cans on the kitchen table. But he's practically blind, and the last color I chose, a dark plum, made it almost impossible for him to see. I decided to go lighter and brighter. So I repainted the entire kitchen and ceiling in that American Tradition Cincinnatti hotel beige I used in the living room.

Then, on the wall running behind the table, I went with a medium-dark purple. Something that would really shine next to my vintage $35 thrift-score red formica table and chair set.

It's very cheery. He says it looks like we live inside of an easter egg. And it does.... Unbelievably, I actually managed to FINISH this project. Two coats of primer, two colors, all in one weekend. Well, almost finished. Never mind that I haven't replaced the baseboards since the floor was installed, or that I have to get rid of that awful light fixture above the table. But alas, I'm still searching for the perfect chandelier, and cutting those 45 degree angles to install baseboards? eek! I'm not sure I'm cut out for that!•

The basement is wrecked still...

The basement is wrecked, still...




I always start out with good intentions. Get the basement started. I'll be able to finish it...and hang the new towel racks in the bathroom...and repaint the kitchen...and find a new vanity for the half bath.... and... You get the idea. The half finish projects list just keeps growing. It's not like I'm sitting around watching TV, doing nothing. I am perpetually overbooked-- leave the house at 9 a.m. and not home in bed until midnight. I'm left to paint and primp and install in the odd hours when I'm not supposed to be somewhere else.

I did manage to get a little bit more done on the basement. Mostly just removing the cardboard boxes the new sofa came in and moving two of the four bookcases grandpa made me into place. They still have to be attached to the wall and I have to stain the shelves, but hey, little victories right? It will all be very cool when it's finished. As you can see from the pictures, it's far from glamorous so far! The dropcloth for the woodstain is still on the floor, wires are everywhere, and no shelves or books yet on the cases. They are very cool though. They were built using this free pattern for built-in bookcases. We just altered it a bit so they were freestanding. The only thing standing between me and a (mostly) finished basement is a husband who is reluctant to sand and stain the remaining two bookcases. Wish me luck with that....•

The basement is wrecked...

So maybe I bit off more than I could chew. I have a bad habit of starting a lot of projects all at once, then leaving them half finished. I tell myself that I won't do it again, that I'll quit being so schizonphrenic and just stick to one room at a time, start to finish. But who am I kidding. The creative process doesn't happen like that. I need to install the new towel racks and regrout the tub in the main bathroom, I ripped out the vanity and have yet to find a replacement in the half bath, and I have yet to prime and paint the kitchen, despite the fact that the new floor was installed a month ago.

So what do I do? Start on the basement. Yep. You guessed it. Now that room is half-wrecked too! It's not terrible, mind you. My honey was nagging me about the boxes and boxes of books we have yet to unpack since we moved in. Our last pad had built-in bookshelves. This one, well, it just wasn't meant for books. I talked my 80-year-old grandpa into building us 16 feet of custom bookcases. So with a nagging husband and a grandpa anxious to see his handy work in action, I started in on the basement. Noble reasons.

Don't get me wrong. It's a big job. To start off, the room was a wood paneled nightmare, with very little light and a long, skinny shape. So far, I've primed and painted the panels American Tradition Empire Fleet blue because it was the only color we could agree on. Not too shabby, considering the carpet is maroon. I was afraid it'd look like a 1970s-style Spirit of '76 bicentennial color scheme. But so far, so good. Two fo the bookcases are stained and the new sofa, from Ikea, finally arrived. But as you can see, the room is still a work in progress...•

Blueprints, HGTV, and Habitat for Humanity...

You probably haven't noticed, but I'm also trying really hard to make sure our remodel is earth-friendly. It's a nice idea but it really slows things down. It takes a lot more dang time and energy researching where to find good used, vintage, and earth-friendly materials than it does to just go buy it all at Lowe's. Okay, I admit I can't resist Lowe's paint chips and who wants to buy a used plumbing line? Not me!

Anyway, I decided to scour the Habitat for Humanity Restore in our area yesterday in search of a light for the kitchen and a bathroom vanity. I didn't get either, but it was still awesome. I left with a five-foot vintage 1950s mirror medicine cabinet for my guest bath ($10!!) and a huge vintage wall mirror ($29!!!). They have these stores all over the country, so google your local Habitat and check it out. They basically collect used and new building materials that would have otherwise ended up in the landfill.They use the money from the store to build houses for low-income families. Oh, and it's a great resource for people who already own houses and don't have a huge budget to fix them up. I count myself as one of those-- I always just about poop my drawers when I read articles about "cheap" $25,000 one-room renovations. Hell, that's more than I'm going to spend on my entire house!

In other news,a pile of papers fell out of the cabinet above the fridge this week. Turns out it was four pages of blueprints for the house, with the name of the home builder (Norman L. Koon) and the developer, (Gabay Development). Very cool. I want to find out more about my neighborhood, and now I have the first clues to start me on my way. Although I did notice that whoever paid to build this house moved the stove around in the kitchen,ditched a cheesy flower bed outside, and went with plaster walls and thick stucco instead of drywall and wood shingles.

On another note. I'm one of the three people left in the U.S. that doesn't have cable TV. Somehow, I don't want to admit that I like television enough to pay for it every month. Plus, I'm scared it'll take time away from other projects. Anyhoo, I have to balance my TV ideology with the fact that I am addicted to HGTV, so I often drive down to my mom's to spend the night vegging in front of her HGTV. Lo and behold the episode of Designer Finals was a makeover of a house in Columbus,Ohio. My brain spun. I often check the Be on HGTV button on their Web site, and never once did I see a request for houses in my town! Holy cow. I'm totally bummed out that I missed it. I have a few rooms that could use the touch of a young professional other than me. But maybe next time...
.•

The bathroom, part two, and the toilet name game...

Mission accomplished. At least partly. The robin's egg 1950s blu emy husband wanted in the main bath upstairs in now in place, the mauve carpet has been safely removed and freecycled, and the new hardware that will someday (when I have time to install it...) has been chosen. Woo-hoo! I'm almost home free. The color is Behr Embellished Blue from Home Depot. It really makes taking a shower a lot cheerier. And, it shows off the 1950s faux marble vanity top.

I did have bathroom fever this past weekend, so I started a makeover of the half bathroom adjoining the kitchen. Well, it wasn't that I was feeling like a go-getter, it's just that we are having Marmoelum flooring installed in the kitchen and bathroom of that room this week and the toilet and vanity needed to come out beforehand. I figured while the toilet was out, I'd replace it with a new one, because there was no way in hell I was putting that mid 1960s 5- gallon a flush water hog back in. Especially when it didn't flush right to begin with.

No one warned me that toilet shopping was such a humorous experience, though. I had to wonder who came up with the model name for toilets. At Lowes, you could buy a Cimaron. At Home Depot, the Harbor or the WellWorth. Silly names trying to add a bit of mystique and class to what has for all time basically been referred to as "the old crapper." We went with the WellWorth. And in a fit or irony, the same day we bought it, we went to a house party where the hostess had just bought a new toilet. I told her of the humourous names we encountered while toilet shopping and she said, "Yeah, it's funny. I think ours is the WellWorth?" Those marketing people earned their money that day.•

Up Next: The bathroom...

Let's just say the main bathroom upstairs leaves much to be desired. Mauve carpet, pink curtains. Okay, at least the original custom slant-front vanity with the faux pink marble top is intact. After all, I bought the house because it had all original fixtures. And the tub and tile seem to be original 1957, too.

The hubby says he wants the walls to be a nice 1950s robin's egg blue, the same color as the living room in the first apartment we lived in together. But first, I've gotta pull up the carpet and see what I'm dealing with here. Looks like 70s linoleum!

Christmas down at the ranch...

The eggnog is in the punchbowl and it's about time to bust out the cookie sheets and make sugar cookies. Yes, it's Christmas again! I put up the tree on Sunday. It's a vintage 1950s 6 and a half foot Alcoa aluminum tree with a color wheel my mom was gracious enough to buy me at a flea market. Of course, I did go overboard, buying a second tree. But hey, it's made of purple tinsel and it was 50 percent off. What girl can resist that?

Project two: Paint chips a plenty, turning the living room into a retro playland...

It took a good three trips to the hardware store to find the right paint chips for the living room. Luckily, I had decent floors to deal with after the mint green carpet came out. But, it's a long skinny room with low ceilings, so at first I wasn't quite sure what to do. I wanted some red, because I had it in my last house and it looks good with retro leopard print-- definitely a must. (I guess you could describe my decorating style as "Bettie Page burlesque bordello").

I am not a fan of pastels or of white walls, either. So, after sitting on the rug absorbing the vibe, I decided I'd do three walls in a light neutral, with one dark accent wall in a red. My goal is to get the stone fireplace and the built-in metal plant holder to stand out. They just kind of blend in against the white, when really they are the coolest parts of the room.

I ultimately went with American Tradition Cincinnati Hotel beige, from the National Trust for Historic Preservation paint series and Bordeaux by Eddie Bauer for the accent wall, both from handy dandy Lowe's. Just a warning: before you paint anything red, understand that it takes at least three coats to get a solid red color. It's not for the faint of heart.
So, after a weekend of painting, this is how it turned out.

Click here for a before and after living room photos slideshow

Between the camera and the Internet, it's hard to convey the true colors in the room, so if you are really motivated and curious, you'll probably want to inspect the chips in person next time you stumble into Lowe's.
But, mission accomplished, I think, on making the fireplace and the plant holder much more noticable.
Alas, for me it's back to the paint chips. Now I'm on a quest for the perfect 1950s blue for my bathroom!•

Miracle cleaner, I swear

My neighbors, a retired couple, just gave me a tour of their 50s ranch house. All original fixtures, even down to the pink tile, sinks and toilets in the bathroom. Their porcelain sink was immaculate, and when I mentioned I might have to have mine redone because it was stained beyond all hope, they told me Bar Keeper's Friend would fix it. I didn't believe them. It looks just like every other can of scouring powder I've tried that hasn't worked. But, for a dollar a can, I thought I'd give it another go.

I'm glad I did. This stuff is a miracle in a can! With very little scrubbing, the stains in the kitchen sink came right out. The sink looks brand new. I tried it on the black stain on the bottom of my bathrub, and that came right out too.
I just wanted to share this because I'm sure a lot of you have stained vintage fixtures like mine, and are wondering what to do. If you can find this in the store, try it. It really is amazing. My sink is bright white, and good as new now.•

Project one: Taming the mint green carpet monster...

Dream house or no, the mint green carpet had to go. I almost gagged the first time I saw it. Sure, it was nice carpet, if no stains equals nice carpet. But the color- very 1980s Midwestern mom who also likes mauve Avon lipstick and country crafts. It had to go, because it was putting a serious crimp in my decorating style.Leopard rugs do not look good on a canvas mint green. Unfortunately, removing carpet can be a huge job, and Erich wasn't totally on board. Almost all of the first floor of the house-- the hallway, two bedrooms and the living room-- were covered in it, and we didn't know what would be underneath. I pulled up a corner in one of the bedroom closets. Score! The original wood floors were under there. Of course we didn't know what condition they were in, but I insisted we go for it anyway. Like a good hubby, he gave in.

Tearing up carpet was time consuming, but easy. You only need one of those razor blade cutting knives from the hardware store, a hammer and either a screwdriver or a stiff metal putty knife. Oh, and some tape, to hold the carpet in rolls. I cut the carpet in sections in each room. I hoped to freecycle it, (I can't bear throwing perfectly good stuff in the landfill) so I tried to cut it into the largest pieces possible, so whoever still likes mint green could reuse it.

We rolled the carpet first. Then we pulled the padding up. It's stapled down, but you can pull it up gently without damaging the padding. We rolled that too. Soon, we had pretty wood floors in every room. There were only a few damaged spots and a couple of scratches. Nothing too difficult to fix. But we still had one big problem: carpet tacks. I think these guys thought they were getting paid by the nail. Carpet tacks lined every wall in every room, hundreds of them. It was terrible. They are tough to remove, and they tend to poke and stab you because there are nails hanging off of them in every direction.

To remove a carpet tack, we put our putty knife under the nails holding them into the floor, hammered it under, and pried the tack off. That's probably not the right way. We left a few scratch marks on the floor as a result, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The realtor came over while we were doing all of this, to drop off his obligatory "thanks for the commission" house-warming gift. He almost dropped it. "The floors are beautiful," he said. "I think you already raised the value of your house." Such a sweet-talker.

We vacuumed-- a lot. All of that carpet freshener stuff that people put on their carpet doesn't end up in the vacuum cleaner. A lot of it filters down to the floor underneath. I think we swept up about 20 years' worth. Icky. The good news is some folks did come pick up the carpet. People were fighting over it on the local freecycle site. Who would have guessed mint green would be such a hot commodity? We decided to give it to a family with four kids, who couldn't afford to buy carpet for their basement. They hoped to turn it into a playroom, but without carpet it was too damp, dusty and cold down there. Mint green would do just fine, they said. •

About this Blog, Us, and the Quest for the House...

The first time I saw the yellow stucco ranch house in Berwick, I was convinced it was not the house for me. Me and the hubby came to see it after some friends discovered it during an estate sale. "It's perfect for you guys," they said. Maybe it was the timing. The levees in New Orleans had just broken, we didn't know if our house down there had survived. We only knew we were not planning to go back-- we were going to live in Ohio. But it was too soon to buy a house. We were still paying a fat mortgage on a house we couldn't get to down south, and we didn't know if it was still standing, or if we could sell it.

"I love this house," Erich, my hubby, pronounced. "I want to live here. This is it."

"Babe, we've only seen one house. We should look around," I said. That was code language for "we aren't buying a house until we sell our other one.Oh, and get some jobs to pay all these mortgages."

We walked out with a cool 1950s desk with a kidney-beaned shaped top. I'm sitting at it right now.

Fast forward five months: We're in contract to sell our house in New Orleans, Nerd is tired of living with my sister and commuting two hours a day to work (our life since the storm), it's time to get our own place in Ohio. We start the search for a house.

"You should see if that old lady's house is still for sale," Erich said.
"There's no way it'd still be for sale," I said.

It was after all, a deal for its neighborhood. Berwick is a tract of well-maintainted 1950s ranch houses with big lawns, right in the middle of Columbus,Ohio. The houses here often sell for $200,000 and up. This house was selling for a lot less than that-- a lot. I called. It was on the market again. Two other contracts had fallen through. The seller wanted to be rid of it. Erich said those deals fell through because the house was meant for us. I wasn't convinved, at first.

We looked at a few other houses, and with each tour it became more clear that this was our house. It still had all of its original 1950s features- cabinets, light fixtures, everything. It had trees, a sunroom, plenty of bedrooms for out of town friends. Everything. No one had torn out the good stuff to make way for country cabinets or 1980s floors.

So we bought it. And we love it. And that's why this blog exists. I'm lovingly decorating, restoring, and refurbing this 1957 ranch house gem and I want you to join me in the journey.Follow me on my journey to elevate this house to its true potential. I'll be posting here several times a week, about the house's progress, the neighborhood, renovation dilemmas, decorating-- everything it takes to get the place into tip-top shape.

You hear an awful lot about the glamorous ranches-- the Eichlers, the Mid-Century modern all-glass California experimental homes, but not much about the tried and true traditional ranch house. I love those houses, but let's face it. Most of us can't live in one-- either because we can't afford one, or their just aren't many in our part of the country. I'm going to prove that traditional ranches can be just as cool. •