A Couple of Midcentury Makeovers

It occurred to me while typing the title of this post that Mr. W and I aren't all that far off from being "midcentury" ourselves. Eesh. Where does the time go? It seems like just yesterday we were dreaming up our ideal midcentury-style house in the wine country and now we've owned this place for four years.

Speaking of which—when we first purchased it and were coming up to work on it on the weekends, we bought a $20 IKEA coffee table to tide us over until we moved our real furniture. That terrible little laminate table survived even after we brought our Hollywood belongings, and in the corner it sat for three whole years, bowing slightly under the weight of the TV, stereo, and various other media components.

Sometimes I would catch myself sneering at it in disgust. It was never anything but faithful to me, and yet, I loathed that cheapie coffee table.

Mr. W promised to build me a custom media console...but he had about 850,000 other projects ahead of it. And then we got a kitten. And the kitten took to climbing behind Ugly IKEA Coffee Table and chewing on all the cords to our various viewing system boxes.

Thus began my renewed crusade to get something else in the corner of my living room.

Mr. W went to work in Sketchup as he likes to do, and drafted some plans...

Execution proved a smidge difficult, as after he applied walnut wood veneer to one side of the actual construction wood, it warped a bit. So I was called into the garage to stand on the wood while he screwed it together. Ah, the life of a DIYer's wife...

Thankfully, he was able to get everything together right and after a couple short weeks, we had an amazing, very authentic-looking midcentury-esque piece of furniture to take the place of Sad, Sad IKEA Coffee Table.

Of course, once the TV was mounted to the wall, I had a funny empty spot next to it that felt like it needed a something sparkly. Not like glitter on a stripper sparkly, but like 1960s starburst clock sparkly—only, without the $100+ price tag. Instead, for a mere $15 at Target I was able to construct my own makeshift burst mirror.

Not wanting to be shown up by Mr. W's redecorating skills, I decided I would also recover the cushions on the cute midcentury chair that sits across from the TV stand. The cover it came with was in ok shape when we first bought it last year...

But after many tooshes smooshing its surface, the fabric finally began to split. So I headed to Joann's, watched some videos on YouTube, and undertook my very first reupholstering project with piping.

I got the job done, but there was an inordinate amount of cursing involved. I may have also punched the sewing machine a few times. Not in like a Fonzie "Eeeeyyy this'll make it start working for me" way but like an "I hate you and want to smash you until you're dead" kind of way... It took a lot of stamina and a lot of wine to get the project done. But I did it and although it's not perfect, it looks just fine. At least that's what the cats keep telling me...

FLUFFERNUTTER

One-Acre Angst

There's nothing quite like having loaded fruit trees in your backyard—where you can just pluck a plum off a branch, polish it on your shirt, and eat it right there at its very freshest. So juicy and delicious. It makes me wish I'd met Mr. W in his 20s when he was all ripe for the pickin'. But I digress...

My point is, I love summertime in our yard. I love that we can harvest peaches and plop them into our caprese salads. (If you haven't done this, you MUST try it. Trust me.) I love that we made fajitas this weekend with an onion we grew. I love that Mr. W and the chickens worked together (he dug the hole and they kicked dirt back into it...) to plant zucchini on Sunday. And I love that the shoulder-high weedfest we had going in our back 40 got mowed down and tilled.

Troublemakers.

But that also brings me to something that doesn't feel so lovey: having so much freaking land it's like we're Tom Hanks and Wilson the volleyball adrift in an infinite sea. Every time I look at that big swath of acreage in our backyard, I get a little touch of vertigo. It's. Just. Too. Much.

See what I'm sayin'?

Our house is like a child's-sized shoebox up there.

As a registered control freak, it completely stresses me out to have that area growing wild and looking so unkempt. And after Mr. W and I went to a birthday party on a beautifully manicured piece of property recently (think freshly mowed grass and white lights draped from the canopy of a beautiful oak) we're both antsy to get this part of the yard into better shape. So he has put his Sketchup skills to work once again, and has begun drafting ideas for our open space. Behold:

Of course I have grand visions of hosting outdoor yoga and coaching classes down there, followed by micro-farm-to-table dinners. And of course we'll be drinking wine made from our yard's own grapes. While Mr. W plays the fiddle and I sing folk songs. It shall be dreamy.

In the meantime, we'll just have to enjoy what we've accomplished so far—like the fire pit Mr. W installed. It's made of cortex steel like the edging in our front yard planters, so it'll get a cool, rusted patina over time. Mr. W sort of built it himself (someone else bent the metal but he riveted it) so no one else has one exactly like this. Pretty sure if it went up on auction it'd fetch like a mil.

We also got the chicken yard fence all completed. Now those little buggars can't escape and poop all over our back patio. 

Anyway, that's where we are with the yard accomplishments and growing angst. I'm sure I'll be cursing and shoveling gravel back there again at some point in the not too distant future...

Fun with Future Fixes to the House

When Mr. W was working in Vancouver earlier this year, he became super skilled with a 3D design program called Sketchup. Given that he was stuck inside avoiding torrential downpours quite often, he had plenty of time to work on potential designs for the new house. He built an entire to-scale model of the house and even started playing with front and backyard plans.

It's been so much fun watching his designs evolve—I just had to share them here. The chicken peeking in the bathroom window above has to be one of the best details...

Although the overweight levitating cat on the couch is also a top contender.

Mr. W actually made the stock cat graphic fatter somehow to be more accurate to real life... If I ever walk into the living room and find Monty cat laying with his legs sticking straight out like that, I'm going to be one sad kitten.

Here's what the living room looks like in reality now:

We need to buy a new floorlamp. I hate the one next to the couch. And the TV is temporarily balancing on a $20 IKEA coffee table, but Mr. W is planning to build a proper corner shelf for it at some point. I'm sure he'll do a rendering in Sketchup for it...

The biggest renovation we're focused on figuring out right now is a remodel of the kitchen. Here's a pic of how it looked last fall for reference (I haven't taken any recent ones but it mainly looks the same with just way more stuff crammed into it):

We talked about trying to salvage the existing cabinets but we're reconfiguring the layout and we think it's just going to be way too much work. And they kind of smell like old people. I apologize if you come to visit and your water glass stinks of Efferdent and Aspercreme.

Here are a couple (out of about a dozen) renderings Mr. W has created for the future kitchen. This is an evolving process and probably won't get executed until sometime next summer. That should be just enough time for us to figure out the official cabinet layout we want...

The kitchen will be our first big reno, followed by the two bathrooms. If we can stay married through those endeavors, we'd like to eventually add on to the master and create an en-suite bathroom and walk-in closet. My fingers and toes are crossed that this is within our budget (and that our marriage survives) because Mr. W told me I could hang my disco ball in the closet. I'm going to rig the light so when I turn it on, it plays Stayin' Alive. And then I shall dance for hours in there.

So that's where our current house dreaming and scheming stands. In closing, here's another look at the potential bathroom with the peeping chicken I so adore.

  

Whatdya guys think?