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

Half-Remodeling the Half Bathroom

 

There's nothing like impending houseguest visits to expedite a remodel, and thanks to a scheduled stopover from Mr. W's best buddy from Portland, our half bath revamp got put on the fast track. We spent the last days of 2014 plastering, sanding (I'm beginning to loathe that word), painting, and prettifying the little bathroom we'd turned upside-down.

Last time I showed it on the blog, it looked like this:

The toilet looked lovely in the shower, but it was even better sitting in the hallway for about 3 weeks. Thankfully neither of us is a sleepwalker—we might have ended up with a tragic accidental peeing-into-the-hallway-toilet episode.

Prior to moving the door from the laundry area/kitchen to the hallway, the bathroom looked like this:

Not terrible but not our ideal with the 80s oak cabinetry and grimey (no matter how much I scrubbed) linoleum flooring. Even worse, when we opened things up in the new kitchen layout, you could see right into the bathroom, and I don't know about you but I just don't want to look at a toilet when I'm making stir fry or taking a fritatta out of the oven...

So we moved the door into the hallway and reconfigured the half bath layout.

All was going well until our plumber accidentally cracked a tile during the toilet installation and we didn't have any extras. (Yes, everyone has lectured us on how you should never buy tiles at Costco because you won't be able to replace them if you break 'em.) Through some miracle, even though our tile was no longer available at Costco, Mr. W tracked down a tile display at one of the stores and was able to unglue a piece from it for us to use in our bathroom. Crisis averted.

Though we wanted to make this bathroom nicer, we also wanted to save some money so we made quite a few thrifty choices. We opted to recycle the sink cabinet and upgrade it with a new front panel and doors (courtesy of Mr. W's mad woodworking skillz) and extra hardware we had left from the kitchen. Eventually, Mr. W will build a concrete countertop for it and install the more modern sink and faucet we bought.

 

We also saved money by using the extra pendant lights we had left from the kitchen and turning them into shiny, black sconces. Stay tuned for a follow-up post on how we did it.

We were planning to reuse the old mirror that was in there but both Mr. W and I accidentally cracked the corners of it on two different occasions, so we had to buy a new one. He plans to make a sleeker new frame for this one in the coming weeks.

The one big thing we have left is to re-tile the shower. After the pain of doing our other bathroom's shower, Mr. W has vowed never to do bathroom re-tiling jobs again. We'll likely hire someone to do the tile (after we demo it) when we're working on the new bathroom add-on. The plan is to go for a look like this with white tiles and dark grey grout:

Source

Source

We'll also be replacing the old crank-out window in there when we have new windows installed for the addition. So although it feels like a whole new room, we're really only about halfway done. Which is just fine by me. I look forward to having the hallway plaster dust-free for a few months!!

Gratuitous Eye Candy: A Before-And-After Montage

I don't know if you all like before and after pictures, but they're kind of my porn. (Not that I've ever seen porn, Mom.) I swear I could spend the whole dang day on sites like Better After. So in honor of my lust for home makeovers—and to give you all a little glimpse of some smaller but still worthy upgrades we've made recently—allow me to share this lovely mish mash of B-and-A pics.

Let's begin in the front yard, shall we? When we bought the house (and actually for months upon months after that...) the big swath of yard next to our driveway was a combination of weeds, decades old, dilapidated rose bushes, and totally unruly geraniums. It's no wonder a snake lizard took up residence there and tried to kill me during the clearing out process.

After pulling out all the vegetation, oh I think maybe THREE TIMES, we finally laid out landscape fabric and planted everything we'd picked up at the nursery. Hopefully in the spring those monstrous artichoke plants will give us lots of good stuff to eat.

Yes some of the blue fescue grasses we bought died. But the yard's still better than ever before!

The guest room is the one place in the house that has stayed largely the same since our first "move in." It's a cute space (at least I think so) but definitely needed (and still needs) some sprucing. We started by replacing the light fixture, which I'm sure was installed the week the original owners moved in in 1959...

So menacing. This light totally plays with a Ouija board
and eats moths for dinner.

A trip to IKEA, and the room was transformed.

So much cuter, right? This light wears pink nail polish and
likes karaoke bars.

The next project was turning what had been a sort of blankish wall (there was one picture, then three) into a mini gallery of family pics and collected art. Mr. W thinks it's a bit much, but I totally dig it. One of these weekends, I plan to DIY a little bench to put under it so guests have a nice spot to stick their suitcases when they stay.

Are those baby pictures of the chickens? Why yes they are.

Finally, we had a big before and after situation when Mr. W decided to partially demo the cute little bathroom featured at the very top of this post.

We had been planning on totally remodeling it—moving its door into the hallway and reconfiguring the floorplan—but I thought we might wait awhile. Nope. We're back to temporarily being a one-bathroom residence again. But I think this one will move much faster (*crosses fingers*) and hopefully I'll be posting a new "After" sooner than later.

Two Weekends in Santa Ynez: A Pictorial Review

 Look what I made Saturday night!

Before I lived with Mr. W, I remember feeling like his house was a sort of haven. I would come over on the weekends and feel like I was at a mini resort. I wasn't far from home, but I was far enough out of reach that it felt like an escape. There always seemed to be time to read a magazine over breakfast or catch up on my latest novel before dinner.

My new haven is our Santa Ynez house. The drive up the California coast—with the expanse of blue water keeping me company out the driver's side window—seems to slowly, steadily calm my soul. By the time I arrive in our semi-circular drive, I'm filled with gratitude.

I hope this feeling lasts after we move. It's become fleeting for me in Hollywood, and I hope the calm I feel in Santa Ynez doesn't dissolve as our furniture and regular daily life take up residence in the house.

Since Mr. W is in Vancouver, I've gone up on my own the past two weekends to chip away at the seemingly endless to-do list there. It's coming along. It makes me smile bigger every time I visit. Here's a little recap of some of the progress...

 I don't know how the previous owner went about picking the paint colors, but pretty much everything was red or yellow. And let me tell ya, those aren't the easiest colors to cover with new paint. But after who knows how many hours of taping and brushing and rolling, I made it happen.

During one of our first weekends at the house, we went to an estate sale in the neighborhood (which apparently are the thing to do on Saturdays up there—the traffic on that street was crazy) and I developed a crush on these geode bookends. I picked them up for $15.

I felt even better about the purchase when I saw these on One Kings Lane a couple weeks ago:

Our other bedroom at the house feels a lot like my apartment with my old duvet cover on the bed. Mr. W doesn't love the girlie grandma-ness of the room, but I adore it.

A dear friend made us a piece of art for Christmas, and I thought it was the perfect addition to the room, with its fun cheery message and bright paint colors. She made it in honor of Mr. W's scheme to grow lemon trees with the seeds he brought back from our honeymoon in Amalfi.

In addition to picture-hanging, painting, and fire-making, I hemmed all of the curtains, pruned some of the flowers, re-affixed weather stripping to the front door, and taped off the hallway so we can paint it when we go back up after Christmas. There are 8 sets of cupboard/doorway molding in that dang hallway. It took me 2 hours to tape it all. But it's worth it. All just part of creating the dream.

Two-Timing

When I was a single girl, I often felt like I was living a dual life. I had my apartment, social circle, and niche in my cute little town—then I had the life I lived at my boyfriend's house. For the sake of niceness, let's pretend that boyfriend was only ever Mr. W. 

It was like every weekend I packed a bag and drove 25 minutes away to go enter into my altered existence. In my other house. With my other people. For a long time, this double duty way of operating was exciting. I got to escape to fantasy land four times a month! But after awhile, I just wanted the two lives to become one so I could relax and quit packing and unpacking clothes and all my other important lady items.

Then, of course, I moved into Mr. W's place and missed my cute, girlie apartment for about 4 months. Go figure...

Since we received the keys to our new/future house in Santa Ynez, I find myself feeling again like I'm living a split life. One foot is in Hollywood, enjoying familiar comforts, plugging away at the job that has long served me; the other foot is in Santa Ynez, eager to take a step forward into the realm of wine country life coaching retreats and full-blown backyard farming.

And just like when I was dating Mr. W, every time I have to leave the "other" life, I just want to lie on the floor and have a small crying tantrum.

The new place is just so wonderfulllll...

This past weekend, we went up to work on the house and were lucky enough to get a boatload of help from my parents.

Cute, aren't they?

We didn't just get twice as much stuff done as we would have if it'd been just the two of us. We got about fifteen times as much stuff done. My parents are expert DIYers and almost stubbornly productive. My dad insisted that he had a blast power-washing the house.

However, he was so wet when he finished, my mom hung his clothes on our back fence to dry. Tighty-whites included. Yes Santa Ynez, we are the crazy LA people who put our underwear on display for the entire neighborhood to see...

Here are just a few snapshots of the progress we made Saturday and Sunday:

 

I'm in love with my new rug. It was a steal on RugsUSA.com—75% off, plus free shipping. I think she's so pretty, I'd let Mr. W take her on as a sister wife.

My mom did a bang-up job of recovering the light fixture with a pretty, soft grey, brushed silky fabric. She's like a sharpshooter with a glue gun.

We did some work to the bedrooms, too, but I'll save those for another post. Still lots of items on the to-do list, but at least it feels like we're making a dent. The funny thing is, this is all just interim renovating. Sometime in 2014, we'll be gutting the entire kitchen and both bathrooms. But for now, we'll enjoy our seahorses and retro ash cabinets. And maybe we'll miss them when our dual lives reunite and we're finally living together under our new roof.