Owner Number Two

This week I received an email from the second owners of the house! We will be owners number four. So, I have now had communication with every family that has lived in the house! It turns out that the second family to live there was very close friends with the family we grew up next to until I was in the fourth grade. The old neighbors are still close friends of our family. When they heard about the house we will be buying they contacted the second owners who they still keep in touch with even though they have moved from our town. Our friends had shared this blog with the previous owners and then they contacted me.

Owners number two lived in the house for only 6 years. They seem to be the ones who made some of the more obvious changes to the house. They said, "We did not cover the terrazzo floors in the kitchen but remember that the terrazzo was damaged in front of the double ovens - perhaps by a spill of some sort.  The rest of the house was carpeted though.  The great room was newly carpeted when we bought it and the rest of the house had wool carpet from the original owner.  We removed all of the indoor kennels and two of the outdoor kennels. The outside of the house had been painted (not stained) a redwood color before we bought it. We then painted it brown. The small room off the kitchen contained a washer / dryer unit. We removed it and put a washer and a dryer in the basement.  I used the small desk for a sewing machine. The kitchen had a "gourmet" refrigerator and freezer (two separate units built in). We removed those units and replaced them with a "normal" refrigerator / freezer."

We will be very relieved to see what the condition of the floors are under the carpet. Hopefully the stain mentioned can be sanded down. I also started thinking that there might be flaws in the basement concrete where the kennels once were. We were at the house the other day and noticed for the first time there are the remnants of old fencing posts from the kennels in the patio concrete. Again, hopefully anything like that inside the house can be ground down or filled in with new cement. I took some photos of those places in the concrete were the posts used to be and the places in the brick where the old outline of the doggy doors can be seen.

If you look closely you can see the outline of the three doggy doors in the brick. One is behind the pile of stuff. One is directly under the middle of the window and the last is to the right of the water spigot. We believe the window was added when the kennels were removed but we are not sure. It is definitely a newer window than the others.

You can see at the edge of the patio, next to the cracks, a circle that is the remains of a metal post from the kennels. There are several of them along the edge of the patio. I am wondering if there are more of these inside under the carpet. Or, maybe the kennels inside had walls instead of fencing. Another mystery!

The patio- You can see three circles from old fencing along the edge of the patio and you can see the doggy door marks in the brick.

We also decided that there were definitely trees that were lost in the big storm four years ago. The fence in the back has been damaged by a tree. Someone told us this but I can't remember who. It was very obviously crushed by a tree falling right on top of it. It was obviously a large tree. You can tell right where the tree used to be by the way the ground slopes, the grass grows and where some ornamental rocks are placed in the area. Yet, there is no stump to be seen. The owners must have had all of the stumps removed after the storm. We have also been told that so many trees were lost the day of the storm because the ground was so wet from a previous storm the night before. All of the trees came over with large root balls still attached. It would make sense that a tree in the spot fell since it is a low spot where water would collect. We have talked about planting another tree in the same spot.

In this photo you can see where the fence is leaning next to the gate. It has been crushed and is no longer attached. We think there was a large tree in front of the rocks in the sloped area that fell on the fence.

Tiny Trees

Yesterday, I received another email from the daughter who lived in our house. She gave me a lot of information about the trees and landscaping around the house. I am not good at identifying most trees. I want to make sure I keep the information so I can have it as a reference for later.

She said, "The landscaping is totally different. As you are driving to the house, on the right was a Blue Spruce and a Japanese Maple. On the left were a Flowering Crab apple and Red Bud. One large Silver Birch was just outside the curve in the sidewalk. There were other trees which I don't remember.  I did ask my mother, and this is the best we could think of now. In the front, along the house were flat yews. They may have also lined the stone ledge. On the side, there was a sunburst locust and mimosa near the fountain.  We did not have the fountain.  Our grill was somewhere in the area, just under the locust. There were other ornamental trees which lined the fence on the outside, including a Ginkgo.  Inside the fence, there was an apple tree just outside of the sliding door from the great room. There were also a couple of large trees on the inside back of the fence.  Along the back was a line of pine trees." There is still a gas line for the built in gas grill she mentions. The house we live in now also had a built in gas grill.

The pipe to the right is the gas line for the old built in grill.

We think many of the trees she mentioned are now gone. Four years ago there was a terrible storm in the town we live in. The damage was indescribable. I wonder if some of the trees were lost in that storm. We are sure the neighbor lost a lot of trees. He has many visible stumps in his yard and is obviously trying to plant new trees.

There are now several unusual trees in the yard that are very small but they have quite large trunks. It is apparent they have been trained to stay tiny even though they aren't young trees. I speculate these trees were put in by the person we are buying the house from. I think he was an agriculture professor which sounds like someone who might be interested in unusual trees. My husband also brought up that the current owners are Asian and these trees kind of remind him of big Bonsai trees. I love the smell of mimosa trees. I think the one mentioned is now gone. I know many people hate them because they leave lots of babies everywhere. But, I like the idea of planting another one! A Ginkgo tree would be nice too. I think that one is also gone. They have such pretty leaves!

Mini tree near the house and driveway.

Japanese Maple along front walk.

Mini Tree between driveway and neighbor's yard on the right

Two mini trees can be seen in the left side of the front yard.

Houzz Help With The Bathroom

Photoshopped bathroom photo

One of the reasons I started this blog was in an attempt to get advice from people more knowledgeable than myself on how to update, decorate and preserve the mid-century qualities of the new house. The number one thing on my "I need help" agenda is the bathroom. I decided to request some help from the folks at Houzz. I stumbled across this website recently and saw some of the amazing help they have given other people. Some of the folks there will go as far as Photoshopping ideas for you. I made a post about our bathroom. I have gotten some great ideas! Someone brought up the fact that the cabinets in the bathroom just don't jive with everything else. They mentioned that the varnish has most likely yellowed tremendously and they are no longer the original color. I can't believe I never thought of this! I have a feeling they are right. I had some hardwood floors in another house that had yellowed varnish. When they were refinished it was amazing the difference in color. Someone at Houzz was kind enough to even Photoshop a photo for me with our cabinets refinished. They also Photoshopped the sinks white. I really like this photo. The color of the cabinets might be slightly too dark to jive with the rest of the house but it's definitely on the right track! As my husband said...it might even be possible to keep the pink sinks with these re-stained cabinets. But, if not we could have them re-enameled white and we would be good to go. But, I think the first thing we will do when we have decided we are ready to tackle the bathroom is just refinish/ re-stain the cabinets. Then we will go from there. Tackling the cabinets was definitely not my original thought on what needed to be done first! I was all over those pink fixtures. Someone else pointed out that the cabinet pulls are brass which does not match the rest of the bathroom. I am now starting to think chrome accessories are definitely the way to go. Someone even Photoshopped some cute chrome items on the counter and chrome cabinet pulls. At least now I have some ideas.

Pink AND Blue Bathrooms

As I said, I need to dedicate a post to the master bathroom. I have kind of been trying not to think about the master bathroom because I really don't know what to think. I have lived in two older houses with tiled bathrooms. The first one was in Saint Louis.

My bathroom in Saint Louis

 I really liked this bathroom. The stained glass window was beautiful and the tiles was a very pale yellow and black. Those were easy colors to work with. I felt really lucky because when I was looking for a house I saw tons of bathrooms with this same tile. There was turquoise and black, pink and black, mint green and black, blue and black, white and black. It was obviously a popular decorating style at one time. The pale yellow seemed pretty decent considering the choices! Then I moved to the house I live in now. It originally had the EXACT same tile I had in Saint Louis EXCEPT it was pink and black. I couldn't STAND it. There is a quite a movement out there dedicated to preserving pink bathrooms. But at the time I just wasn't feeling the pink. I had my last straw with the bathroom after spending an evening sick to my stomach leaning over the toilet. I felt horrible and that ugly bathroom made it even worse! I hated it so much I don't think I even have a picture. After a huge fiasco that is a blog post of it's own I ended up painting just the pink tiles with a very pale eggshell oil based paint. It turned out awesome. The slickness of the oil totally looked like the natural tile. Most people said they couldn't even tell it was painted. It ended up looking very similar to the bathroom in the picture above.

Our bathroom now

I decided that I had been schooled in ugly bathrooms and I could handle anything with a trusty can of oil based paint. Little did I know what I was going to encounter! The bathroom in the new house is very unique. I think it is called a Jack and Jill bathroom but it doesn't look like the Jack and Jill bathrooms I have seen before. Basically there are two bathrooms with a toilet.  One has two sinks and the other has one sink. The one with two sinks is entered from the master bedroom. The one with one sink is entered from the hallway. The two bathrooms are connected by another bathroom in between them that has a bathtub/ shower. The bathtub/ shower room has two pocket doors on either side that enter each of the two sink/ toilet bathrooms. The bathrooms combined together make a "U" shape. The bathrooms with the sink/ toilet are are vertical and the tub/ shower room connects them horizontally making a "U".

When I first walked in the bathroom I saw blue tile very similar to the tile in the past two bathrooms (no black trim). The blue wasn't quite as neutral of a color as I would have liked but I looked at it and thought I can work with this! THEN I saw the pink sink. Yes, I said PINK sink!

Blue floor and wall tile

The hallway bathroom

 

The master bathroom

I really like the style of the sinks. I don't so much like that they are pink. We had looked at another house  previously with some pink in the bathroom similar to this. I wasn't a fan but at least it was JUST pink. I decided I would even work with JUST pink in order to maintain the original. Then I went into the shower/ tub room here. The bathtub is pink!!!! But, the surrounding tile is blue. Then, someone went and covered part of the tile with a shower insert. I'm wondering why?? Could the tile underneath have been damaged?

 

Bath tub/ shower

Apparently, these pink and blue bathrooms were quite the rage at one time. I have looked and looked for photos of similar bathrooms online decorated in a style that I felt would work for me. I have had a hard time finding quite the same color combination. Most of the ones I have seen are more pink with blue fixtures. I guess I should at least be grateful for that. I would be even more distraught if I had more pink and less blue going on. I really like the bathroom and would like to try to maintain the original aspects of it. But right now I am struggling with how to decorate in a way that I can live with. Right now the plan is to go with the blue and pretend the pink doesn't exist. If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them.

Oh yeah, did I mention the toilets are white? They can be seen in the reflection in the mirror in the photos above. Could we get anymore colors going on in this bathroom?? And, did anyone notice the very pink/ pale blue iridescent wall paper in the master bathroom photos? The hallway bathroom is just white. I would like to do something about that also. Suggestions please!!!!! Also on the bathroom subject, there is no exhaust fan in the bathroom. We are under the impression there is no access to the attic which would make installing one a challenge. Really? No attic access? Is this possible? Retro Attic with no attic!!! I am known for taking hot, hot steamy showers that make the paint curl. NOW what I am supposed to do? Help!

More On The Floors

A couple of weeks ago we had a company come in and measure and look at the floors. They seemed pretty excited about what was under the carpet. I guess it's not that common. Terrazzo, cork and polished cement will be virtually maintenance free and so much better for the allergies. We heard multiple times. "It is amazing what people will put carpet over!" We were waiting to hear on a proposal from them but we got a call saying "the boss" wanted to come look at things since the tile over the cement in the basement hallway is potentially asbestos. Ugh!! When I arrived and walked in the basement den "the boss" was pointing out to his employee that water had come in the basement and the cork underneath the carpet had some water damage. GREAT! At this point the house had already been inspected and no one said a word about water damage. There seemed to be some pretty obvious tell tale signs the flooring guy picked up on right away. The water issue doesn't seem like anything significant. I have always grown up with a basement and I just accept that water comes with the territory. As long as I'm not wading in it I'm not really concerned. But, it would have been nice to know. The multi-talented flooring people are also going to be able to take care of some landscaping that lead to the water issues. But, this now means the basement den will no longer be cork. The cork will also have to be pulled up and the cement underneath will be polished. The tile in the basement hallway won't be a problem. But there is a big question about how easy it will be to get the glue up and the glue from the linoleum in the kitchen. So, at this point we are praying the glue comes up easy and there is no other damage to any of the floors underneath. The flooring company also forgot to give us a quote on doing the steps which seem to be wood. Hopefully they will give us a reasonable deal on that. Immediately after we close we plan to go to the house and pull back as much of the carpet as easily possible so we can see the condition of what is underneath. Last week we put a 50% down payment on the floors. They are supposed to begin the work on July 3. The day after we close. We will be nervous until we know for sure exactly what is under the carpet and the condition it is in.

No More Imagining

I no longer have to try imagining what a redwood stained house with aqua/ blueish trim would look like. The woman who grew up in the house sent me a photo of the framed architect's rendering of the house.

Hmm, it's not quite as crazy looking as I was imagining. I wonder if there is any way this could work in 2013. I actually found this webpage where someone is trying to figure out how to keep the turquoise doors on their house and make them work.

In The News

I have been bombarded with informative emails from the woman who grew up in the house. It turns out that UPI ran stories (as in more than one!) on the house when it was built. She said, "I don't know how many towns carried the stories, but we have copies of a few." She sent me photos of some of the news stories. Some of them are easier to read than others. I plan to eventually try seeing if I can track down any of the stories on my own but I haven't had time yet.

Reading these articles was another shocker. The house was built for the dogs!! I knew there was a reason I was so intrigued by the dog kennel and had to get more information. The intercom was for the dogs too! How ingenious! I bet some of you wish your neighbors had an intercom system to keep their dogs quiet with.  And, Wow! They were show dogs! This all started with me thinking some cute little poodle pets lived in the house. I have been able to read the clearer articles by dragging them to my desktop and then opening the photo and zooming in on it.

The Sister

The man forwarded my emails to his sister who was a wealth of information! She told us that the shelving units on the walls in two of the bedrooms and the den are System Cado. These are Scandinavian designed highly collectible floating wall units. Some of these wall units have metal brackets but these have more desirable wooden brackets.

This is the unit in one of the bedrooms. The desk at the left of the picture is NOT a part of the unit. It was left by the owners and will be moved.

The top of the unit in the above picture. This is the part above the desk.

This is the other top corner of the above unit.

This is the shelving system in the den.

This is part of the shelving unit in the other bedroom.

The last time we were at the house we noticed one of the shelving units was actually not part of the shelving system at all. It was a speaker! We couldn't figure out what in the heck it was for. The woman finally cleared up that mystery and told us that her parents got new speakers and decided to use this one as a shelf in her bedroom. It is STILL there over 40 years later. It is the coolest idea ever and doesn't look like any speaker I have ever seen. Old speakers were so much prettier than the ones we have today. I think we will continue to use it as a shelf!

Speaker shelf

I like to sew and had wondered where the lady of the house would put her sewing machine in 1960.  I know many women did their own sewing back then. There was a master bedroom, one bedroom for each child. A den which I feel certain was the husband's office. A very nice living room which surely was no place for a sewing machine. There definitely would not have been a sewing machine in the bathrooms, kitchen or dog kennel! I came to the conclusion that if the lady had enough money to have a custom built house she could have someone else do her sewing for her.

I forgot about one room! There is a butler's kitchen or prep kitchen next to the kitchen. It is a small room like a pantry with some counter space and kitchen sink. A place to prep your meal without dirtying your large kitchen. On the plans it is listed as a laundry room. The laundry is currently in the basement. The woman confirmed that the prep kitchen used to be the laundry room. There is a little "desk" in there with a telephone jack that looks like the perfect place to sit and pay your bills. She said that little "desk" was for a sewing machine! I told her my husband is the cook and I don't think he would be very excited if I told him that my sewing machine was going to be in his kitchen! This all brought about a new mystery. What did the current laundry room used to be?? It is the only unaccounted for space. It is next to the space that used to be the dog kennels but I don't think it was part of the dog kennel though it is possible.

The little desk in the prep kitchen that was made for a sewing machine.

3-2-1 Contact!

Last weekend we had dinner with my parents for my brother's birthday. I realized that the first year my dad taught at our high school would have been the freshman year of high school for the boy who grew up in our house. My parents just happen to have the yearbook because it was given to my dad as retirement gift since it was from his first year of teaching. I got it and found a photo of the boy. I now know what all of the original owners look like except the father. While we were at my parents house I finally received an email from the man who lived in the house!! We exchanged some information and it turns out that my father was his high school history teacher! He was in town last year and drove by to see the house. The owners were in the yard and he was able to talk to them. They confirmed they were the third owners of the house. I had started wondering the night of the bike ride if the house was originally stained wood instead of the current brown paint with yellowish white trim. He confirmed that it was redwood stained with aqua/ blueish trim!!! I would have NEVER guessed and have been attempting to imagine it.

I finally got the scoop on the kennels! He said, "There were 3 dog runs going in and out of the kennel room. There were 3 fenced in areas inside leading to 3 fenced in areas outside. The back yard was fenced in. We had doberman pinschers and they pretty much had the run of the place." DOBERMAN??? Here I was imagining cute little poodles. And THREE? Wow! Those must have been some dogs to get that kind of treatment.

I also started wondering if the white kitchen cabinets were at one time natural wood to match the paneling. The kitchen is open to the living room and it seems odd that the kitchen would have been white but the living room was all natural wood. He confirmed that the kitchen cabinets were not white but wood. I think we will eventually try to strip the cabinets and have them stained to match the living room again. The walls in the living room have faded tremendously due to the amount of windows. In fact they have faded so much that my husband thought someone must have changed their mind and not used redwood in the living room like the plans indicate. After we removed some wall hangings and saw where an old thermostat used to be we realized it really WAS redwood. Hopefully we can eventually have the living room and kitchen cabinets re-stained at the same time. Then maybe they will be good for another 50 years!

White cabinets in the kitchen

All of the windows in the living room have faded the redwood paneling.

A Bike Ride

My husband and I love where we live right now because it is in a nice neighborhood within walking distance from the university, the campus lake, a small shopping center, the post office, several restaurants, a park and much more. The new house is fairly close to all of the same things but it is on the other side of a very busy four lane highway. About a week ago we decided to take a bike ride and "practice" how to get from the new house, across the highway and to some of the places we would like to be able to go. We have to practice because I am a scaredy cat! I now know I am completely justified. My husband road his bike to work yesterday. While he was stopped at a stop sign a car ran a stop sign and hit him! The car didn't even stop and now my husband is in bed with a cracked rib. The owners have moved from the house so we rode our bikes there and walked around the yard a bit before heading back. In the back yard, along the back wall of what is now the family room I noticed three squares in the brick. The squares were slightly off from the rest of the brick. It was obvious that someone had filled in three square holes with new brick. THREE DOGGY DOORS!! I was so excited I figured out part of the mystery of the dog kennel. It was where the family room is now. But, THREE doggy doors?? And, how exactly was it set up. Was the WHOLE family room a dog kennel? Surely not! More questions! I wish I would have taken a picture of the brick where the doggy doors were but I forgot. My mother also told me that she told her friend Sandy about the house we are going to buy. Sandy said her friends Jim and Judy lived there in the late 70's and early 80's. I remember Jim and Judy from when I was a kid. They eventually moved away from our town. It looks like now there were at least three owners of the house but from what I know I don't think Jim and Judy lived there very long. I think the original owners lived there about 18 years. I believe Jim and Judy lived there about 6 or 7 years and I think the people we are buying it from lived there almost 30 years.

This is the family room that used to be a dog kennel. The doggy doors where under the windows to the left.

Intermission

This is where the story starts getting really good. But, before I get to the good stuff I have to tell a little bit more about the house and post some photos. The house has an intercom system! It also includes a radio. Our inspector said it doesn't work but I have read stories about people who have been able to fix them very easily or even just had to let them warm up for a while and they cranked right up. Eventually we would like to try fixing it or replacing it with a new version.

Control center for the intercom system

Intercom at the front door

There is a charcoal grill in the kitchen, a built in mix-master in the kitchen, a warming drawer under the stove, and a funny little outlet to plug in a special griddle that goes with it.

The charcoal grill- We will need have to fix the latch so that it doesn't need a piece of string to hold it shut.

The Mix-Master

The warming tray under the oven

The strange outlet for the griddle

The griddle

At this point you might be asking yourself what the heck a Mix-Master is. Well, we didn't even notice the thing the first two times we went to the house. When we finally did see it we had NO clue what it was. It was our friendly home inspector who enlightened us. It is a motor built into your counter with many different attachments like mixers, choppers, food processors etc. Basically, it's a built in Kitchen Aid. It sounds really cool to me and apparently you can still get them. The new ones look almost exactly like the old ones. The inspector says ours doesn't work. I would eventually like to try to get it working or replace it with the new version.

The house also has a bathroom scale that folds out of the wall!! According to Retro Renovation these things are one of the three most collectible vintage bathroom accessories. We also have the "concealed lavatory" discussed on that site as well as the relaxation unit which can be seen next to the toilet in the photo below. I would like to attempt getting the foot prints off the scale. Speaking of the bathroom. We still have not discussed the pink and blue bathroom issue. That is still coming.

Master bathroom scale

I like to joke that the house was built for the Jetsons. It appears that most of the Jetson type attributes were made by a company called NuTone which still exists today. Their website says they are the leader in Central Vacuum systems. I have a feeling there are still some other little nifty things we haven't yet discovered in this house. And, there are a few that are so neat I am going to save them for their own post.

I will mention the dog kennel right now. Yes, I did say dog kennel. As I said, the house was inspected and got an excellent report. We were told the house was built and maintained in a top notch quality manner and building with the same supplies today would put the cost through the roof. While the inspector was doing his thing I decided to look at the plans again. I can only look at them for a short period of time because they are very musty. I'm not sure why. They are currently stored in a kitchen cupboard but at some point they must have been somewhere else. The musty smell makes me feel sick. (This is part of the reason we have been coming across information in small bits and pieces.) On inspection day I noticed there was a dog kennel on the plans. Somewhere in the basement there was a dog kennel. Where?? Why?? What kind of dog gets their own indoor kennel? A cute little spoiled poodle? What was it's name? When did it live? So many questions and no answers! Back to my quest. I HAD to talk to the original owners of this house!

Google Is A Man's Best Friend

For the time being we were waiting for the red tape. So, in my evenings I started Googling the original owners/ builders of the house. The name on the plans was Mrs. (Her Husband's Name). That is the first thing I Googled. I surprisingly found several archived newspaper articles from the 60's. I found one article with a photo of some ladies from the local synagogue and one of them was the owner of the house. I finally got to see a picture of her. She was a very pretty lady. I also saw an article about a book club she conducted at the house. It gave the address of the house which used to be a rural route number! It was rural route number four. It now has a regular street name. Despite finding all of this interesting information I still did not know this lady's name and for some reason I was very curious. There had to be more to this lady than being Mrs. (Her Husband's Name). I continued Googling over several evenings. I then started Googling the husband's name. I found out through archived newspaper articles that he had been president of our town's chamber of commerce and involved in other community activities. I eventually came across the man's obituary. That was the key! He still lived in our state. He had been a very successful accountant and I knew for a fact that it was the right person because it mentioned that he had worked in our town. Thankfully the family names are not extremely common ones which made everything much easier. The obituary listed the wife's name. (She was still alive when he passed away five years ago.) And, the names of his two living children. Another jackpot!!! I started Googling the names of the children and our hometown together. They still lived in our town as high school students and I found several archived newspaper articles about their school achievements. I knew what the mother looked like and by this point I was anxious to know what the children looked like. Our high school senior yearbook pictures are online so I went and looked the kids up. (I was able to figure out their graduation years based on the ages given in the newspaper articles.) I found the girl and noticed she resembled her mother. I could not find a senior picture for the boy. I continued to Google in an attempt to figure out where they are today. I discovered the are both living on the other end of the state and the boy who is now in his 50's has been back to our town very recently. There was actually a newspaper article where he was interviewed at a local jazz festival. I knew it was him because it talked about the fact he used to live here and where he lives now. I even came across a website where he RSVP'd that he would be attending his high school reunion here in less than a month! At this point I was feeling like a full fledged stalker but I couldn't stop now! If the man had happy enough memories in our town to return several times 30 or more years after leaving then surely if I tried to contact him I would not be dragging up old painful memories. I found him on Facebook and I found him on Linked In. I knew that if I invited him to be my friend on Facebook he would have no clue who I was and not be inclined to accept. Now Facebook seems to want you to pay them $1 to message someone who is not your friend without it going in their "other" box. I stooped to a new low and paid them the $1. The low being that I gave them my credit card number. Blech! I also attempted to get in touch through Linked In but I don't know how many people use that site regularly. I waited a week or two but got no reply. I was starting to think maybe I wouldn't be able to find a way to make contact. I kept Googling trying to find an email address. The man is a lawyer but his firm's website was not working. Somewhere I finally came across an AOL address. I didn't have much hope. Does anyone use AOL anymore!? Apparently some people do. I got a reply back quite quickly!!

Acceptance

On Sunday we got a call from the realtor that our offer had been accepted. She said the owners were moving to Hawaii and wanted to take as little with them as possible. They were willing to include any of their furniture in the deal with the sale. She also said they were very sad about moving due to their retirement. They were very happy we made an offer the day the house went up for sale because that must have meant that we really loved it. We had to go back to the house before Mother's Day dinner to look at the furniture and decide if there was anything we were interested in. We also had some questions about the property lines and were told the original plans to the house were available in the cupboard and could most likely answer any questions. Jackpot!!!

 

Our house was custom built in 1960. The plans indicated what the original flooring was for the entire house. The main floor was TERRAZZO!!!!!! We were so excited. Terrazzo is beautiful and virtually indestructible. The upstairs was cork and the basement was cement with cork in the den. All so much better than gross, dirty carpet. The big question was if it was all still there. We were able to peel back some of the carpet and it appeared to all be there in decent condition from what we could tell.

Original Terrazo floor under the carpet. At the bottom of the photo is the tiled entry way.

 

Original cork floor under the carpet in one of the bedrooms.

Now we can plan to have the all of the carpet pulled up and refinish the terrazzo and cork. We will have the cement in the basement polished. The Laundry room and kitchen have laminate flooring and the entryway has tile. We didn't have any particular problem with them but they are supposed to have terrazzo underneath so we decided while we are going for it to have the whole thing redone. The last bit of exciting news was that the original owners name is scrawled across the plans in huge letters!! Now I could do more research on the history of the house.

Waiting

When we were looking at the house there was a picture of a high school aged Asian girl in one of the bedrooms on the dresser. The picture was probably taken in the early 90's. I immediately recognized the girl as one of my brother's high school classmates. I assumed that her parents were the owners of the house. While we were waiting to hear if our offer was accepted I spent some time Googling and looking through old yearbooks to confirm this girl was in fact one of my brother's classmates. What an odd little twist! After remembering her name I was able to Google and find some information about her parents and how long they lived in this area. Based on the information I found I came to the conclusion that the people selling the house were only the second owners.

Mother's Day Weekend 2013

My husband and I have been keeping our eyes open for a mid-century house for sale in our home town. It was our hope to find a house that someone had appreciated and not decided to paint all the beautiful natural wood white or any of the other 100 things you can do to screw up you mid-century modern home. On Saturday of Mother's Day weekend 2013 I looked at Zillow on my phone before I even got out of bed. There was a house that had just gone up for sale. Our realtor was available so we got to take a look within hours.

The house was on the edge of town at the end of a long drive with 2 other houses on it. On one side is a nice row of trees that separates the house from a church. On the other side is neighbor who has been a friend of our family for years. The other house was owned for a very long time by a popular local veterinarian. At this time we don't know who the owner is since the vet has passed away.

When we got inside the house was full of beautiful paneling in a huge great room with a beautiful floor to ceiling fireplace There was more paneling in the den. (Why would anyone want to deal with painting when you could have gorgeous natural wood that hardly requires any upkeep?) It has unique wooden wall shelving units in 2 bedrooms and the den. There is plenty of space with a family room and a second bathroom. But.......the master bathroom is pink AND blue. (More on that later.) And, we were not thrilled to see that every floor surface was covered with carpet.

The realtor was convinced that there was nothing of value under the carpet since carpet was most likely the flooring of choice at the time the house was built. That was a bit of a disappointment. We talked to the realtor and she told us that if we wanted a house that still had as many original components as this one we might as well make an offer because the chances of us finding something else like this in our town would be slim. So, we were making plans to put in new flooring in almost the entire house if our offer was accepted.