A Knock On The Door

This morning at about 10am there was a knock at our front door. My husband has a horrible cold but I have this policy about not answering the door if I don't know who is on the other side. So, he got the job of answering. It ended up being the second owner of our house standing on the other side of the door! She wanted to know if she could come back later today with her family to see the house. This is the lady who happened to be very good friends with my mother's best friend and we have emailed about the house several times. I had not heard from her in quite some time. So, we set an appointment for 2pm when they returned.

At 2pm the owner showed up with her daughter, husband, granddaughter-in-law and grandson. It was so interesting to hear what they had to say about the house. They seemed to like the things we had done to it. I am going to type some of the things they told us about the house so that I don't forget. We started in the living room. She said when they moved in, the living room floor had just been carpeted with wool carpet for the sale of the house. We speculate this may have been the same carpet that was in the house when we moved in. She said the living room windows had white sheer panels when they lived there. We think they were the same ones on the windows when we moved in. They also told us they used the fireplace. We were told by the inspector that he thought there was no liner in the fireplace and we shouldn't use it until we know for sure. We haven't had it inspected by a chimney sweep yet but we suspect it does have a liner!

The kitchen was still terrazzo when they moved in but they covered it in linoleum. She thought the kitchen cabinets were white when they moved in and they had been painted due to damage. I was told that the cabinet that divides the living room and kitchen was moved further into the kitchen by them because they thought it went too far into the living room. She said the kitchen had a gourmet freezer/ fridge that was very large and had wood surrounding it. It was not very efficient and when it broke they couldn't find anyone to fix it so they replaced it. We think that was the original fridge for the house. She said it was very tall and flush with the kitchen cabinets. That is what I had speculated. The original owners had a laundry off the kitchen with a washer/ dryer all in one unit. That was removed and the laundry was added in the basement by these people.

The hallway leading to the family room.
The laundry room is on the left. The laundry
room and door leading into the family room
were not always here.

The pink and blueish/green carpet that was in the two smaller bedrooms when we moved in sounds like it was here when these people lived here. The pink was added by them. One bedroom has funny marks in the floor and ceiling right above and below each other. (I have been meaning to do a post about these to see if anyone knows what they are.) All I can think is that some kind of tension unit was in this spot. Maybe a lamp or a shelf. They said they don't remember having anything like this. I had suspected these were the owners who put the wallpaper in both of the bathrooms but they said they did not. The basement bathroom has tile on the floor that was also in the entry way. They said they don't remember this tile. They think the basement hallway and bathroom had carpet when they lived there.

This is the same floor covered in white splotches
at the "floor problems" link  below.

They used our guest room as a den which is also what I think the original owners used it for. The biggest surprise of their visit was learning about the rest of the basement. The rest of the basement had originally been a dog kennel. I know these people had removed the dog kennel. So, I assumed they had also refinished the basement and turned it into the laundry room and family room. But, they were not the ones who refinished the basement. They left it unfinished with a cement floor. What is now the laundry room and family room were all one big room. At one time the entire basement had a long hall that went from one end to a door that went outside. They said that hall was still there when they lived in the house. This was a very big surprise to us.

When you walk in the family room this divider is in front of you.
We assume it's there as support instead  of the original wall. You
can see the door to the carport past this divider.

I haven't included many pictures of the basement. That is where a large part of our floor problems happened. (Remember the story about the floors that got stained purple on accident?) I figure it is about time to post some photos of the basement. I'm sorry I didn't take them in the day when there was more light. We are just about moved in down there. For those of you wondering, our other house still has not sold!! So, we aren't completely moved into this house. We still have furniture at the other house. We do have an offer on the other house. It is supposed to close on June 24th. Hopefully everything will go through without any hitches. We are now in the process of moving the last of our furniture to the new house.

This is the divider from the opposite side.
The right side of this divider was where there
was a wall that ran the length of the family room
and created a hallway.

At our old house we had a lot of built in shelving in our family room. We were wondering how we were going to make up for all of that lost space. This past winter we got a shelving unit for the family room that comes in two pieces. They are supposed to be stacked on top of each other but we separated them. One unit is being used as an entertainment center. The other unit is being used as shelving for books. The unit was originally a beverage rack. I will have more photos soon of our guest bedroom. It has also been neglected in my photos. A new bedspread comes this week and we should be about done with that room. We finally had our front yard repaired after the new sewer line. So, be watching for more landscaping photos. We also have some new patio furniture.

It is our hope to paint the exterior of the house this summer. Choosing colors is not fun!! I wish someone could just tell me what will look great.

More to come soon!

This is the new storage unit we got in the winter. The piece on the left is actually supposed to stack on top of the piece
on the right. The top of the piece on the right is actually from our old house. My cousin built it to serve the same
purpose it serves now on top of a built in shelving unit where our TV sat. The two pieces on the right are not attached.

Still Pink & Blue

I still haven't posted about all of the work that was done this winter. I decided tonight I need to post about the bathroom. As of now it is still pink and blue. The cabinets used to be a gross orange color. I think the lacquer had yellowed over time and made them look that way. Now they are a nice brown. We also had a new shower door put in. I love it! With a curtain we were always leaking water on the floor somehow. I am such a messy shower taker! We also had to have an extra long shower curtain because our rod was really high. It was too long and drug in the bottom of the bathtub and was always covered with nasty soap scum. This is so much neater and cleaner. We also got a new toilet in each bathroom. To flush our old toilets you had to spin the handle 360 degrees. I never had seen a toilet like this before. We were told they were the first low flow toilets and not designed very well. They were very dangerous. If they accidentally only went 180 instead of 360 (basically stopped while pointing up instead of down) they ran constantly. We ended up with a $99 water bill because of this once. More recently our bathroom got flooded because the toilet was stopped up without us knowing and the handle got left up. Bad combo! To avoid these two major problems again we got these awesome new toilets that can supposedly flush 16 golf balls at once! I haven't tried out this unique little feature. But, we have had no floods or $99 water bills since their installation. They do have the smallest toilet seats ever. I am hoping our old toilet seats will fit on the new toilets but we haven't gotten around to installing them yet.

The guest bathroom before and after. These cabinets turned out nicer than the master bathroom.

These are the master bathroom cabinets before and after. The colors don't show well in these photos. Very strange light on this day.

The shower before and after. You can see a glimpse of the shower curtain in the before photo. It really didn't even match very well.








We still have the weird metallic wallpaper in the master bathroom. As strange as it is I have come to appreciate the work someone put in to somehow matching the pink and blue together. It isn't in the best shape and will need to eventually be pulled down and painted. I am still not sure on what color to go with. I kind of like the idea of white. It seems like a nice neutral way to tone down the pink and blue. But, I also worry about the idea of adding a third color to the bathroom even though the toilets are white. Maybe it would look a bit sleeker if I stuck to one of the colors that is already in there. I will not have more pink in that bathroom but I thought about a blue that is the exact same shade as the tile. I believe that is the original color of the bathroom. I think originally the trim was even blue. I think all of the trim in the house was the same color as the paint. I wasn't sure how I would like that and have had a hard time imagining it. I have previously posted about painting the bedroom trim white. In the kitchen we painted the trim around the windows the same color as the walls because all of the other trim on that floor is wood so I was afraid the white might stand out. It turns out that I really like the colored trim!! It looks very sleek! I would like to try it in the bathroom. My only concern is that there is a white louver closet door in each bathroom. I'm not sure what to do with those. I can't imagine trying to paint them. And, I don't know if I can imagine them being blue! So, I'm still open to bathroom suggestions! You can see my other bathroom posts here and posts about bathroom colors here and here as well as a post about the bathroom wall hangings here.

Bathroom Closet Door

Completed Kitchen

I think I will make a post about one room at a time. I will start with the kitchen. It is almost completely done. The only thing that is left to deal with is our hideous white dishwasher. It is the only appliance in our kitchen that isn't stainless steel. We will hopefully be replacing it in the near future. It is probably from the early 80's and not very energy efficient along with being very ugly. This past month we had the water line added to the new fridge we bought in the fall. We had all of the white paint on the kitchen cabinets stripped and stained them back to natural wood. We took down all of the white painted molding around the doors and grill. We replaced it with natural wood molding. We had the hinge on the grill door fixed so it doesn't have to be held up by a string. We then painted the ceiling and walls.

When we thought we were all done with the kitchen my husband was putting everything back in its place when the hood over the stove came crashing down. He was calling me to help him hold it back up. I had been asleep and didn't have my glasses on. Despite the fact I am very blind without my glasses I could see sparks and a little flame behind the hood. I wondered how many sparks and flames I couldn't see! At that moment it started feeling like our house was going to be a never ending project. But, my wonderful cousin was able to fix the hood for us. It turns out the screw holes were stripped and when it fell it pulled some wires and made them arc. So, that has now been repaired also.

I guess before I go I should talk about the kitchen paint color a bit. It is called Spartan Stone by Behr. It is identical to the historical paint color Serene Scholar by California Paints. I got the Behr paint because it was more inexpensive and Behr paint has done well for me in the past. I actually had this color in the living room in our old house. And, I think I had this color in my living room in Saint Louis. If it wasn't the exact same color it was very similar. As I have talked about in the past I was looking for historically accurate paint colors. I was thrilled to find out this pale olive green color that I love so much would work for the time period of our house.

Before- You can see our ugly dishwasher in this picture.

After

After- Ugly trash cans

Before

Before- Check out the red string on the door

After

A Mess Until March

Wow! Things have been a mess! On January 22, the work finally began on our house. We had 3 workers here every day until February 25. A whole month!! Our house was a DISASTER the whole time they were here. All of our furniture was piled into every room they weren't working in except our bedroom. There was dust everywhere. There was paper covering much of the floor. That paper was coated in stripper or stain. It was a yucky, yucky mess. We were unable to use our kitchen or sit in our living room for a month.

Our living room a couple of weeks ago

We actually ended up spending a lot of time at home with the workers. I have completely lost count of how many snow days we have had this winter. There were many days we did not have work and stayed home. My husband stayed home with them for a week after suffering through the beginning of anaphylaxis. If you don't know what that is, it basically means you quit breathing due to an allergic reaction. He didn't quit breathing but he was headed in that direction.

Thankfully we loved our workers. They did an awesome job on our house and they were fun to talk to. We don't have one single complaint. It was kind of sad when they left. It was depressing on the last day when they walked out with their radio. I knew they would not be coming back! They were also quite handy to have around. They helped us figure out that we had a basement full of water due to our sewer backing up.

A week later they saved us from having a completely flooded house. The toilet backed up after I left for work. Water went in the bathroom, bedroom, down the hall and through the ceiling into the basement. Luckily, one of them was in the basement and saw the water pouring through the ceiling. They had a shop vac and they were able to clean it up quickly and call me at work to come home and deal with it. So, on top of everything else that was done we now also have a new sewer line. So, not only was the inside of the house a mess but the outside too!

The giant mole hill in our front yard after getting a new sewer line.

 Finally,  everything is done except the two new toilets we will be getting Sunday because of their contribution to our sewer problems and the new roof on the carport which we can't get until the weather warms up. Believe it or not we are forecast to have MORE snow Sunday night. Today we got new vertical blinds in the living room to prevent having so much sun damage again. We also had the walls refinished in the living room and guest room, new very thin molding added around the ceiling in the family room and guest bedroom, new floor molding added in the family room and downstairs hallway, refinished stairs, kitchen cabinets and molding refinished, painted the kitchen, built in grill repaired, stove hood repaired, basement door repaired, new thresholds leading into all bathrooms, bathroom cabinets refinished, all inside doors to closets, bedroom etc. refinished, and new shower door. My next post well be lots of photos of all the new work that was done.

Would You Like An Update On Our Wood?

The very first time I looked at our house I walked in the living room and thought wow this is awesome! Too bad this wood is so pale and ugly. The living rooms walls are redwood paneled along with the stairwells, ceiling beams in the living room and kitchen and walls in the basement room that was once a den and will now be our guest bedroom. I don't know anything about wood but we have been told our walls are heart of redwood which is very, very expensive and we would probably never be able to afford them today. Unfortunately, they were a very pale blonde color. They were covered in some kind of blonde wash that we don't think is original to the house. Then the blonde has faded even more due to years and years of sun damage from a complete wall of windows. The stairwells, which really catch your eye because they are right next to the beautiful fireplace, were extremely worn from years and years of people running their hands and who knows what else (feet, dogs, kids, toys, suitcases etc.) up and down them. Some of the living room beams were almost white from the sun. You could point out every spot on the wall where a photo had been hanging due to the sun damage.

So, we decided we would have the walls refinished, re-stained etc. as soon as we could afford it and find someone to do it. We had a very difficult time finding someone and everyone we spoke with had a different idea about the best way to complete the job. Some people thought the walls should be sanded. Other people thought the walls should be stripped. And, of course, the most common solution was that we should just make it easier on ourselves and paint the walls. We were both so opposed to the idea of paint. Why in the world would you want to paint when you could have natural wood that would require virtually no upkeep. I'm finally just recovering from all the painting I did this summer. I don't want to paint more!!! When we were looking at houses I almost got to a point where I quit looking at the photos if I didn't see any wood paneling in the photos. I KNOW I am probably the only person in the world that feels this way. But, I just love the look of the natural wood. I finally got so frustrated I called a guy from my mom's home town who builds homes. He comes HIGHLY recommended. He is in high demand and known for his very reasonable prices.

I called him in hopes of getting a reference for someone who could refinish our wood. I never thought he would be interested in doing such a little job. I just hoped he wouldn't completely blow me off. He came and looked at our house in September and seemed to really like it. He told us he would the job himself (and several other smaller things we needed done) if we could wait until January when the weather was colder and he would need inside work. We agreed to happily wait. After the fiasco with our floors we were absolutely thrilled to find someone of such high quality to do the job. He stopped by last week and tested out several strippers on the wall in hopes of finding one that was not as toxic and would work well since it is the middle of winter (4 degrees this morning to be exact!) and opening a lot of windows is not practical. He then tested out some stain. In the photo below you can see the original wall color. It actually is more pale than in the photo. You can also see three strips where he tested stripper and stain. To the right is the stain color that we decided upon. You can see the drastic difference in the wall and the stain. Also at the right above the stain you can sort of see a faded square in the wood. It looks like there may have been a file cabinet or similar sized item there for a long time. There are spots like this all over the wood.

Test strips

 As January grew closer I was starting to second guess my thoughts on having the walls refinished. I was starting to get used to the blonde. I worried that maybe I was ruining the original style of the house that we were working so hard to maintain. I thought maybe we were going to waste our money. I was really to a point where I thought maybe I would be just fine with the wood if it didn't have so much sun damage and wear. He finally started the job on Wednesday and the downstairs bedroom (formally den) is basically done except trim and detail work. It looks AMAZING! The walls are finally a beautiful brown color. They have done such a professional job. We haven't had one complaint yet! This has been such a change after the floor people this summer. After the first day of work on the job it looked great but I still wondered if we were going to all this work for a change that wouldn't be that great. I asked the workers what they thought. They said all that mattered was what I thought because I had to live with it. I told them I knew that but they looked at so many houses that they know what looks good. Then they let it fly! They said it was a huge improvement. They said you couldn't even compare the before and after. Then they said it looked like someone had smeared mustard on the walls previously! After seeing the completed room today I think we are very happy with the results.

This is a completed wall in the guest bedroom. You can't completely see how it looks because there is nothing else in the room to compare it to in the way of color except the vent and the outlet. But, hopefully you can see that it looks much better!

The people doing the work are so good at what they do we feel like we need to get as much work out of them as we can afford because we will probably never have an opportunity like this again. They are going to put new stair treads on our steps that are finished to match the walls better. The work the people did on the stairs this summer was awful. They look orange now! As I said above, the stairs really catch your eye because they are next to the fireplace. We are looking forward to having stairs that actually look good! If we can afford it we also plan on having them do a few more things. Our kitchen cabinets are white. They will refinish those back to wood. They will refinish our bathroom cabinets that look orange because the varnish has yellowed over time. We will have transition strips added as you go into all of the bathrooms since the flooring people did not finish that this summer. Our basement door is having some major issues so that will be rectified. And, we are looking forward to putting a shower door in so that we no longer get water on our shower floor. I have always preferred shower doors over curtains and was very excited to find out the bathroom originally had one but it was removed. Before I knew that I felt like I was "ruining" the original bathroom if I added a door. I will try to post more updates as the work progresses.

Paint Palettes

We are STILL not quite done painting. We have some trim in the hallways and family room to still do. Thankfully we have had some help from my mom because my back is about shot from painting. We are close so I finally decided to take a few photos. I just tried to get photos of paint colors because we still have dressers with no drawers in them and boxes piled up and weird things like that! I took photos this afternoon at 3PM but the sun was already starting to go down I realized.  :(  So, the photos could be better but at least you get a sneak peak for now. All of the colors were picked from California Paints 20th Century Colors Of America which are authentic shades used from 1900-1985. All of the colors we used were from the year our house was built.

Our bedroom is my favorite color! In our old house our bedroom was a very deep burgundy color. Everyone hated it but me. I was finally convinced to ditch the burgundy because it was not appropriate for our house. But, I wanted something that still would compliment the bedspread, wall hangings etc. from the burgundy room. I decided I wanted a pinkish brown color but I DID NOT want pink. I was scared to death I would think I found something then get it on the wall and it would be pink. It is a miracle that I somehow found exactly what I had hoped for!! It has just a touch of pinkish and I think it also transitions nicely into the pink and blue bathroom. (I keep saying "I" because I tried to include my husband in picking colors but he didn't seem to have a lot of interest. He did give some input but he mostly let me choose.)

 I settled on University Square by California Paints. Unfortunately, the photos of our bedroom are the worst. I don't think they nearly show off how great this color is. I will have to get better ones later. You really should click the University Square link above to get a better look. I really like the way all of the colors we picked bring the outside colors inside. I believe this was one of the architectural goals of the style of our house which is one of the reasons for the large windows. Outside our bedroom window is a Japanese Maple Tree. The pinkish brown paint really brings out the pinkish purple colors in the tree. Unfortunately I didn't realize when I took the photos that the tree is quickly turning brown and shedding for the winter.

Japanese Maple tree outside bedroom window before it turned cold.

The view from our bedroom. The Japanese Maple is looking a bit sorry now. Just the other day it was still beautiful.

I wish this picture showed the paint color off better. I LOVE it! Ignore our horribly wrinkled bedspread.

For the second bedroom (originally the girl's room) that we are using as a dressing room, the family room and the upstairs and downstairs hallway I chose Gobi Desert by Behr. This was a neutral color that was much easier to get from Behr than trying to get a copy from California Paints but there are several similar historical California Paint Colors. It is kind of a khaki color. I love that it is very neutral but just dark enough to have a punch of color. It also goes with the burgundy items from the old bedroom and compliments the colors in the beautiful trees you can see outside from the large window in the bedroom.

The dressing room, family room and hallway colors. I'm not sure if the white trim was the right choice.

The downstairs of the house is a bit more modern than the upstairs since the family room was done almost 20 years after the house was built. I wanted blues in there and thought since it was more modern I might paint it a deep blue color. But, we have lots of blue pillows, wall hangings etc. so I came to my senses and decided to do the Gobi desert down there also. I decided it would compliment the blues nicely. And, my husband was more anti-blue basement than anything else having to do with paint.

The family room is not finished but here is a glimpse of the color inside a white trimmed shelf.

Our "hobby room" (originally the boy's room) is a steel blueish grey color form California Paints called Industrial Steel. I thought this color might go well with some black and white photos I would like to hang in this room. I can see some of the original blue paint color that was in this room peeking out in places. It looks like it might have possibly been a very similar color at one time. There is a beautiful deep, deep green magnolia tree outside the big window in this room. It is so green some of the leaves almost look blue which again makes the blue paint a nice frame for this window.

The kitty looking outside at the Magnolia tree.

The "hobby room"

We have our new dining room set home and we really like the way it looks in the family room. Even the orange seats which I immediately wanted to change look so nice with all of the wood and the style of the house. I would almost be tempted to keep the orange but it just isn't me. It is too vibrant and not peaceful enough. And, we already have olive green living room furniture in the same room so the orange and green would really be over the top! I already have fabric to cover the dining room chairs. Maybe this weekend I can do that. I need to do a little bit of research on upholstering tonight.

New dining room set. Can you spot the sleeping kitty?

New fabric for dining room chairs.

New fabric

Now that all of the colors are starting to come together I am getting really anxious to paint the kitchen. We saved it for last since it has no furniture in it that we will have to work around. Also, we were trying to decide what we were going to do with the cabinets before we painted. I think this winter we are going to have the cabinets stripped back down to their natural wood instead of white. So, I think it would be best if we paint before instead of after they are stripped. Then we don't have to worry about getting paint on the cabinets as much.

The kitchen will be an olive green color from Behr called Spartan Stone. It is another match to a historical California Paint color. I love the olive green and it will go with the olive green furniture in the dining room and living room since the rooms are all open to each other. My husband might kill me if I ask him to paint that room before Thanksgiving. We have done so much painting!! There are some really high walls in there and he has to do all of the high parts since he is 6ft 5in. But, hopefully someday soon I will have kitchen photos for you! And, some full house photos!! Hopefully you caught a few glimpses of the floors in these photos. Taking photos of the floors requires them to not be covered with boxes!!! Still coming!

Weekend Finds

Hopefully someday our art glass shelf will look something like this.

OK, I said I would post more about our weekend finds. Besides the dining room table we also found four pieces of art glass. There is a shelf above a kitchen cabinet that divides our kitchen and living room. It catches the light nicely and we thought we would fill it with mid-century Blenko and Viking art glass. My grandma had a lot of Viking glass when I was a kid and I always thought it was neat looking. Orange seems to be a very popular color. (That is what my grandma had a lot of.) We are trying to collect greens (especially olive), yellow, amber, browns and blue (turquoise). We have not done a lot of research on the glass at this point but it seems that most of it was marked with stickers that have long ago fallen off so it can be hard to identify what is authentic. Right now we are just collecting whatever strikes our fancy and has the right price and we aren't worrying too much about authenticity. Apparently the kitchen cabinets they sit on are not original to the house. Everyone was telling us we should tear them out because they block the light that comes in the living room windows. At first I didn't like that idea but I am becoming more open to it. I think even if we do eventually decide to remove the cabinets we will keep the shelf. I have a Pinterest board for all of the Blenko glass I love.

The newest pieces of glass are the farthest to the left, fourth from the left and the two farthest to the right. The two turquoise pieces came from my grandmother's house when she passed away.

Our new olive green Catherin Holm enamel pot.

We also found a Catherine Holm enamel pot yesterday. We first got two hand me down Catherin Holm bowls from my husband's grandma. After doing a little research we found out how collectible they are. I really like the way they looked and I was especially fond of the fact they were olive green. Right now our kitchen is still white but soon the kitchen and living room colors will be olive green. So, when my husband found this Catherin Holm pot at a reasonable price I was all for it. It comes in several colors like blue, yellow and I believe orange. I am partial to the green. We found some yellow china yesterday that looks very similar. I would have snapped it up if it was green. I wish we would have taken a look at the brand so we could look it up and see if it came in green. We may stop back by tomorrow and see if we can get the name.

This evening we made an attempt to go shopping for fabric to recover for the dining room chairs.  We arrived just as the fabric store was closing. We are supposed to pick up the table and chairs tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow I can post some more pictures of the house. I haven't really posted finished photos of the floors or paint because things are still a bit of a disaster. But, maybe I can post some small peeks. I will save the overall photos for when ALL of our stuff is finally moved. (Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later.) There is a big hole in the living room right now because my piano is still at the old house. Last night as I was getting ready for bed and brushing my teeth I thought of another little odd thing about this house we didn't discover until we moved in. The bathroom sinks are REALLY low. It is very strange. I'm not really sure why they were made that way. Maybe I will have time to post again tomorrow and break a record by posting three days in a row.

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.

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.