5.01.2010

Vintage/Retro/Funky Mess

When my husband and I first bought our house, it was a fixer upper. That's kinda what we wanted anyways, not to mention, they always come cheaper that way. Our home was built in the 1940s with an open living room/dining room, large windows front and back, a little nook, narrow kitchen, 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. Highlight: the massive yard which I have high hopes to build a pool one day. We are located in a historic part of town, surrounded by other old homes. Ranging from the 20s all the way to the 80s. Our street is mostly quiet, cut off from any busy intersections. There are beautiful trees that tower over our house, which you can always hear parrots talking back and forth. It's perfect.

Now, being a fixer upper you can imagine what state the house was in. The many families living in this home did what they could do to improve it. We had mix matched hardwood, nasty linoleum in the kitchen and bathrooms. Pepto Bismol pink tiles in the bathrooms and showers. 6 inch plaster messily decorating the wall in the kitchen. Walls a depressing grey and mossy vinyl covering on the bench in the nook. Good news: we were blessed, since we had my husbands dad come down and help us do most of the hard work. We ripped out the linoleum, shipped out the pink tiles, painted tile, put in tile, sanded the hardwood, put finishing gloss on the hardwood, and sanded and painted the kitchen wall. Probably a heck of a lot more, I just can't remember it all. Not to mention the countless friends that came over to help paint.



Our home today is what I like to call a vintage, retro, funky mess. We are very thrifty people and our home shows it. We love vintage everything, not to mention finding common household items and transforming them into something totally new. Our couch is a pass me down from family, which we recovered with a striped pattern from IKEA. Our leather chair is an amazing find from a garage sale...well, it's actually fake leather. Our retro yellow chair and foot stool is a pass me down from family. Our coffee table is a 10$ side table from IKEA as well. All our actual side tables are from garage sales and repainting a glossy black. Our TV stand is too, come to think of it. Our dining room chairs are from a garage sale, but the table that came with it had this huge bow in the center. I swear you could see things rolling into the middle. Ok, maybe not. We eventually took that out and replaced it with another table we found in a another garage sale. Our bedroom is very bare. We have a nice bed from IKEA as a gift from my husbands parents, which I think is the only new piece of furniture in our whole house. Even our mattress is recycled....we got it at a mattress store that takes old mattresses, cleans them, puts new everything in them, on them and finally, resells them. Trying to not to be wasteful. The end product: a very eclectic house.

Now, I always thought I would be good at picking out paint, painting and decorating. Apparently I am horrible at picking out paint and painting. Decorating I'm still safe to do. Every wall in our house is a different color. Every color I picked out was at least 3 shades darker than I had hoped. Our living room/dining room was suppose to be a very pale yellow that was only noticeable when the sun came through the large patio doors. It's noticeable alright, it hits you like a brick once you walk in the house. Our bedroom is a deep green, our nook is a bright red and our kitchen is a slap-you-in-the-face green. I recall crying once, saying it looked like Bert and Ernie lived in our home. I'm told it's not as bad as I think, but maybe people are just being nice. I do love our vintage/thrift/antique finds. So, that makes me feel a little better.


Lesson to be learned: know what you're getting into before you start projects and make sure, YOU are sure, what you're doing.

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