We've almost got the sprinkler system back up and running (did I say we? I think I meant Josh.), from last Spring when we (did I say we? I think I meant I, although Josh has generously split the blame for it with me) rototilled through it while prepping our vegetable plot. We've never had the joy of a automatic watering system before, and our neighbor (great folks, btw) assured us that the sprinkler pipes were down far enough that we wouldn't hit them. Oops. Six trips to the hardware store, a couple of new heads, and quite a few hours later, the garden waters itself. Just in time for Summer too
I'll have to get a picture of our beautiful seedlings up soon....

the house around the corner

Well, I was feeling a little jealous after seeing the virtual tour for the '50s split level for sale in our neighborhood. The dining room bar and kitchen had really captured my heart, and I was afraid that I would like it better than our little ranchette. Of course, at $370K, a LOT more than we spent, I couldn't be too jealous! The daughter and I took a walk over there yesterday for their open house and, while it had it's good points, I'm still in love with our house.
The pulls in the kitchen were nice, though not nearly as substantial as I thought, and the kitchen felt smaller, particularly the eating area, which was like a little shoebox. For daughter-sized shoes. The laundry area was really sweet, though, with more cabinets and counter than we have, plus a cool hopper-style laundry bin that just looked like another cabinet. It was on the bottom, next to the washer, and tilts out to hold dirty clothes. Really a nice feature. The stovetop was nice too...electric (not my 1st choice), with a center griddle (seems rare for a vintage unit).
The bathrooms were on the boring side, with yellow and speckled beige tile. The sink faucets were gorgeous -- very fifites streamline, and there was a neat rotating toothbrush holder and soapdish just above the sink (you can see it in the picture--closed).
The house had a lot of great storage, with little random cabinets and cupboards tucked in under the eaves, but with two bedrooms upstairs and one down, it just wouldn't have worked for us. Plus the bar wasn't as nice as ours, and it didn't have the sort of super-functional basement space that we need (although it had three nice deep closets in the basement with shelves and paneling. And they were dry! (unlike ours, but that's a story for another day.)
The garden's still growing well, peas, beans, greens, melons, onions, etc. The rhubarb should be sufficient for a pie soon, which'll be a treat (for someone other than me). For now most of my housework's been outside weeding and watering, trying to avoid the mess that constitutes life in our house with two small children.

kitchen plans

When we moved in we immediately painted all the walls and ceilings (except in the kitchen and baths), tried to fix the creaky floors with something like 8000 screws (okay, so it creaks a little again, oh well), and recarpeted. The bathrooms were just great, but the kitchen was our next big project. After painting the outside. And some landscaping. And a new roof....
Anyway, we're still planning what to do with the kitchen, and it evolves a little more every month or two. The horrible wallpaper on the ceiling and about half the walls came down last winter, and the industrial green walls turned an ivory-yellow color, but that's about as far as we've gotten. Here's a before:

We really don't want to change the cabinets out, since these were built on-site for the house and are pretty functional (even if we don't have enough drawers...). The floor has to change, the walls and ceilings need a little more work, or at least more paint... It's hard, though, since we really don't want it to look like we did a halfway job by just refinishing the existing cabinets and just replacing the flooring, countertops, and appliances.
I guess I was looking for some inspiration. We gained some from our red and gray kitchen table, and were thinking of staining the maple cabinets a sort of nutmeg color, but I just couldn't picture it, until I saw this house (the link will expire soon, but I can't get all the pictures, so enjoy it while it lasts). It's a fairly nondescript house on the outside, and I *don't* think their bathrooms are as neat as ours, but their kitchen is gorgeous. It's huge, includes a laundry area right about where the photographer is standing (which ours does, but it's kind of L-shaped rather than being one big space, and just looks so lovely and modern.

After seeing it, I'm thinking that we should take the old, yellowed varnish off the cabinets but just refinish them in their natural color, and go with a lighter color on the floors (ivory linoleum with a red stripe around the edge), and lighter countertops (I think we're still planning on formica, since it's traditional and cheap!). I still like a colorful tiled backsplash like they did inthis ranch, but this just looks so clean and wonderful. Oh, and the drawer pulls from that first kitchen are amazing. They're sort of like a fifties chrome Chevrolet emblem. I just don't know where I'll find them!

Other things that I loved in that house were the bar in their dining room:

The sink faucet and mirror in the bathroom (although the tile is boring, in my opinion:

And the bar in their basement (although it would've been more fun in turquoise!):

Okay, so I know that a houseblog is no fun without pictures, but I'm still trying to find my cardreader for the camera, so no pictures. Moreover, we don't have anything interesting to take pictures of...
We're spending the weekend cleaning up outside, and it's amazing what a difference it makes. We're just mowing the lawn, picking up random kid-toys from the patio, moving a few plants around, and it's just so satisfying. It'll make our dinner alfresco that much nicer :)

photos...

These are all pictures we took before we moved in...the house may not be any cleaner, but at least it's got our stuff in it!

We've done a lot since we moved in, taking out a few vastly overgrown juniper bushes (apologies to those who love them, but these were awful!), painting the house a more fifties shade of yellow, and taking that darn sign out of the yard, but here's the view from the street. The house is on about a half acre, so there's a lot of space front and back, plus five big trees (yay!) and myriad bushes. Josh's words to me after his inital driveby were "well, it's sure not plain jane!"


Here's a view of the living room (if you could look to the right you'd see the dining room). We loved the ceiling and paneling, but the stone fireplace and the big wall of windows really sold us on it. We could just imagine being back in Los Angeles, looking out at a pool and the city lights....well, maybe not. But at least we open the drapes. Those nasty things hadn't been pulled--or cleaned!--in years!




Here are two views of the kitchen...one from the entryway, the other from over by the fridge. If you looked right from the fridge, you'd see the laundry area and door to the backyard. We're trying to figure out what to do here. It seems like we're going to refinish the maple cabinets since they're so solid and were built on-site for the house (okay, okay, and it's cheaper than replacing them!), do new countertops and flooring, and replace the cooktop and oven with a gas range. The appliances are cool, but the stove is burning out one element at a time, and that oven gets so hot you can burn yourself walking by. Cool, but not functional. Anyone looking for matching electric Hotpoint cooktop and oven, stainless, vintage 1955?


And here's my favorite bathroom. Most of the fifties-seventies houses we saw had a teeny master bathrooms, but this one had a tub AND shower, plus gorgeous tile. This one is really my favorite, with the pink and brown...although its rarely this tidy :/
The powder room pink and black with a turquoise sink and toliet, while the downstairs bath is turquoise and black with a pink sink and toilet...and plastic tile. Hmmm. Oh, and each bath has a neat shower door...I'll have to post more photos :)

And so it begins

So we were looking for a fixer. We'd sold our too-tiny house too quickly, and were getting anxious about living in a low-rent version of the Residence Inn. I thought we'd have to settle. I really wanted and hoped to find something you would've seen in a fifties issue of Sunset Magazine, Josh wanted more grassy space to tax his push mower and a view from the patio. Then we saw it. Sure, it had holes in the carpet, the walls were scary colors matched only by the freakishly wallpapered kitchen ceiling...but it was all there. The walnut paneling, pink bathrooms, original kitchen everything (maybe a little too original!), plus a really authentic bar in the basement. Straight out of Sunset Magazine, 1955.
Pictures to come.....