Living Room | Before, After

Our living room underwent a less-than-extreme transformation, but it's still fun to see the before & after photos! Here's a list of what we did do, which may not be as obvious as what we did in the kitchen...

• Replaced the three windows that face the front of the house.
• Painted the tounge & groove ceiling white to match the beams.
• Replace the carpet with hardwoods.
• Attached a floating mantle to the fireplace
• Had electric properly run to the ceiling fixture
• Replaced the ceiling fan with the Sputnik light fixture.
• Had floor outlets put in so we could "float" our furniture and still plug in lamps.

The before shot - we LOVE the AMAZING brick wall! Seriously, it's one of my favorite original details of the house.
  The after shot with furniture. We love this room - I sit here most mornings with my coffee overlooking the front yard while catching up on my daily reading, and we end each night in here as a family.

The windows were original and pretty inefficient. The mauve vertical blinds were not our first color choice, and those surround sound speakers they left...um, not even sure where they ended up!
  We finally decided on what to replace the mauve vertical blinds with - the IKEA system - and love that we decided to add the floating mantle for the television. We've been using our fireplace this winter and love that the sofa faces both the TV and the fireplace.

Some more view points - before the house read very warm with earth tones. Now that we have gray floors and walls, the stone reads much cooler. We love it!

Kitchen | Before, During, After

Even though there are before, during and after tours, I personally like seeing the "before & after" images right next to each other. With our house, I have to say the kitchen area is probably the biggest changes, so I thought I'd start here! You can see more about the final result in the entire kitchen tour here.

Before, it was a galley kitchen, and there was an odd office area on the other side of it. While there was actually a ton of counter space, it wasn't set up ideally for entertaining. The strange office area was HUGE and seemed like a strange use of space to us.

We obviously opened this up, and now have one large, functional kitchen.
  Here's the original galley kitchen layout. From old photos, it looks as though originally they had a double oven where the fridge is in this photo, a cook top where the range is, and above-the-counter fridge & freezer (COOL!) towards the windows. I need to upload the old photos we have! You can see a few more views of this in the before tour.
 And we still have this portion, it just got opened up with a walkway (where the range was!) into the old office portion.
  And just in case you can't envision what it looked like "all open", here's the "during" photo.

Our 2013 Palm Springs Vacation

Last year, Greg and I were able to head to Palm Springs during Modernism Week - Greg for the very first time! If you know me personally, you know that my heart belongs to Palm Springs, and it was fun to finally share my love for the small desert city with Greg.

I've been to visit my grandparents numerous times in the past 33(!) years, with various groups of travel companions, including my cousins, sisters, mom, friends and (finally!), Greg. And in a couple of weeks, I pack my bags again...this time with my mom and two sisters - a trip the four of us have never taken together. I've been with my mom, and I've been with my sisters, but the four of us have never gone together. And, our trip happens to fall during Modernism Week again - talk about perfect planning.

Eames & Greg will stay home while I head to my perfect desert oasis for a week. It doesn't seem quite fair, but Greg would rather fish for a week if he had to pick one week of vacation.

I never shared my images from Modernism Week 2013, so today, while organizing images on our computer, I was inspired to finally do so. This makes me even MORE excited for our upcoming trip. We have various tickets for lectures, cocktail parties & home tours (some that I didn't get to see last year...), and a couple of days with nothing on the agenda so we can head into Los Angeles and shop a bit.


I LOVE decorative cement block - this is one element I wish our home had. I have looked for a local source so we could add some, but sadly, I've come up with nothing.

I also wanted to take this full of succulents home with me. It was perfectly green and lovely!



The first tour we took last year was The Royal Hawaiian. We toured five or six condo units, and they were in the process of restoring the exterior back to its original state. Donald Wexler was there when we were, and while I felt dorky snapping a photo of him, we did see him!



We explored Palm Springs via bike a lot. It was fun doing our own tours!



We ended up getting a bit lost from downtown Los Angeles to the ocean, and took a detour to Santa Monica. The coast is quite lovely and it wasn't a bad detour at all!



I kinda love this guy!



We finally found the pier, road the roller coaster (twice!) and watched the sunset.









I hadn't been up on the Palm Springs Ariel Tramway since I was eleven years old. 21 years, and it was just as I remembered it - cold and snowy! The welcome center used to be a gas station, and I'm quite certain I actually remember it that way!



We stopped by Modernism Week's pre-fab showcase. I would LOVE a pre-fab cottage one day!



We did not stay with my grandparents the whole time, but I do think we stopped by everyday just to say hello. My grandparents are some of my favorite people - I LOVE hearing stories from my gram about when she was a teenager in the 50's.



This might be my favorite recent photo of my grandparents. My gram said she didn't love it, but I think it's so cute!



Modernism Week had a tent set up with tons of modern wares. We walked thru on the way to a lecture and stopped at the Herman Miller booth. Greg is in his DREAM chair! And I was excited to see the wood edition of the classic Eames shell chair.



We also toured five condos in the Marrakesh Country Club community in Palm Desert. There was one which was quite a time capsule - of course, that was my favorite one!



One night we went to the Viceroy Palm Springs for cocktails around the pool. We met some fun people and really enjoyed mingling with people and chatting about mid-century modernism.



One of of the last days, we went to Joshua Tree National Park, outside of Palm Springs. Apparently, I had been there when I was five years old with my parents, but I didn't remember it at all.



While cruising on our bikes, we LOVED looking at all the homes. This one was one of my favorites - a mix of the stone, beams, orange front doors and the outdoor Sputnik light fixtures made it to the top of my list!



The mountains, palm trees and blue skies get me every time!



Us on our bikes (and by "our", I mean my aunt's bikes they keep at my grandma's condo!) We loved getting around this way!



And I leave with you this house - who wouldn't LOVE all these palm trees in their yard?! Picture-perfect if you ask me!

Basement Renovation

When we bought the house, the basement was a true basement - a place to store things. Yellow cinder block lined the walls, and besides the furnace & hot water heater, there wasn't anything down there.

Last winter, when we were working on taking down the walls so we could insulate the house and start fresh with new drywall, we decided to open the basement stairs instead of keeping them original. Now, when you stand at the top of the stairs, you don't have to open a door to go down them!

At the bottom of the stairs, it's pretty wide spot, so we popped this refinished buffet here - it's filled with board games and I love the unique lines of it. I haven't hung the family photo yet, but eventually it will go on the wall and I'll add some more decor items on top of the chest.

This house is so much larger than our old house, and I haven't collected new pieces to display in every nook & cranny yet!



We got super lucky that we have exceptionally high ceilings down here! For some reason, everything mechanical was tucked away neatly behind the (really ugly...) drop ceiling, which we took down to drywall. We did have new heating ducts to work around, and as you can see the vents aren't even on in these photos yet - just open holes in the ceiling at this point! That is certainly on our to-do list.


All of the furniture down here is from our previous home. The yellow sofa & chair/ottoman, plus graphic lamp were in the living room, the other chair/ottoman were in our bedroom, and the side chair was Eames' nursery rocker. Ooh, and that side table was our kitchen table - no joke - we ate dinner around it every night.

Mostly, this room is about toys and playing. It's super cozy down here (and the only place we have carpet...) so on the cold nights we've had lately, we head down here to play. The television is not hooked up yet (yes, it's almost been five months!) but will eventually be the spot we watch movies.


We had this large entertainment stand in our old living room, and we still really like how clean & simple the lines are, so kept it when we moved. We planned to use it down here and it works well in this spot.

The old chair & ottoman was my parents' when they built their house in '81, and this thing is SO comfy, I cannot get rid of it. Yes, yes, I know it's tragically ugly, but once I find the right fabric (and some extra cash...), I will send it to be reupholstered. It's a great reading chair - actually, I wanted to put it in Eames' bedroom, but sadly, it wouldn't fit.


My mom made this little throw pillow for me years ago, and I still love it. This is the most comfortable chair in the house!

Our basement, at this point, is more about function for our almost-three year old. We are happy to have the extra living space, and while it may not "go" with the rest of the house, it's certainly a great little spot to relax.

You may notice there are no windows down here - our home was built on the ground - there are no stairs to get in the front door - so, no windows down there either! Honestly, I think that is part of the reason why it's so warm & cozy down there!


Basement Resource List

• Sofa & chair/ottoman | La-Z-Boy circa 2005
• Side Table | Tripod Table via West Elm
• Media Center | Brooklyn Media Center via Ethan Allen (they still sell this!) 
• Paint Color | Benjamin Moore's Ozark Shadows
• Rocking Moose | EKKORRE via IKEA

Master Bedroom, Closet & Bathroom

I am pretty sure I spent more time measuring this room than any other in our house! The reason? I really wanted a king-sized bed and this room is quite small compared to a new-build master bedrooms. The obvious wall for the bed was under the small windows, but because we made the room a bit smaller to have a walk-thru closet, the only spot for the bed became the wall which was shared with the closet.

In the end, it IS large enough to walk around the bed, and I'm thankful for all the measuring I did :)


The bed faces the large floor-to-ceiling windows on the east side of the house, and we get some great morning sun; we love how it turned out! Our bedroom wasn't quite done (and still isn't!) when Kristen of K. Holly snapped some shots in here, but I still love how it looks in her photos.

We've since added some Thedor prints above our bed, and a couple of orange polka-dot shams to break up on the all-white sheet look I had going on here. Here's an updated photo on the Facebook page to share the slightly updated (and more colorful) look.  I know this room will continue evolving as time goes on - I'm actually still looking for something to put above the orange bookcase on the wall between the small windows and the floor-to-ceiling windows. There's a photo of it here as it is now, and I want to add a long frame (which I already have from my old office) with some art in it. Art is yet to be found!


We LOVE this simple bed from West Elm. While shopping for a bed, we did search and search for a vintage one, but king-sized beds in the 50's and 60's were quite few and far between in Michigan. I couldn't find anything I LOVED, so instead, after much debate, I ordered this one from West Elm. The wood color is perfect and I really love that we have a headboard and footboard; this room with minimal furniture seems more finished to me.


Past the bed, is the walkway thru the closet and into the bathroom. Originally, there was just a standard closet here with large, mirrored doors and no access to the bathroom. Our closet is about 6' wide - large enough for us to both have our own side. I took the side with the long portion so my dresses would have a spot. Ideally, we'd have built in drawers in the cubbies, but for now, the ones I picked up at Target work just fine.

Greg's side is almost the same, except instead of the long portion for dresses, we found a little white dresser for all his t-shirts and boxer shorts. We couldn't make the wall organizer any longer because the pocket door is hidden in that wall!


Another small-for-2014 room is the master bathroom. It's about 6.6' wide, but perfect for a double vanity, toilet and double shower. The vanity is exactly the same as the one in the hall bath - they both have faux drawers up top, and the second drawer down is cut to fit around the plumbing, and then the third drawer provides the most storage space.

You might notice we don't have a linen closet in our bathroom - there really wasn't any more room - so our towels are in the guest bath and we just grab one before showering. It isn't a huge deal and keeps everything in one spot when I put laundry away.


It's a little tight between the toilet and the door to access the shower, but we swing it in and it seems to be working fine for us so far. The shower is HUGE and we love it! We didn't have a specified size for this when we started, but we just made it as wide as the room (which was determined by how big we needed the bedroom & closet to be to function properly)

We are very happy with how this portion of the house turned out. We don't hang out in our bedroom very much, so having a smaller room was just fine for us!

Master Bedroom & Closet Resource List

• Bed | West Elm
• Linens | Hollywood Duvet & Shams via Jonathan Adler
• Light Fixtures | Rejuvenation
• Paint Color | Ralph Lauren's Impressionist (same as the laundry room)
• Closet Organizer | Custom by our builder, Bruce Vugteveen

Master Bath Resource List

• Cabinets | Custom by our builder, Bruce Vugteveen
• Countertops | Wilson Art
• Faucets | VIGO via Amazon
• Sinks | Kraus via Amazon
• Shower Heads | Danze, Amalfi via Amazon
• Shower & Bathsplash Tile | Daltile via Home Depot
• Floor Tile | (no idea brand name) via The Tile Shop
• Toilet | Ariel Platinum via Overstock
• Paint Color | Paint Color | Ralph Lauren's Impressionist (same as the laundry room)
• Light Fixtures | Stella Small Sconce via Rejuvenation

Eames' Room Reveal

Eames' room is maybe my favorite, since we actually used a lot of color in here! I took a cue from his nursery at our old house, and took the tealy-blue color that was in his Dwell Studio owl bedding for the walls. I LOVE this color in here, and with two windows, it's not too dark at all.

We used a mixture of Jonathan Adler & Orla Kiely linens for his bed, which make it fun and playful. He obviously doesn't care what his room looks like, but I sure think it's a fun little boy room.


His bed and dresser are from an estate of our friend's mom. She was getting rid of the set, and we snatched it up! It's a full sized bed, and he has two dressers, but we're only using one right now. The framed images of Eames at the hospital hung in his nursery at our old house, and I still like them in his room. I'm sure I'll updated this in the coming years, but for now, it's something!

I have two prints to hang on the wall in here too, but haven't put anything on the walls yet. We will get to it, I'm sure :)


My Aunt Lori gifted Eames this stepstool puzzle - you can see it's a favorite around here! The E is broken (and upside down here...!)


Kristen, the woman who took all the images of our house, actually was getting rid of this adorable bookcase before she moved to California, and she sold it to me for the same price she snapped it up for - $15!. It was a bit too tall, but we randomly found some shorter legs (on the side of the road...I am not joking...) that worked perfectly. Eames has all of this kid books in here, and I have a feeling this is the most abused piece of furniture in our home right now!

Eames' Bedroom Resource List

• Bed & Dresser | Estate finds
• Bookcase | Secondhand
• Duvet & shams | Jonathan Adler via JC Penney
• Sheets | Orla Kiely via TJ Maxx
• Basket for toys | Target
• Lamp | Meijer
• Owl pillow and little owl | Dwell Studio

Guest Bedroom & At-Home Office

The guest room and home office is the first room when you make your way down the hallway. We kept the paint neutral (and the same as the rest of the main part of the house - Ozark Shadows) and filled this room with Eames' nursery dresser, and a $40 Craig's List bed. The desk was purchased from Jill at Simple Redesign, and the Eames chair was previously used in our kitchen. All the decor, besides the bedding, was used at our old house.

For now, this makes a great guest room. If we ever had more children, this would obviously become a kid's room - that is why we didn't commit to a color for the walls at this point. It's the bigger of the two hall bedrooms, and I enjoy working from here on my days in the office.

Our builder wasn't so sure about doing sliding doors on the closets, but that is what was here originally, and you know I wanted to stick to the original design if possible. They work well, and we had them stained to match the floors, which we love. We also love there is no trim around them, like the doors & windows.

We went with a flush mount light fixture, which works well in here.


Guest Room Resource List

• Bed | Craig's List find
• Dresser | Olivia via Walmart.com (part of Eames' nursery furniture)
• Desk | Simple Redesign
• Desk Chair | Vintage Eames shell chair, non-stacking base
• Linens | Trina Turk for Macy's
• Accent Pillow | Target
• Paint Color | Benjamin Moore's Ozark Shadows
• Light Fixture | Nimbus via Rejuvenation

Hall Bath

The first door in the hallway, is the hall bath. It's the former laundry room, which is obvious by the large doorway we found under the drywall when we demo'd this room. Since there were no windows in this room, we had glass block installed where the door had once been.

We used the same flooring from the laundry room in here (and also heated it!). The countertops actually determined the color of all of our cabinets throughout the house, including the kitchen. They are laminate, and I knew finding a stain to match the laminate would be much easier than trying to find a laminate to match some stain, so it matches quite perfectly and I'm very happy with it! The cabinets are birch with a pretty grain, and the color is kinda orange-y, which works perfectly.

When you open the door from the hall, you see the photo on the left. The door swings in to the right, and the toilet is behind it. The layout of this room is exactly like my childhood bathroom, and I LOVE it!

We went with classic white subway tile in both bathrooms to keep things simple and plain. I know that in a 1950's home, we would most likely have had a pink or aqua bathroom, and while I LOVE the idea, our home was not a time capsule and we wanted the bathrooms to be a good mix of retro & modern.

The paint color is subtle, and since these photos were taken we have added a few things on the walls.

Hall Bath Resource List

• Cabinets | Custom by our builder, Bruce Vugteveen
• Countertops | Wilson Art
• Faucets | VIGO via Amazon
• Sinks | Kraus via Amazon
• Bathtub | Bellwether via Kohler
• Shower Head | Danze, Amalfi via Amazon
• Tub & Bathsplash Tile | Daltile via Home Depot
• Floor Tile | (no idea brand name) via The Tile Shop
• Toilet | Ariel Platinum via Overstock
• Paint Color | (still looking for this info...)
• Light Fixtures | Stella Small Sconce via Rejuvenation

Laundry Room & Hallway

When we bought the house, the laundry room was part of the hallway bathroom, which didn't make sense to me (and wouldn't pass code these days anyway...) You can see the original inspiration for this room here. After reading thru the post I wrote a year ago, I obviously changed my mind a lot!

Since the photos were taken by K. Holly, we've hung a few prints in this room, along with some IKEA hooks for coats, hats and bags. It's much more "winterized" for us in Michigan - there are coats, hats, & boots everywhere!

Since the room was part of the garage, and sits on a cement slab, we did heat the tile floor - which we LOVE! Even though the room is quite tiny, it works for me to wash/dry and then take to the kitchen island to fold and then to bedrooms to put away. There is no room for dirty baskets, so we simply have hampers in our closets.


Laundry Room Resource List

• Washer & Dryer | LG via Sears
• Cabinet | Custom made to match kitchen by our builder, Bruce Vugteveen
• Paint Color | Ralph Lauren's Impressionist
• Flooring | (no idea the brand name) via The Tile Shop
• Lighting | Two used & unmarked white glass pendants via Practical Props

After you leave the laundry room, you head down the hallway to the three bedrooms and one hallway bath. We widened the hallway a smidge when we redid the (rotten!) wall here. Thankfully, these skylights are okay for now (the one in the kitchen is sweating all the time, and needs to be replaced...soon!) 

You may notice we don't have any trim on these interior doors. Greg came across EZY Jamb and wanted these so we'd reduce visual clutter in our hallway. I am very happy with how it looks, and they have held up so far - time will tell for how long! 

We opted for no visible light fixtures in the hallway - we wanted to keep it as plain as possible. No photos/artwork planned for here either. 

Hallway Resource List

• Flooring (used throughout entire house) | Shadow Gray Hard Maple from Lauzon 
• Trimless door jambs | EZY Jamb
• Thermostat | Nest via Amazon
• Paint Color | Benjamin Moore's Ozark Shadows

Three Season Porch

Our three season porch is something we never knew we wanted, but are SO glad it ended up being a part of this home. It was actually really quite a mess the day Kristen was here to snap our photos, but she did a fab job of making it look fine!

This is a non-heated room, so today, the windows are frosty and the floor is freezing cold, but before it got cold out, I did spend some time in here. Eames LOVES it too! Our wi-fi doesn't reach out here, so it's absolutely a chill place.

The lights, while original in style, have been replaced as the original ones (well, one was original glass, and the other was replaced with plastic - and they were different sizes too!) were painted over and rusting through the paint.

I had no vision for this space until we found the furniture on Craig's List - a mini sectional sofa, two side chairs, and an ottoman - which were blue and off-white. I ended up finding a great indoor/outdoor rug online and bam - the room was complete. I'm sure this space will evolve over time as we use it more, but for now, it's like an extra living room in the warmer months.


Three Season Porch Resource List

• Furniture | Craig's List
• Rug | Grandin Road
• Lighting | Love It Lighting
• Side Table | Vintage from Greg's parents
• Bench | Vintage

Living Room Reveal

When we're not in the kitchen, we are hanging out in the living room. It is about 16x16 and seems huge compared to our last house. With two walls of glass, a uniquely stacked brick wall, and a partial fireplace wall, I admit I was stumped with furniture placement for a long time.


I started searching for a vintage sofa, or ideally, a pair of matching sofas that could face each other in the middle of the room. When my searching came up null, I decided to go "new" and went directly to Thrive Furniture to see if they had anything I loved. Their fabric samples came quickly, and I placed an order for their Taylor L Shape Sectional in Azure on Black Friday, 2012 - almost a full year before we actually moved it to the current spot and started using it!

It's comfy, the fabric seems to be holding up well so far, and the color is perfect with our orange-y brick wall. We LOVE it!


The large windows here are 4' wide and look out into our front yard. I had a hard time committing to window treatments, but in the beginning of December, Greg finally hung the KVARTAL system from IKEA that works well for this large wall of windows.

Initially, we weren't sure where to put the television. Homes in the 1950's weren't set up for a large TV - heck, many didn't have them at all! We didn't want to stare at the brick wall when the television was off, and we certainly did not want to plop it in front of the windows or slider, so we ended up adding a floating mantle, which was stained to match the floors, to hide the cords for our television. I really love that our sofa faces the fireplace and the front of the house.


This lamp was a TJ Maxx find ages ago, and we used it in our old house. I picked up the frame at Marshall's in Palm Springs last year for $5, and the plants have been with us for a long time. The side table was an estate sale find for $20 from a friend's husband's grandma; it's perfect in here!


The two side chairs actually belong in our three season porch, and right now, we have a new chair in here (that was at the upholstery shop when photos were taken) that we scored on Craig's List. The bullet planter is vintage, as is the mini round side table.


The Pendleton blanket was an outlet find by my mom, and gifted to me for Christmas years ago. It fits right into this house full of colors and is quite the classic addition to this room.


Olive, our eight year old Yorkie, sits on the ottoman starting out the front windows most days. I LOVE this image of her captured by K. Holly! The tray, along with the gold urchin, are both from Target in the past year. I believe both were on clearance when I finally picked them up.


Another vintage side table, a gold orb, and a family photo grace the other side of the sectional sofa.

And while we bought the home with a ceiling fan in this room, that was the first thing to go! The amazing Sputnik light fixture is from Practical Props in Los Angeles. It is 60" wide, and it took Greg three+ hours to assemble it last summer!


Living Room Resource List

• Sofa | Taylor L Shape Sectional in Azure via Thrive Furniture
• Round Side Table | Vintage Mersman via estate sale
• Rectangle Side Table | Vintage Lane via Lost and Found
• Light Fixture | Sputnik chandelier via Practical Props
• Curtains | RIVTA via IKEA
• Curtain System | KVARTAL track system via IKEA
• Paint Color | Ozark Shadows via Benjamin Moore
• Side Chairs | Craig's List
• Throw Pillows | Various places: Pottery Barn, HomeGoods, Target, etc. 
• Blue ceramic side lamp | TJ Maxx
• Silver side lamp | RANARP via IKEA