HOW ARE YOUR SUMMER PROJECTS GOING, readers? What are you getting done? What do you fear will never get done? Me, hopeless. Wrote a check for some new landscaping work, but other than that, too busy with work, the blog, visitors, the usual. And all you lurkers, make my day and leave a comment, for gosh sakes.
Home renovation projects – progress?
Posted by: • August 7, 2009
Midcentury home design and renovation ideas from 8 retro housebloggers 
Two starburst stencil projects for your bathroom — including a free pattern 
Catherine’s vintage Drexel stereo – and an update on her other projects 
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My kitchen, my kitchen! It was built in 1964, but unfortunately damaged by fire in 1981 and redone at that time. It maintains the original layout, just different cabinets. It has a U shaped counter, one side being a peninsula that separates the breakfast nook from the business end of the kitchen. For some reason, no cupboard doors were installed on the nook side of the base cabinets, resulting in difficult access to the back of the cabinets. The upper cabinets do have doors. The nook side of the base cabinets was built with a hollow core panel for some reason, making it difficult to add doors. Well, we did it! We found a company that would build matching doors, solid wood! Lots of styles to choose from. cabinetmakerschoice.com
Then the neighbor cut into the back and discovered the hollow board. I thought we should replace the back of the cabinet but he wanted to try and keep the original, which is actually a beautiful slice of wood. He took the cut panels, disassembled them and used the inner support pieces to fill in the door edges for support. Then he installed the doors, stained them to match the rest (walnut), and installed some beautiful new handles I found, silver concho bracelet style. (Hickory Hardware – Southwest Lodge – 3″ Pull – Silver Medallion – ( BEL-27715 ) ). http://www.knobs4less.com/belp390sm.html They also have MCM look hardware. It makes me remember relatives bringing things from visits to Mexico in the 50s. Wasn’t everyone traveling in the 50s? Route 66! It’s more the mood than actual vintage knobs. Boy would these have been the talk of the town back in the 60s.
I wasn’t happy with the unfinished edges of the openings, so next, he filled them in with furring strips stained to match. Beautiful job! My neighbor has the same issue in her kitchen and has been told she cannot get doors because of the hollow core back. I can’t wait to show her my new doors. The project was completed yesterday, everything is back in there, and I can reach things in back without dragging it all out on the floor.
Next step, pull-out drawers in that great pantry. The builder told me he had put in U shaped shelves, but someone replaced them with full shelves, again,. impossible to reach to the back and find that darn can of posole.
After that, the floor, and I am thinking of terracotta tile, again that southwest influence. For some reason, I keep gravitating toward that terracotta brick look for the floors, ever since my first house in 1971. Also I must have that dark wood. I really think it was from the pictures brought back by relatives traveling out west in the 50s.
Pam, I think your post was meant for me — meant to kick me in the butt, that is! I have a bathroom with half-stripped wallpaper, and there it sits. I have no idea what look I want, or whether or not to keep the newer vinyl flooring in there or get rid of it and go for something more authentic to the ’50s. I am uninspired, so there it sits. I know that the moment I get it together in my head, I will attack the bathroom with a vengeance. Lack of money, energy, and inspiration are preventing me from having a nifty retro bathroom. This is my confession.
(I feel better now.)
Our bathroom has been under construction since we bought our house in December 2005. We do little things here and there as time and money permit. We got a cool ikea sink and some terrific vintage light fixtures off ebay. We even purchased all the tile for the project several months ago – white hex flooring and white and black ceramic 4×6 tiles for the walls and shower. It’s going to be fabulous when it’s done, but I just don’t know when that will be! Still hoping to find some sink legs with a towel bar attached…
In the meantime, I’ll just keep lurking.
My summer project is to prepare for a move and plan my wedding. Wedding plans are in order, moving plans, not so much.
My house is full of half-finished never-ending projects. First, the living room. When we bought our house, the ceiling in the downstairs living room was only 6’4″ high. To remedy this, we removed the upstairs living room (which was directly above it) and created one sunken living room downstairs with the upstairs now only containing the kitchen and dining room. We removed the horrible contractor-grade carpet downstairs and purchased Ikea maple laminate flooring. For six months, the flooring sat in a pile behind the entertainment center while we lived with filthy bare concrete. Finally on a rainy day my husband and I tackled the flooring. We were able to almost finish the flooring in one day and only had one corner of the room by the base of the stairs left to finish. That was six months ago and the section of flooring by the stairs still remains unfinished. Somehow we just can’t muster up the energy to put in the last twenty square feet of flooring. We also made another change to the living room by moving one wall three feet back. The new drywall is up on the wall, but not on the ceiling. We moved the wall a year ago.
Then there’s the bathroom. We bought our house as a foreclosure and there were and are many problems with it caused by an inexperienced and ignorant flipper. The tile in the bathroom was never sealed and the grout wasn’t properly cleaned off of the tile. My husband and I purchased tile stripper and sealer to remedy this problem seven months ago. They’ve been sitting under the bathroom counter ever since. At the same time we purchased a light to go over the bathroom mirror because the only light in the entire bathroom comes from a globe fixture in the middle of the bathroom and the bathroom mirror is in a little alcove behind a small wall. The new light fixture is somewhere in the vast wasteland we like to refer to as the “junk room”.
Finally, there’s the kitchen. I’m not sure where to start with this one. We’ve found the perfect flooring (blue sheet vinyl with gold and green metallic glitter) and the perfect appliances (a vintage Caloric Ultramatic wall oven, Thermador gas cooktop, and a great old fridge) and the perfect tile for the backsplash. These items are all sitting in a pile in the corner of the already cramped kitchen. We just can’t seem to decide on or afford the cabinets we want. There is also the problem of half the outlets and one light fixture in the kitchen no longer receiving any power. We’ve got the microwave plugged in with a ten foot long extension cord running into the dining room. We have the new breaker, but I’m not sure where it’s gone. It’s probably hiding in the junk room.
Perhaps one day we’ll actually get the house where we want it, but then I’m sure some new project will pop up and occupy our time until we get half-way through it and find something else to work on.
I finally finished painting another room of my 50′s rancher–the hall. And that was a lot of cutting in! Benjamin Moore Bright White on the trim (wow), and Sea Froth (kinda mushroom-y) on the walls. Now I’ve got my paint-by-number collection back up, and everyday I walk down the hall I feel inspired to do more painting!
I know there are a lot of good paints out there; Benjamin Moore is the brand I tried. I will never buy cheap paint again. (Except primer, which I’m not sure was worth the extra $10.) Expensive paint loads into the brush better and is more likely to cover in one coat. It’s worth it to spend more on a gallon of good paint instead of two gallons of cheap paint.
Next stop: the master bedroom.
I’m not renovating anything now. Just waiting until the day I can move out of the dorms and buy a little brick ranch in NW Indiana (sigh).
Thanks for the inspiration, though. I’m not sure if you’ve posted anything like this before, but I’d love to see a post on giving an apartment (or other space where you really can’t change much) a retro feel.
Well, after 2 1/2 years of trying to decide on a kitchen floor, I finally chose an Armstrong commercial vinyl sheet—it’s Connection Corlon in “amber.” (http://www.armstrong.com/commflooringna/product_details_toolbox_magnify.jsp?item_id=95022)
It’s a grout and chip style, so it looks very much like real terrazzo, but it also rather looks like a solid sheet of cork, because of the color. I’m VERY happy with it, except that the installers screwed up and used a white seam sealer that never dried clear. (I wonder how many brain cells we killed trying to use heavy solvents to get rid of all the white seams.) Their solution (from Armstrong) is to use solid color weld lines in recut seams. So I asked them to create blocks to look like the metal seams in real terrazzo. We’ll see how that goes. If I don’t like it, they say they’ll replace the whole floor. What a fiasco!
BUT…the whole kitchen area is coming together…the walls are painted a bright orange-red, I just made new blinds and curtains using an incredible Etsy find of vintage barkcloth, and my Drexel Profile dining set and new (vintage) retractable dining room satellite lamp is lookin’ good. My husband is in the midst of painting all the trim work and doors (with much prodding from me). Now I’m looking for a new stove, because I’ve pretty much given up on renovating that old yellow Chambers range in the garage. That’s probably going to have to be a project I tackle after I retire!
I should send Pam some photos, but I know she’s swamped with e-mails.
Wow, I’m tired just reading all these posts! Pam, I owe you a picture of my bathroom cabinet with the new Saturn + Star backplate knobs from Rejuvenation. That’s the only thing I’ve done in the bathroom since we moved into the house (oct. 08). I will eventually take down the wallpaper and paint the bathroom either light turquoise or flamingo coral (still deciding). That’s the only thing that really needs to be done, and I can live with. I could repaint the cabinet to freshen it up and eventually a new sink/faucet, but now that I know what a Hudee ring is, I’m hesitant to get rid of it! haha.
My main project to complete before the fall/holidays is finish painting the living room/hall/foyer. One thing leads to another with this project! Right now I’ve been painting all the window/trim Benjamin Moore’s Dove White (or White Dove, I forget). I’ve also narrowed down the wall color to a few greys. I’m looking for a good medium warm grey, not too brown. I have Gee Gee in Gray wallpaper all picked out from Bradbury & Bradbury to wallpaper the little foyer I have. I think it will look nice with the grey walls and white trim. Then I need to order 2″ white blinds (I think I’m going with the faux wood instead of aluminum) with tapes for all the living room windows. I have a nice 3-window bay in the front and one window on either side of the fireplace.
The dining room will be the next project.It’s paneled half-way with a walnut paneling, which I will keep. I just need to remove the existing wallpaper and I’m thinking grass cloth wallpaper on two walls, and painting an accent color on the common wall that extends into the kitchen. You see…one thing leads to another!!
Basically we’ve gotten a lot of landscaping done this summer. We completely re-landscaped the front, had a huge tree removed from the backyard, but a few borders in the back yard, built two wood racks to stack all the wood we got from our removed Maple tree, and my husband moved our gate so that the side door opens into the gated yard (so we can just open the side door to let the dog out instead of having to go outside with her to put her in the yard). Simple things to make life easier!
Okay, I’ll stop now. I haven’t gotten to the stairs going up to our bedroom and the knotty pine upstairs.
I want animal print carpeting on the stairs.
Do you remember my blue and grey bathroom with the American Olean fish tiles? I have stripped the wallpaper and primed the walls. I have to get out and buy the paint to finish. We decided on Ralph Lauren Ginger. It matches one of the yellows in my fish tile. I also plan on buying yellow, or black and yellow towels when I am finished. That is my only project this summer.
I am mentally updating my knotty pine kitchen. Now it has red cracked ice counter tops which I have never liked and 50 years has not improved them any. I’m looking at Wilsonart. The floor was replaced in the 80′s and I’d like a cork floor, but price is a consideration, so we’ll see. Hubby thought I was crazy because I kept asking him about appliance color. Stay with the stainless or switch to white. He couldn’t figure out why I needed to think about this since we probably won’t be doing the kitchen until next year. Well, don’t you know the fridge conked out last night and I told him THAT was why I’ve been thinking about this for months. We’re going with stainless so I can keep the original GE wall oven as long as it’s willing to work. Oh, and my NuTone range hood, let’s not forget that! So that leaves the ugly black dishwasher to replace. Originally we had a stainless Kitchen Aid dishwasher. I wish I could get one that looks like that one did. It had a cool handle in the middle of the top of the door that you turn to turn the machine off and on. I’ll keep meaning to post pics of my kitchen. Here’s a link to my before pictures. http://www.flickr.com/photos/31108567@N06/sets/72157621971263328/
haha, mcmeg — “mentally updating”… I like that. I do that non-stop!
wow, that is a lot of ambition in the comments. i am trying to get to my last 2 weeks of ironing today, although a more major project would be to dig through the storage tubs of old family photos, 3 generations worth, which i seem to have inherited. Ugh, the thought! I may just have to go to the thrift store instead…
mcmeg, its too bad you don’t like the countertops. I think it’s perfect for the wood and hardware.
I have no projects this Summer, which is a first. We are thinking of ripping out the stupid, boring deck whose ugly railing blocks our view of all our hard landscaping work, and replace it with a slate or bluestone patio. Different sized/shaped rectangles for that ’60s modern look. Something appropriate for a Sterling-Cooper weekend party.
Well, we just bought a house that was built in 1956 and have been busy taking out the horrible 70′s and 80′s kitchen remuddling that someone did before us. Lots of painting to be done. Still have the kitchen floor to do (going to use Armstrong VCT “willow green”), I have to keep looking for a nice retractable lamp for the kitchen too. Tons to do! Trying to get it all done in three weeks before we move in. LOL! I’m goin crazy, OCD is in high-drive. All of this is terribly tough to do with a 22 month old son on hand! Oh, I should also mention that much of my inspiration comes from your website!! Thank you!!!!!!
Summer projects at the “Rancho del Ray” have included the installation of a water softener. Our heavily mineralized beach water had glazed every surface in our kitchen and baths with horrible white lime scale which was impossible to remove. We’d put up with this for years; kind of scary what you can get used to living with. After solving the water problem, we installed the most fabulous, retro-looking, white porcelain Kohler Smart Sink and a Peerless faucet which looks great with it. What a difference! Inspirational!
Also, re-screened the front porch with near invisible nylon screen. After years of abuse from cat claws and hurricanes, it was overdue. It now looks wonderful out there with vintage cast aluminum dining set and big round “ear” chairs found at a local thrift. My split-leaf philodendron is as happy with it as I am.
These are but baby steps, but we are moving forward – and in unison, too.
After nearly thirty years of marriage, my husband and I are finally in agreement on a style of decor: MCM.
What will never get done is the flooring. The house is over 40 and has settled into the sand beneath it. Needs to be leveled before any flooring other than carpeting can be installed; a major undertaking. I’m afraid that the Rancho will crack in half and roll into the ocean if we try to level; oh, well. The kitchen’s renovation at least has a chance of getting done now that we have the new sink. The kitchen looks like a postage stamp sized cave with its dark walnut panelling walls. I want to paint them white and go with pink and aqua accents. The flooring in there is good: a terrazzo effect, white and beige Congoleum. But then, there are the dark cabinets which need to be painted and those early ’80′s almond countertops to deal with. Hmm…every time I even think about retirement, visions of Kentiles appear in my head and off to work I go. Don’t care; love it!
Thanks for the opportunity to share; good luck, all. Happy renovating.
Admittedly, this is a baby step in the
Ouch! Proofreader in the house?? Multi-tasking is a myth!!
Sorry!
It’s so good to read what everyone is doing! I feel both inspired and comforted that we’re not alone in our work load.
What we’re getting done: tons and tons of never ending trim painting, window washing and ivy pulling. We also spend some time convincing each other that people who take vacations are “suckers” and that it’s the smart people who buy run down ranches and talk about them constantly and lovingly like they are their children. : )
What we’re afraid will never get done: The floor revamping. We have a concrete foundation with the old flooring glued down in every room. We’ve been trying for weeks to find engineered flooring that actually looks convincing AND matches our original doors (which we refuse to take out).
What our flooring salesman is doing: wanting to strangle us. : )
Hang in there everyone! It will SO be worth it!
So much fun to read everyone’s comments. You guys are busy bees. Good time for a reminder to be cognizant of environmental and safety issues. Know what you are working with. Consult with pro’s as appropriate. The EPA websites for lead and asbestos are on most of my product pages (in Fast & Easy box, and in New?Start Here tab).
Nothing too big on my agenda. Next week we’ll be installing an Anga (Ikea) wall system in the den to house my collection of vintage toys and serve as a surround for my 1964 Zenith round-screen color TV. After that, hope to replace the shower curtain with tub doors. Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to find any tub doors with either mermaids or sea horses. Or swans, for that matter.
My husband and I had one of THOSE mortgages that was crazy and we finally got out from underneath it, so we bought a repo that really needed help.It is a small 1963 ranch without too much pizazz so we are doing our best to help it out. We sanded the hardwood floor and we are ready to put an “early american” stain on it. There 3 rooms that connect and they all had a different remanents of vinyl so we put down one that looks like slate. I wanted something more retro but I have 3 dogs and we live in the Pacific NW, we have lots of wet weather and I need something that I don’t have to look at paw marks.
I have always wanted to use some wallpaper that I have saved for the right time and this is it. It’s white background that looks like pennsylvania dutch quilt squares, mostly in primary colors. I painted my cabinets to match and they are cherry red on the bottom and white on top. I put 4 coats of red paint to cover and I used primer! It looks very cheery! White tile on the countertops.
The body of the house is painted a light aqua with white crown moulding. The living room is on the back side of the house and there was no door to the back yard, except through the garage. That won’t work with our menagerie of pets, so we took out the big window and put in a slider. To give it some personality we installed glass blocks on either side of the door. I grew up in a bungalow that had them, they make me feel good.
We have lots of things we have saved up for the right time and we are using them now! I am never doing this again, I do not have the energy anymore! (plus my husband is tired of my “great ideas”) He says when I get that look in my eyes he knows he’s in for a new way to spend his retirement.
Wow! I just sped past all the other replies to get to the comment box, and man, you hit a nerve!! People are writing essays! I’ll go back to read them next.
Here, summer is so hot, it’s easy to use it as an excuse for just about everything. I’ve been trying to work bit by bit on our front yard in the cooler evenings, planting and stuff that doesn’t require much money. It seems that all the dream projects take too much of that darn stuff, so I try to satisfy my urges with smaller projects. What I really hope we can get done before the school year starts up again (which is going to mean a new job for my husband) is an exhaust fan in our tiny master bathroom. It’s a health hazard in there now, and trying to keep up with the mold is exhausting and depressing. It’s my pink bathroom, and I want it to shine!!
My kitchen. The pantry isn’t ready yet, nor is all the painting done. Not only do we have to paint the walls, but the insides of the cabinets,too, so all the doors have been removed, I cleaned the doors well to remove the built up grease and dirt so they’re all set. I got new brass finished hinges from Amerock to use on the cabinets (to match the brass finished saucer style knobs). Curtains need to be hung as well as my retro kitchen wall clock. I have all the supplies for finishing the kitchen, but between my health and the hot weather, I’m dragging my tuchis getting things done. One project accomplished was the installation of the pull-down light. Looks beautiful. The bathroom is already functional, but it still needs a paint job, new curtains and I have to finish removing the old varnish. Since those two rooms are the most important, they’re being done first. The bedrooms just need to be painted and the wood floors polished.
Ugh, we are in the final stretches of a master bed/bath gutting and redo — and the devil is in the details. We started last October and have been slowly progressing. Much more interested in doing things correctly and we’ve been pretty patient.
We’ve been hitting snags that involve items being damaged during shipping, wrong items, or items acting up after being installed. Hopefully our mod pod will be done by mid-Sept.
We successfully finished another house so all is good in that realm!
We just got our hardwood floors completely refinished which was the biggest deal! The sellers had GLUED the carpet foam down onto perfectly good pine floors and put in awful Home Depot carpet. So until they were refinished, half the house had this crap carpet plus the other half remnants of glue or big S shapedc stains in the finish! Now it is gorgeous.
The backyard is our ongoing project and last week we finally could see the light after raking massive amounts of leaves from beds and from underneath the wire fence/wooden fence that was causing massive flooding in our yard.
Now I’m putting primer on our found patio set to prep to repaint!
Summer projects??? Ha! It never ends!
Note: the vintage antenna? It is staying!
Summer project was new windows. I cry when I think that I had to replace the originals. I kept the majority of the wood work in tact. And, I saved all of the old windows (stored in the basement)-for when I win the lottery and can have them restored. If I won the lottery, I would not buy a new house—I’d just restore my house (65 ranch)…well, and buy the wooded lot next door, and another vintage car (yes, I already have a 68 Dodge Coronet R/T). But I digress, windows this year….driveway and garage door next year. And the garden, of course.
Meanwhile, I’m on the lookout for an old TV & a dial telephone for the knotty pine basement ‘reck room’!
Kristen–thanks for the idea on the vintage antenna (I’ve got one of those too!)
Kitchen…started in May, redid some lighting (Rejuvenation to the rescue!), painting, painting, painting, painting…STILL painting – TCP, primer, 4 coats on everything and has to dry in between, of course! I wanted Boomerang laminate countertops (chose Skylark – prefer the more Bisbee blue turquoise color of that to the Aqua which has more green in it) and since it’s a small “U” shape countertop it wasn’t too terribly expensive. Waiting for them to be completed and shipped and praying that my husband and I were completely accurate on our measurements!! Upper cabs are semi-gloss white, lowers are semi-gloss turquoise, a shade darker than the countertops will be.
Installed an 18″ DW and needed more drawer space for what was lost, so picked up a Craftsman tool chest (red), took off the wheels and will tile the top with turquoise tile. Had a tool chest in another house (sold it when we left the area) and they hold A LOT of utensils, pots and pans, etc. Not exactly retro, but I’m pretty eclectic. Hope the kitchen’s done by the end of the month!! We’ll see…
Deb, the Sears tool chest is a great idea. I’ve seen it used once before, in a magazine. And I think the red will look great with your blue. This whole thing of using garage-ware for kitchens is big territory worth exploring further. Some of the companies even have metal cabinets. If I were doing an all-new loft kitchen, for example, I’d totally look into using this stuff seriously. As you mention, the drawers are not so deep – so very very useful.
Well, we got the nicotine-colored hallway repainted a while ago, and i’ve switched out a light fixture and fan. Other than that, most of the work has been more decorating/organizing than remodeling (but the ‘vintage’ office is coming together pretty well!
But next week is my vacation, and my dad’s coming in town, so we’ll have a chance to tackle the real projects! Most notably, the soft spots in the kitchen floor that have appeared from nowhere since we moved in (eek!). I’ll let you know how that goes
Tikimama, I had no bathroom fans in our three bathrooms when we moved it. One of them – the master bath, which we used the most – constantly constantly was molding up on the ceiling. It was super disgusting. I had to go up there with bleach/water all the time. Ick ick ick. When we reno’d we installed the bathroom fans directly above the tub/showers. They are great. One thing I’d do differently, though, is to ensure they were on their own switch (rather than double-ganged) so that we could put timers on them. We are constantly accidentally leaving them on for hours. Not a big issue in summer when the windows are open. But in winter, I think we’ve spent a fair chunk of change sending all the heat in the house to the great outdoors on a fair number of occasions.
Meanwhile, I am wondering, do you think you could find a small dehumidifier and run it in the bathroom after showers? As long as the plug stayed away from any water of course. I am not sure whether this would really work. Maybe you could even drain the dehumidifier into the sink. I know this sounds ridiculous. But I’m remembering the disgust of mold on my ceiling and thinking I should have tried this as an interim solution.
We finally got up the nerve to paint in our 1955 prefab ranch – a bright yellow in the tiny hall and bright blue in the bedroom.
That inspired hubby to – gasp – take a knife to the bedroom carpet, discovering GORGEOUS, original hardwood floors beneath. We think all but the bathroom and kitchen are done that way.
Next up, the bathroom. Sadly, the original plastic tile has to go. (See Pam’s comments regarding mold and lack of fans.) There’s black mold in the walls.
Then, the kitchen …. sometime in 2050.
well, my wife is pregnant again, so what with me running after our 2 1/2 yr old all day, and her being exhausted all the time from work, we haven’t had much time, energy, or money for anything. add to that some new neighbors who we’ve been having SERIOUS trouble with (it’s all over now though, a 2 hour armed standoff with police at their house got them all…taken away), and our renovating has pretty much been put on hold until winter. we ARE slowly accumulating all the needed supplies to get everything we’ve got planned finished though. every so often something pops up on clist and i jump on it, we just got a kitchenaid kd-2p dishwasher (1958-1963) for a very reasonable $30, and it’s really fitting well into our half finished kitchen. i’ll be buying all the needed wiring to redo all the kitchen lights and outlets and bring it up to code in a few days, and we’re slowly coming to a compromise on the front landscaping to be done next year…right now it’s a patch of corn and beans. anyways…i still read everyday, and retro renovation is keeping me motivated, maybe not front burner of viking range on high heat motivated, but certainly back burner of a wedgewood stove on simmer kind of motivated, and i thank you for that, because it’s the best kind.
scurl, how poetic: “not front burner of viking range on high heat motivated, but certainly back burner of a wedgewood stove on simmer kind of motivated…it’s the best kind.” I love that! Congrats on the new baby on the way.
We’ve got some work to do yet on this late-60s ranch before we can sell it… exterior needs repainting, wood awning-style windows need help, and we have a whole lot of sorting and purging left (I’m packing & storing as I go).
We’re not moving far… just 20-25 miles up the highway, but that’ll mean a big savings as far as gas and wear & tear on our vehichles (husband drives to work and back; I go twice because our son goes to school there, which equals 100 miles per day just for me!). There are tons of cute houses in both towns, and I’m hoping my current House Crush will stay on the market until I’m able to buy it!
Kitchen here, too. Our 1955 cape cod came complete with the original Youngstown Kitchen cabinets. Instead of replacing them as we had originally planned, we decided to celebrate them! We covered them in faux stainless steel shelf liner. Then, of course, we had to paint in colors that would compliment…SW Holiday Turquoise, Chartreuse, and Apple Blossom for the trim. And we added an authentic mid-century dinette table. It is the one with the fish border that someone else sent in a picture of a few months ago. There are a few finishing touches that need to be done, but overall our kitchen is retro-inspired.
Why do I always think I’m going to get so much done “over summer”? I guess the long days lure me into a false sense that I have more time. But, this summer, I seem to have less time because there is a lot of garden maintenance that needs to be kept up. After all, I planted all these things last year, so I want them to thrive.
So, short answer: keeping my new garden growing seems to be my one and only summer project. Boring, but infinitely rewarding.
As a matter of fact, we just got one of Pam’s recommendations for a new bath sink, the Kohler Tahoe, installed today! It looks sooooo nice!
Just trying to keep up with the yardwork. A cool, rainy summer has made it lush out there.
Uh! We have some mystery condensation in part of our basement which we are trying to find out the origin of, and just may end up by a dehumidifier for that part until we can find the real solution.
The grout in the bathroom tiles needs to be replaced in all three bathrooms (blue, pink and peach), don’t want any one to crack since there is pretty much no hope of replacements. Speaking of which, if anyone has a good way to invisably patch a cracked colored tile, let me know. We have put a coat of clear caulk over it, but a permanent fix would be good. We have three in in the shower of our pink bathroom that we want to fix before they get worse. We also have a wooden cabinet butted up against the shower in the master bath, and the side is warped and moldy. We need to find someone to come in and fix just one side of the cabinet, and not someone who is going to try to talk us into replacing the whole thing.
Our garden is also seriously overgrown, and extensive thinning is going to take place in later summer/early fall.
Besides that, we are going to work on wall art for all the rooms. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but Hubs is an artist with tons of paintings, and we have to decide which are going to be hung and get them (expensively) framed. We also need to decide on lamps for the master bedroom.
Jeez, is that enough yet?? Good topic, Pam, love to read everyone’s projects!
My kitchen is about 3/4 of the way done. I’m waiting on an estimate for the countertops, then I can work on the backsplash.
Don’t mind the ugly Microwave, it’s going to be stuffed on the other side of the fridge when we’re done. The counters are going to be Formica with chrome trim and a teal subway tile backsplash.
[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3201/3740652782_a17967a21e.jpg[/img]
hopfully this one works, if not, here’s the direct link to a pic of the kitchen:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3201/3740652782_a17967a21e.jpg
Joe, far out! Great looking kitchen. Love the Bewitched ovens.
My summer project is to buy an old house from the 1930s or 1940s. It’s harder than I expected to find one in original condition with all features intact, but I’m hopeful something will come up.
I’m going to delurk! I’ve been reading your blog for a few months while we’ve been house hunting. We close on our new house at the end of the month….a 1956 ranch in a suburb of St. Louis, MO.
My summer project is to…..DO NOTHING. I’m an interior designer by trade but after reading your blog I’m not going to rip out the pink bathtub with crystal handles. I’m gonna play it up and leave it the way it is.
Now how do I clean that original 1950′s grout in my pink tile?
I am leaving this comment in one of the few seconds in the last week I have not been up a ladder. My husband and I just moved into our first (and with any luck, last) house — a fab 1960 bungalow with 6, count ‘em, 6 bedrooms . I have spent all week stripping and sanding the living room/ dining room paneling and ceiling beams. It is the most arduous job I have ever undertaken. I still have detail sanding to do and then staining etc. If it doesn’t look perfect at the end of all of this, I am going to chuck a sander or two through the window. I curse the person who sometime in the 80′s, decided this lovely cedar should be painted plum.
RE: Matching tiles. If they are small tiles, you can take some from under the toilet to replace them. My handy neighbor did that for us, he is a tile genius. I have been looking and looking for a match for the tiles. They are a peculiar dull yellow speckled color and three or four were missing from the edge of the doorsill. He took up the toilet, got the tiles, and put the toilet back. You do need a new donut ring, but it’s a pretty cheap price to pay.
Projects? Well, the plan was to do a 1960s looking slate patio and landscaping…….I haven’t had much luck getting quotes, one guy was here two months ago and is still working on the quote………..so he’s OUT. Another person prepared the quote in the truck in my driveway and hadn’t seemed to give it much thought…the third guy was late and pricey………Pam, I may need recommendations from you if you know someone who works in Holyoke. Looks like the project gets postponed til next spring…I’m also looking for slate on craigslist…….unless you start a forum for that!
As for projects,well, by perusing your website, I just learned that the old kitchen cabinets that I have been hanging in my garage this summer are the same as the ones in the I-XL cabinet ad featuring Doris Day’s 1966 Malibu kitchen (so so the ad claims). Although these cabinets have been painted (many times), I thought they looked familiar and, sure enough, the I-XL label is on the inside of the doors. We live in suburban Chicago, not Malibu, but now I know that we have a (very remote) touch of 1960s Hollywood in the garage…
I just re-read my post from this morning. I should have said that I have the same “style” as Doris Day’s I-XL cabinets….I don’t really think Doris Day’s actual cabinets found their way into my garage…
Any way, hanging cabinets is hard work for this lawyer by trade but knowing the cabinets were good enough for the famous movie blonde somehow makes the grueling task a bit lighter.
I’m feeling quite pleased with our baby steps. I recently installed a CB2 drum pendant light in the dining area to replace hideous track lighting. Pictures on my blog: http://www.random-charm.com/?p=1012
Tomorrow I am swapping bathroom light fixtures with my ILs. Getting rid of a perfectly nice neo-Deco fixture that looks completely silly in our tiny ’52 bathroom. Will be replacing it with a very plain classic frosted glass fixture.
And then comes the hardest project. Pinch pleat drapes. I’m not really worried about making them because I’ve been sewing for a long time but I am wondering when I’ll have the uninterrupted time to work on them without sticky fingers wanting to help, and/or pull me away!
As I read through these replies I don’t feel so bad that my home improvements have sort of stagnated. I’m not alone! I did order replacement windows for the family room (yep, they’re wood, not vinyl)–they should be installed in the next few weeks. After that, paint, make curtains and order the linoleum floor. Hopefully all that can get done before the end of the year.
Fostermamas,
Congrats on your new house and of course I am happy to hear that you will be saving your pink bathroom, Ms. Interior Designer! There is a post on the blog about cleaning grout – put ZEP into the search box. Please be careful though – of fumes etc. but also of the possibility of ‘scratching’ or ‘acid’ scratching the adjacent tile. Worth doing a very careful experiment with, to start…. There must be other methods as well, I will have to add this to the list. I’m also getting emails from folks about “replacing grout.” I need to look into that one, even though this not a DIY site perhaps I can point some folks in a potentially useful direction ….
I’m one of the “lurkers”. I love your site! As part of my morning routine, I always check to see what cool updates you have. My first retro love is cars. I get my automobile retro-fix from plan59.com. (If you’ve not seen this site, DO NOT visit unless you have 20-30 minutes to spare. It’s almost impossible to break away! In addition to cars, there are home decor and ad sections to this site. The bathroom ads list the names of the sinks/tubs, which you’ve mentioned is one of your life goals to learn. BTW, did the manufactures name the commodes?!)
Anyway, what led me to your site was trying to identify the name of the style of a bedroom suite my grandmother gave my mom when Mom was 16 years old (around 1961). I did a search on “1960s furniture blonde wood”, or something similar, and your site was one of the results. I’ve been hooked since! Sadly, the bedroom suite was sold in stages over various yard sales. Didn’t know what we had, but due to the education I’m getting through your site, it won’t happen again!
Thanks for your time, dedication, and effort in maintaining your site. Fellow retro-enthusiasts like me greatly appreciate it.
We’ve been busy tackling different projects around the house. I FINALLY painted the bathroom, hung a cabinet over the toilet and replaced the shower curtain to a cute retro print. Just last weekend we installed new baseboards and man, they have made the biggest difference! Thank goodness my terrazzo floors are pretty level! We also installed a new entertainment center that had a retro feel to it. We got it from Ikea–check it out! http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S59852149 I got it in the black/brown.
Okay, I’ll unlurk! I have a 1926 Seattle bungalow that underwent typical remodeling in the late 40′s/early 50′s, with additional changes over the decades. This is the summer (well, it will end up being the autumn, now) to help out our poor kitchen and restore it so it doesn’t look like such a hotch-potch. I mostly want a kitchen that looks “vintage”, rather than being tied to an exact year or decade. I love our metal kitchen cabinets, and your site has been a wealth of information. We’re having them electrostatically painted. Same with the metal cabinetry under the kitchen sink unit (Youngstown), which will also have the sink part re-glazed. We have a lovely 1957 GE electric stove that I’m going to have spruced up and re-porcelained (will have to de-construct it and send the top to California for that). We’ll rip out the 80′s vinyl and re-finish the fir floors (or put down linoleum or Marmoleum or something if the wood is too trashed). We’ll replace the 80′s fridge with an Elmira Northstar or a Big Chill. We’ll put in stainless countertops and a stainless dishwasher with hidden controls and call it close enough (I’ve been looking at a lot of 40′s kitchens, but also 1930′s diners with all their stainless and chrome; I’ve also found reference to lots of stainless kitchen appliances from the 50′s, so it’s all still in the right ball park.) I’ll be back to post pictures at some point. Thanks for running such a great resource of a site, and to all your readers for their helpful comments!
Welcome, PerfectCircle, and thank you and all the other lurkers who came out to visit. My goodness, you are busy. I think it’s so cool that you are mixing things up in your 1926 bungalow, and we can’t wait to see the results. Let me know if there’s anything stumping you or otherwise torturing you and I’ll be happy to try and help.