Entries now closed. Be sure to check the blog regularly — there will be another contest in May. Amy was the winner of our January contest to win a Love The House You’re In Collage — and that’s her classique mid-century modest home, above — as immortalized by collage artist extraordinaire Mel Kolstad. To win our April contest, all you have to do is:
Leave a Comment answering the question, “What project is at the top of your to-do list month?” If you want to leave a tidbit on its style, that would be cool, too. Please read all the rules here before entering, they all apply.
This month’s contest rewards regular readers — I’ll pick a winner late Monday night. Yay on all of you who check in daily!
“I LOVE Amy’s house! The minute I set eyes on it I got all nostalgic – this little beaut reminds me of the neighborhood in Green Bay, WI where I grew up. I loved the challenge on working with REALLY tiny “bricks” and making the “wrought iron” railing, and the fact that Amy wanted her family in the photo because they’re so supportive of her. That’s what it’s all about.”
Thanks, Mel! Read more about her work on her cool blog, Ephemeraology.
P.S.: Not to tantalize, but Jenni and I are putting the finishing touches on Mom’s bathroom today (Friday). Big reveal to come this weekend. If we survive. 
Win a “Love the House You’re In” collage of your house 
Win a “Love the House You’re In” collage of your house 
Entries closed on this month’s “Love the House You’re In” collage 
Become a fan
Top of the list this month (and every month since January!) is to finish refinishing our parquet floors. Two rooms are done and the final room has been mostly sanded but finding a block of time to do the detailed sanding and then the sealing has been…difficult. Really hoping to get it done by the end of the month!
As of April the 12th, we are the owners of a beautiful little 1956 brick ranch. The to-do list is long but top of the list for this month is refinishing the great hardwood floor and updating, no re-dating the bathroom. Sometime in the 80′s all of the tile was removed from the tub area and walls and replaced with cultured marble. Beige and rust. Oh my! Vinyl for the floors and a non-descript vanity with, you guessed it, cultured marble sink. I have been blessed to have the original floor plans that show the details of the original bath. The old cast iron tub is still intake. My search for the other fixtures has been exciting to say the least. After a day of searching for a sink, I found it in the back of a truck and the owner was more than happy to have me take it off of his hands for $20. The medicine cabinet was discovered in the attic where it had been waiting for me for about 30 years. 4×4 tile will go back on the walls and in the tub area with an accent row. Floor will be a tile hexagon with accents of colored tile to match. Hubby not so sure what all of the excitement is about, but I push forward on my bathroom re-date.
Our Kitchen (and laundry room)! We have it down to the studs. The electrical, plumbing, and “dog shower” are done. Drywall comes next week, then cabinets, then floor and backsplash. It’s going to be beautiful – can’t wait to share. =)
New light fixtures for the kitchen. There are three mismatched fixtures, one white, one antique brass, and the other brushed nickel. The previous owner put a tiny white ceiling fan in the middle of the kitchen. It is low so if someone tall walks through, they have to duck. It is also broken so I can’t turn off the light when the fan is on. I plan on replacing the light over the sink, putting a light where the fan is, and another light at the other end of the kitchen all in aged bronze.
Ha ha! We have a tiny white fan in our house too…it makes me laugh every time I look at it.
I want a dishwasher so bad I could spit. I have an 19 month old, and we go through a lot of dishes. I feel like my husband and I are missing her grow while we do dishes! we have limited counter space, and the extra space made by removing the drying rack would be a vast improvement.
Of course, like any other home project, nothing is simple. Our countertop is 1.5″ lower than the standard. That would have to be raised to fit a dishwasher in. Soooooo new countertop! I want the gray boomerang from Formica. New countertop? Might as well replace the porcelain sink that is stained and chipped.
I love my 1951 home, but it is overwhelming sometimes!
….next project, the kitchen sink. I have the farmhouse apron front sink that my kitchen is screaming for in the garage, I just need to get a countertop installer to come cut the much bigger opening into my existing countertop, and a carpenter to reconfigure the cabinet at the sink to support the new bigger sink, and to make me new cabinet front doors (shorter) to fit the new front opening (after installation of the deeper sink with the new apron-front). …any day now, no really!
Warm(ish) weather has finally arrived in this part of the country so the project at the top of our to-do list is to clean out the flower beds at the front of the house. We want something more manageable (previous owner loved to garden, us-not so much) and something more in keeping with our 1960 colonial, with a few lawn ornaments thrown in for good measure.
Inside, the top project would be to finally finish painting the sun room a bright sunny (of course) yellow to go with the orange vinyl upholstery in that room.
Can’t wait to see the big reveal of your mom’s bathroom. Thanks for all the inspiration, Pam!
rearranging the master bedroom furniture (this weekend); painting the spare bedroom a lovely light blue; and when the weather clears for a couple days – staining the deck out back.
On the top of my To Do list this month is: Move to Wisconsin! YAY! I am finally doing it.
My poor little mid century split level has been waiting for me since February.
Mel, I will be on the other coast from you.
Wisconsin rocks. Love that state.
What part of Wisconsin, Ann-Marie? I’m in La Crosse.
Well, we’ve tackled the kitchen and the front door, so up next (and it’s happening in the next few weeks) we’re painting the siding! Whew…my mid-century modest home is almost complete!
We have been working on a bathroom renovation of our own, but instead of 7 days, it’s taken us 4 months and we’re still not done, We stripped this small second bath to the studs and put in new flooring, shower pan and best of all, 4 x 4 pink tile from B & W Tile (who by the way, I TOTALLY recommend, they are lovely to work with.) Hubbie and I are completely DIYing this on our own and considering we’re first time tilers, I think we did a darn fine job. This weekend we’re grouting the entire project and then hopefully, next weekend, we set in the toilet and sink. Then it’s just a matter of placing all the vintage accesories, and VOILA! we will have recreated a pink, white and black bathroom in our 1954 ranch…with the idea that it will look like it was there all along.
Pam, I was so excited to log on this morning in hopes of seeing the big reveal, but I quess I can wait a few more days!
Everyone have a great weekend with your projects!
as unglamourous as it is, my most important project will be putting up new gutters to replace the evil ones that are currently directing water where it needn’t be and ruining my walls. on the plus side, this gives me the perfect excuse to repaint the whole exterior of my house! go gutters!
Great job, Mel! and Congratulations to Amy! We’re still working on our upcoming exterior house painting extravaganza next month. We’ve got big ole paint swatches painted all over our house. I guess this month, we hope to FINALLY choose which aqua isn’t too blue…and isn’t too green….and that we BOTH like.
I love reading what everyone is doing. What a bunch of busy bees we all are!
Making curtains for the kitchen window and the slider in the pantry area. I’ve been waiting for a collection of Michael Miller fabric in aqua to arrive at our local fabric store and it should be in soon…
Good luck to everyone else on their projects!
our wedding is our main project this month!
but even that can’t change all of the house things on our to-do list right now – top project is to finish the raised beds for our veg. garden (the herbs and fruit are already chugging along), and a certain storm and large oak tree moved “replace the back porch roof” from the bottom to the top of the list rather quickly!
Wishing you much happiness, Lady Brett!
Oh, goodness, where to start? I guess we ought to focus on getting pictures up on our very bare walls.
I hope to replace our generic ceiling fan with a mid-mod style fan and light and add a swag lamp to the same room.
Closing on our house! We just signed the purchase agreement last night!
It’s a light pink 1968 rambler.
Congrats, clampers! You are going to have so much fun!
YAY! Welcome to the ’60′s.
Congratulations! Nothing like the excitement of a new older home!
Happy joy joy, Clampers!
Having 1966 gray brick….ick….and granite I ran pink past lez boys but the whining sent me back to my second choice of black. Nice but not pink. You scored!
congrats, clampers!
Thanks everyone! I’m so excited to finally put all the great information on this site to use.
Beautiful collage, Mel! They just keep getting better!
We have two main projects at Longview Ranch this month:
1) complete the replacement of our cracked, red-painted, concrete patio with a more appropriate, exposed aggregate patio. We need sun and some dry weather for our contractor to pour though…and it’s not looking good: this is Portland Oregon! (pics of this project are in several posts on my garden blog at http://mulchmaid.blogspot.com/
2) toddler-proof the house for our three-year-old grandson who will be coming with his older sister, mom and dad (our son) to stay in June when they relocate to Portland from Minot, ND. Yay!
Landscaping. Gotta get that water to move away from the house so we are regrading, re-downspouting and replanting.
Wow, everyone’s so busy, it’s inspiring! At the top of our to-do list are a few small, random things we kept putting off after moving this year to our little bungalow:
1. New shoe moulding and transition strips to finish off the refinished wood floors (found underneath brown shag…yay!)
2. Replace kitchen light with vintage fixture found on ebay
3. Caulking redo around one of the living room windows
Pam, thanks for the great bathroom redo chronicle…gives me hope for our daunting bathroom project.
Well, the top of my list WAS to work on painting the outside of the house. Now we’ve got 8″ of new snow, so that’s out of the question for the weekend.
New top of the list is to replace my stove. My avacado green baby died on Sunday in the middle of trying to cook a pot roast. So now I’ve got to find parts or a “new” vintage stove in time to get Easter baking done. That is going to mean doing some re-wiring and updating because the old stove is just direct wired, no plug in, nothing.
We’ve finished painting our bedroom, my husband ((bless him) put the vintage wallpaper up on the one wall last weekend (sidebar: and “they” said it couldn’t be done!)) and I’ve been attempting to fix up a lamp I bought at our local restore…sigh, the hubby can put up very expensive wallpaper, have it all match and I’m struggling to do this darn lamp. I’m not at all crafty, but it looked so easy on the YouTube video…my goal this month is to make that lamp look good…
Today I’m going to hang my coats in the front closet for the first time since I moved here almost 4 years ago, it’s no longer storage…..happy dance. And the rest of the weekend will be to continue my pursuit to stock a Sally Anne all on my own. Ahhh, the dreams of the everyday small house owner.
And, I confess, lurking near the computer waiting for the unveiling of the seven day wonder bathroom.
Happy weekend to all!
I can relate to your closet happiness. It didn’t take me quite four years but it did take nearly a year before we could use our coat closet in the hallway. We moved in and immediately shoved a bunch of stuff in it. A few weeks ago, I cleaned out our closet, installed some hooks on the back of the door, added a new shelf in the “dead space” above the existing shelf and installed a shoe rack. I also bought nice wood hangers that actually match. For a week after, every time I passed by, I opened the door and did a happy dance. Ah the small things in life
Enjoy your closet!!!!
Damn, now I have closet envy, Jenny! Your’s sounds perfect so it seems there will be some tweaking in my future as I blush to admit I left it exactly like it was 1966 I was so happy to move all the coats out of the other closet. Thanks! Really, I mean it ;o)
Wash the out side of the windows in case the sun ever decides to shine around here (near Ptld.,OR) ; getting 5 cows (fences are ready) – can’t wait to see what color they’ll be as the breed we get comes in quite the variety; and if the rain keeps up I’ll finish my red-work wall hanging with all red embroidery of ducks doing household chores like you see on dish towels.
My project this month is to paint the exterior trim, now that we have scraped all the peeling paint from our 1940′s cape cod(ish) house. This includes the fence & the deck, so I am guessing the project will spill into May…and June…..
Can’t wait to see your mom’s bathroom reveal!
Welcome, Kelli!
Finishing, finally, the kitchen remodel in our sweet little 1939 cottage. And actually, it most likely will bleed over into NEXT month (we’re, shall we say, taking our time), but we’re hoping it will be all finished by our Second Annual Mint Julep part at the end of May. That, and getting my garden planted. Can’t wait to have fresh food from the garden in the new kitchen! (And fresh mint for those juleps!!)
Oh boy, I love this contest.
My #1 indoor project is hanging pictures. We’ve been in our new house for almost a year now, and I still haven’t managed to hang all of our photos.
#1 outdoor plan is the very boring task of painting the shed and doorframes.
I just pinned one of Mel’s collages on Pinterest.
My #1 project right now is a tie between 3 things. It SHOULD be getting a new storm door since mine broke in a storm. It should also be fixing my front steps (which was going to be a “some day” project until they all fell apart this winter), but I think it comes down to installing the tile on the walls of my pink tub. I have to hurry up and get this thing going!
We finally closed on our 1963 “time capsule” on the Space Coast on March 21. Our project list is long and it is hard to say what will be first. I think the new roof will be the biggie. We are getting a new metal roof, and as part of that, we will be redesigning the front screened porch to make it a little wider from the house to the streetside, to wall in the bottom of it to prevent our dog from escaping through the screen, and to give the front door better definition.
Well, there are many things to do. We have 1 child almost out the door for good and another 1/2 way through college, and all their childhood stuff is packed in boxes on our front porch and in our living room (in front of the big picture window of our ranch house). We had a pipe break, cause a flood and stuff was put in storage while our hardwood floors were re-finished. Now the kids stuff needs to be stored in the garage, not back in their rooms. Then, I can work on the pinch pleat drapes that would look nice on the picture window the kids’ stuff is in front of….
And the outside of the house needs painting. Painting will probably happen Memorial Day week-end. Whew, that makes me tired just typing!
So excited…another chance to win one of Mel’s fantastic collage’s. I would so love to have one of these of our new-to-us 1910 Bungalow!
Our big project for this month is to clean out the basement of the home we are currently renting and get ready to move into our new home. The big home improvement projects also include painting some recent thrift store furniture purchases.
Another great collage, Mel! Love it!
Our list is mostly yard stuff. Hubby took the day off from his desk job today and dug ditches to install sprinkler lines. Half our yard is dirt (from our remodel last year). Plan to build two more raised bed for veggies — we already have three, but the way we see it, if you know how to can, you have a deep freeze, and you have friends or a food bank to pawn any leftovers on, there is no such thing as growing too many veggies. We will seed buffalo grass or some other drought-resistant turf in between the beds, with some sort of pathway material to walk on.
Also thinking of building a chicken coop and getting a few hens. Our own little mid-mod farm in the heart of Denver…
Ohhh! I’m swoooning something fierce for a collage of my little penthouse in the hood. My project is to rip out the black and white funky linoleum in my kitchen and replace with a black and white kitschy kitsch 50′s tile. Yeah! That’s the biggie. XOXO
My hardwood floors need refinishing badly. Since moving into my `57 splitlevel 4yrs ago, I keep pushing this project out into the future…decorating is so much more fun. Time to put the brakes on Briard, Wiinblad and Bitossi purchases and get down to basics. How nice one of Mel’s collages would look amongst it all.
Top of the to-do list for the house is to finish repainting the “non-public” rooms–the bedrooms, the back bathroom, and the kitchen!
Painting my bathroom, which is in a complete state of disarray. I bought the paint three weeks ago and eagerly jumped into removing all the cabinet hardware, patching the walls, sanding, etc. As usual, life intruded and I haven’t gotten any farther.
My 1949 Cape Cod has a semi-enclosed side porch with jalousie windows. I painted the walls several months ago but never got around to the ceiling so my priority in the next couple of weeks is to paint the ceiling a light blue or “haint blue” as we say here in the south.
We moved a week ago and my goal is to get al our appliances hooked up an running!
Next month we’ll be replacing the ceiling tiles with drywall. The tiles were damaged when the roof leaked, prior to us buying the home.
I need to finish sewing a fitted slip cover for a perfectly petite ca. 1970 loveseat that has a deteriorating brown upholstery.
I need to replace my rotted-out front railings. I, sadly, live in a boring 2000′s box that is the very picture of slipshod construction. Inside, however,it is a groovy retro wonderland, a tribute to the 20th century! That’s why I love this site- it gives me retro inspiration to help me love the house I’m in!
We are starting what will be a season-long landscaping project. The landscaping in front of our early-sixties raised ranch needs a refresh and I’ve declared we are staying true to mid-century style. The original pink and red azaleas are staying! I’m planning a rock garden with a hitching post lawn ornament which will also be a rain garden (my concession to 21st cenury sensibilities). My husband and are still looking for the perfect retro specimen tree for the front yard.
Last year we fell in love with and bought a 1956 Eichler. It is a great house but there are never-ending projects… this month we are hoping to oil the mahogany wood paneling to bring it back to life…. oh, and start a vegetable garden.
I’m desperate to work on my garden. Rain rain go away!
Love the collage, Mel. The way you positioned the family adjacent to ‘Love..’ was perfect, since that’s what/who Amy treasures most about her home. I love the brick work, too!
At the top of our list this month is to finally convert out construction loan back to a mortgage, which means all the tiny little projects (that never seem to end) need to be completed. Push on, push on…
Working on the bedroom “turned office”…moved into my Mid-Century Modern 1 year ago and it’s been a project waiting for me to finish……well my computer has been up and running everyday so it was easy to not pay any attention to the rest of the room……..now I think people are beginning to talk…….
We are finally getting a provacy fence put up along the driveway. I have wanted one there since I bought the house. Also on the to-do list is pressure washing the house & spraying the exterior for carpenter bees.
Oops! I meant “privacy” fence. I wish there was an edit button!
Oh, I do love the house I’m in! Even if the project list is long. This month, I’d like to rake the garden beds out, repair the kitchen faucet, and find a cool MCM buffet for the dining room.
We *must* put up a privacy fence so we no longer have to look at our neighbours’ this-century mess!
Ain’t it the truth! We have rentals on either side. The last lady used large plastic ducks to enhance her garden decor. Random neighbors & their stuff!