Parting from Home

I was told that I will never know what it is like to be a mother until I have a child. I was told that realities will always differ from dreams. But no one ever told me what it would feel like to sell a house. Today, we officially closed on our little 1925 stucco home that we have labored and loved for over a decade.

Before our closing appointment, Hubby and I stopped by to pick up a few remaining belongings. I walked through each room, soaking it all in one last time. One. Last. Time. I touched each wall. Relished in each room's beauty. Felt the pride in all of the work we completed. Pure sadness rushed through me, knowing that we would no longer...

• Hear the wood floors creak and tap beneath our footsteps
• Look out toward the street and historic homes from our corner window
• Awake as the morning light peeks through the teak bedroom blinds
• Cook amazing meals in one of the best kitchens I've ever had
• Take hot baths in the extra large original bathtub
• Enjoy time with friends and family as they spontaneously stop by
• Hear the brass knocker at our door
• Fidget with the quirky deadbolt each time we enter the house
• Tend to the raised garden bed while the neighbor's dog ran about and barked at us
• Run into our wonderful neighbors on the street and talk for hours
• Brush against the large rosemary bushes while walking down the sidewalk
• Seeing the ornate light fixture casting dancing shadows onto our porch at night
• Backing out of the driveway and looking at one of the most unique houses I've seen, proudly calling it home

I thanked the house. The gratitude was unspeakable, and no words could define what this house has given us.

This house will not retain those memories. We take memories with us. As tragically depressing it was to say goodbye, I had to assure myself that I'm not leaving everything behind, just the house. The house remains for others to make their memories in. I hope that what now feels like infinite sadness, would eventually become a shining moment of our lives starting out together.

A great article that sums up the selling blues quite well, "Saying Farewell to a Home" brought some solace, and the reader comments were comforting. Some folks however, claimed they never overcame the grief of selling their home. I suppose only time will tell for us.

For now, we have no choice but to move forward, (with what I'm sure will be more home renovations in another house,) and new memories to make.

Before & After: Ten Years of DIY Restoration

Hubby and I listed our home this week and we are already under contract after 3 calendar days of the listing going live! As I mentioned in my last blog post, I'm so unbelievably morose that we are not enjoying the fruits of our labor. I am completely in love with our home. However, we cannot undo the move we made and have to trudge forward.

There is nothing better than doing something yourself and seeing it come to fruition. This house is truly better because of the powers of Hubby and I. We learned to work as a team. We overcame stress and frustration during the restoration. We are better problem-solvers. We respect the house for not only its unique design, but for its historical significance--the first owner had it built in 1925 after her Civil War Union Sergeant husband passed away. Yes, it's an old home. Yes, it's small. We love it just the way it is. We desired that the house shine in it's period-correct beauty, attempting to get it to look closer to what it probably used to look like. We can only hope that our prospective buyer will feel the same way about it.

Here is a compilation of before and after photos of our little Spanish Jewel Box Art Deco home, at time of purchase in 2002 and today in 2015.

Bittersweet Completion. Labor of Love. Cue the Melancholy Violin Music.

I'm finally following up with you on the progress of our beloved 1925 Moorish/Spanish bungalow. Hubby and I have been knee-deep in completing the painstaking remodeling details and prep work--tedious paintwork here, landscaping there, and simple cleaning up of our possessions--to prepare our home for sale. Our realtor advised getting it on the market this month for best visibility and chance of a sale. Paperwork has been signed last week, but we have not officially listed our home yet. Our realtor already found us a potential buyer--a friend of hers. We showed him around this weekend and he's VERY interested.

Now that we have met our buyer (which I reluctantly did not want to meet our BUYER,) and we have staged our home for viewers to see our restored home, something happened to us in an instant. We became depressed. 

I was feeling the anxiety a few weeks ago, which I initially thought was related to the stress of getting the house completed within deadline. Last month, I felt excited about getting it on the market. Carrying two mortgages for two years, and giving up almost every weekend for nine years to work on your home is tough. Doesn't do wonders for the social life and tests the marriage bond too. Oddly, the sadness slapped us in a matter of hours of meeting our potential buyer.

This house has integrated itself as a focal point of our lives for the past decade. Now, we are seeing it as a foreboding death of a loved one. It's the first house Hubby purchased. It's the house that my Hubby was living in when we met. The first house we co-habitated in. The first house we restored, just Hubby and I, for the duration of our relationship. It's our first house as a married couple. In fact, we chose our ceremony spot in front of a salvaged mansion window in the botanical garden, with a similar-looking keyhole opening.

This house has provided us many terrific memories with friends and family. A house that is one of the most unique and beautiful homes I have ever lived in. A house that we tailored to our interests and tastes. It is a house that is 90 years old, and needed to be restored to its original glamour, which takes time. I never imagined that I would feel this incredible sadness. Hubby has lived in the house longer than I have. I can only imagine how he has been feeling too.

The "what-ifs" began to eat me up. What if I wouldn't have gone back to my old job 50 miles away? What if my hubby didn't quit his job to land one closer to mine? What if we wouldn't have purchased another home? What if even though we experienced crappy times here, we stuck it out and stayed? I've been beating myself up. Apparently, these feelings are normal for home sellers--especially for those of us who have painfully restored an old home, or have experienced many life milestones within its walls. Hubby and I have consoled ourselves through websites and user comments such as this one, this one, and this one.

The reality is, we already purchased another home. We spent many weekends moving our possessions into the new home. We changed jobs and will change jobs again. We have moved forward. We moved away two years ago. Decisions have been made. Paperwork has been signed. There is no turning back. My new motto right now is this one:

So, in a melancholy mood, I will share with you the bittersweet completion of our home renovations. I wish we could live in it for a while to enjoy the fruits of our labor. However, it is what it is. Hopefully the next person inhabiting it will appreciate it as much as we do. Join me as I take you through a tour of our lovely home.

Our home was built to have an entry foyer. It is a little room that could be closed off from the rest of the house and used for visiting, or keeping your coatrack and fainting sofa for removing winter wear. The previous homeowner tore out the french doors leading to the living room and its adjacent walls. We added the walls back in to re-create the entry foyer, but made the doorway wider and did not add doors to retain the open feel. Here is how we decorated the entry, as you first walk in the door.

View into the living room from the entry foyer. You can see here the walls we added back in to create separation between the entry and living room. We also added a wall back in to delineate the living room from the dining room. The previous owner tore that wall down as well, which was way too "open" for a 1920s bungalow. We love allowing openness, but didn't want to see the kitchen from the entryway. If anything needed to be open, it was the kitchen, which we took care of. But more on that later. In general, laying out furniture and designing in an open concept house is not easy either. So, we built the wall with two doorways to allow the feel of openness, but give separation between the living and eating rooms. Having a wall to set a chair or table in front of makes the world of a difference.

Now, let's step further into the living room. We were lucky that this house still had the original art deco fireplace. Ground shifts underneath the home caused some cracking at the base of the fireplace, which we repaired. Sadly, many folks tear out original fireplaces because they crack or stain, but all of that is repairable. Having an original fireplace really speaks to the style of the home, and is the focal point of your living space. This fireplace was so cozy on a cold winter's night. 

Now we are entering into the dining room, looking at the kitchen. The bulk of the work we did on our home is the kitchen. It was previously completely walled in, with a kitchen door. It had one small counter and was not designed for modern appliances--lower cabinet doors could not be opened with the stove in front of them. We tore most of the wall out, leaving part of it as a built-in bar, and opened the doorway entry much wider. We re-configured the countertops into a U-shape and tore out the upper cabinets and replaced the upper portion with open stainless shelving. The kitchen looked much bigger without the upper cabinets. Nixing the upper cabinets also allowed for brighter lighting, and we could hang bars on the wall to get kitchen "stuff" off of the counters.

Since the kitchen footprint is small, we decided to vault the ceiling of the kitchen--we could add more storage vertically, and the increased space above our heads made it feel much larger. The fir-down with the canned lights you see here was where the original ceiling was. We retained the edging of the original ceiling to add ample lighting, which was another aspect our kitchen was originally missing. We found this killer used window (but practically new), which makes a nice focal point of natural light in our kitchen. When we gutted the kitchen, we made sure that we used materials that are reminiscent of the 1920s/30s era, but with modern amenities. We installed a beadboard backsplash and butcher block countertops. We sought out used stainless appliances. Hubby hand built all of the lower cabinets, but we used Ikea drawer mechanisms inside, as well as an Ikea farmhouse sink and faucet. Our method to decorating is to keep everything period correct. It truly breaks our hearts when we see old homes that have had gorgeous designs and elements ripped out and replaced with trendy, generic fixtures, that later go out of style. The home has no identity nor originality after that point.

We also scored this used built-in refrigerator. Hubby built a pull-out butler's pantry next to it. Both fit perfectly on this wall. Hubby hand-built cabinets above the refrigerator, and the top three cabinets are from Ikea. This entire area gave us tons of storage space. Hubby also made new panels for the refrigerator, so that it matched the cabinetry he made. This is my dream kitchen...at least I was able to enjoy it for a little while. (Sniff, sniff.)

Now we look from the kitchen into the dining room. When the walls were torn out by the previous owner, the built-in cabinet to the right stuck out like a sore thumb and did not look right. When we added a wall back in, it was amazing how much better it looked. Hubby found an old period-correct chandelier with natural aged patina and replaced the previous ugly brass 1980s chandelier. We linked a dimmer switch to the chandelier and it makes for a cozy space to dine in. We also added the beadboard on the lower half of the wall to mimic the beadboard backsplash we installed in the kitchen.

In this photo, we look through the doorway from the dining area back into the living room toward the entry way. We changed out the ugly fan with these fantastic large fans shown here, and added rheostat canned lighting above. The sconces on the wall are original to the house but were painted. They are real brass so we decided to remove them, soak them and brush the paint off, and reinstalled them. Popcorn texture was removed from the ceiling in the living room, and in the rest of the house too.

In our main hallway, there were many cracks in the walls from leveling our home. It had a popcorn ceiling and an ugly overhead light. We again used beadboard for the ceiling, which was perfect for covering up the popcorn texture and ugly plywood attic door. Cracks were caulked/patched and hallway was re-painted. All trim surrounding the multitude of doors were re-painted. The previous homeowner seemed to be into 50 shades of white, and none of our trim matched throughout the house. Oh, and see those gorgeous doors? At some point, one of the previous homeowners painted them. There was a beautiful tri-tone oak veneer in the middle! We scraped one of the doors that had paint flaking off of it and discovered what lied beneath. So, we painstakingly had scraped all 8 doors. They match the oak flooring too.

The attic door was just a plain white painted plywood covering. Hubby reinforced it but it still hung strangely. We installed the beadboard on the door itself, and added a nice latch to allow it to site flush  with the rest of the ceiling. The seamless beadboard ceiling really made the hallway pop. This is the first time I have discovered that changing the ceiling of a long hallway will impact the look.

This is our intimate little cozy master bedroom. We painted the walls and ceiling a medium flat taupe, repainted the mismatched trim, and installed the same fan that we installed in the living room. We also added canned lighting on rheostat--which was a big deal because there was no other lighting in this room other than the sconces you see here. By the way, the sconces previously there were ugly 1980s tacky fake brass sconces. Hubby had pulled the original sconces from other rooms located in random odd places in the house to replace the ugly sconces in the bedroom. Oh, how I love this little cave.

Enter into our bathroom. Original floor was still intact and in pretty terrific shape. Bathtub was original...large...deep. Truly nice to take a bath in. Lucky deal. Fixtures were changed out to classic shiny chrome. We also changed out the knobs on the vanity to clear glass. There were so many layers of paint on the trim, windows, vanity, and medicine cabinet that most doors did not shut. The details of the woodwork were hiding under all of that paint. Also, the 50 shades of white was prevalent in the bathroom. I spent my unemployed days with a heat gun and loud music removing about 5 layers of paint off of everything. It took a long time, but I eventually completed it and we re-painted it with a bright coat of paint. The details in the woodwork with only one coat of paint looked so much better, and newer, but everything is original in the bathroom. Hubby replaced the sink and toilet. That was all that was needed. Goes to show that old things need not be ripped out, only revived.

Lastly, this is the rear guest bedroom, which the second half in the back was added on sometime around the 70s or 80s by the previous homeowner. When they added on, they created a pseudo-wall kicking out by 1/2 foot or so. Again, it was difficult to decorate in this room because it was almost like two rooms back here...but not. So Hubby and I decided the lengthen the walls out more to create more separation and installed old original craftsman style french doors we salvaged from a friend's office (they are open in this photo.)  This way, it could be either two rooms or one room, depending on whether guests stayed over or we needed a home office. We also added beadboard to to this one particular wall to echo the material that we added in other parts of the house, and to hide the ugly transition from stucco to drywall.

You can see the addition of the house from the outside. The rear add-on had been built with Sears siding which was later recalled, and over time, we saw why. That siding turned to pulp, basically, and we began to get water damage. So, Hubby and I had to rip off all of the exterior and all of the sheetrock that had been damaged, and add insulation, new exterior, and new sheetrock. Hubby and I decided to use metal exterior siding, which looked more modern compared to the original stucco exterior. We wanted that contrast between the old house and new addition. We also salvaged a killer corner window to add more natural light into this area. There was a tiny window on that wall before. It is now a bright, happy space.

Hope you enjoyed the tour of our home, and all of the work that we have done to it. I plan to create a montage of before and after photos, because that is what will make your jaw drop. It did mine. It's funny that when in the midst of rehabbing a home, you forget what it was like before until you travel back in time through photo documentation. It's rewarding. After all of this, we must move forward. Cue the violins.

All photos via Art and Facts.

Getting Your Wood On

Don't judge a blog title by its figurative realm, you sick people! Not that kind of blog!

I'm talking about the literal meaning of wood. To be more specific, wood paneled walls. I'm guessing after making this clarification, you went from a warm, piqued interest to a cold shiver to the core in a matter of seconds. 

As you may have remembered from one of my past posts, Hubby and I purchased a new mid-century home. The innards of this home possesses wood paneled walls throughout 40% of it. When we first moved in, I was pretty irked by the paneling. But this house is a-m-a-z-i-n-g, otherwise.

I have run into several home decorating "advice" columns where "dated" fixtures of the home--wood paneled walls being one of many--are uncouth. Worse yet, these old retired fixtures may impede with successfully selling your home later on. I agree with tasteful updates, but trends come and go. Why are vintage items that were once thrown away, now sought after today?

With ongoing renovations in our San Antonio bungalow, I did not want to even consider any large projects at this house. The thought of tearing out all of that paneling makes me want to collapse. Besides, this paneling was true 1950s real wood. Not to be confused with the 1970s printed-on wood grain that your neighbor had in his man-cave.

Up close and personal, our wood paneled walls

The next thought that came to mind is to whitewash this stuff, as a means of lightening the room while allowing the wood grain to proudly show.

As I began to research whitewashing techniques for wood paneling online, the finished outcome began to look like lipstick on a pig. Not to be controversial, but if paneling supposedly sucks, why paint it? If you go through the trouble to mask it, just remove it. Additionally, painting paneled walls gives it a country look, and I definitely don't want to bring that look to this killer mid-century home.

Hubby and I started settling in. We plugged in some warm lighting. We purchased a new charcoal sofa and set it up. Suddenly, the paneling started to creep its way into my subconscious on a better level. 'Maybe it's not that that bad,' I thought. There is an abundance of natural lighting in this area too. 'Plain white walls would be blinding in here,' I thought again. And so begins the transformation of loving the wood.

New charcoal sofa snapped the room into shape

As we played around with some items we had, we took note that grays, neutrals and greens look terrific with wood. In fact, we have found a few other pieces of furniture that are different shades of wood, and the mixture of woods add a type of textural interest. While we are coveting the living and dining room having wood paneling, we are most likely going to tear it out of the kitchen and hallway, mainly due to low-lighting in those areas. That will come later...much, much later.

Before and after: Changing generic big box store lighting back to a period-correct vintage light. (Yes, that popcorn ceiling needs to go.)

Our first mission with the house was to tackle the awful lighting fixtures that are all over the house. The basic hardware store and colonial lighting made the wood paneling look plain icky. After scouting and finding some period-correct vintage lighting fixtures, it was amazing what transformation took place. We managed to find lots of vintage fixtures, but have not connected them all yet. More photos are forthcoming.

So I will leave it at this: Do you know how rare it is to find a home with original, non-painted wood surfaces? Although I will agree that painting wood white tends to brighten up a room, I also believe that wood brings its own vibe too. We just need to understand what kind of partner it needs to shine. Might I also add the caveat that wood paneling comes in many forms (boiserie, wainscoting, beadboard, flat paneling,) and should stay in its respective age-appropriate home.

If you have lived through the 1980s, it's likely that you now cringe at the fashion we once wore at that time. Yet, it's back full throttle on the fashion runways. Just as 80s fashion is the hottest thing since sliced bread, I surely have faith that wood paneled walls will too, come back in style. In fact, there are other believers out there. I found numerous resources and forums where folks are researching mid-century color palettes to bring out the original features of the home (read: pink tile, paneled walls, turquoise sinks.) I have actually found a few articles out there that mention that wood paneling is back in style given the retro craze.

If we embrace and understand our history, we might just come to love, maybe even enhance some features of our home that are initially under-appreciated. Through understanding the history, we can better pair it with other fabrics, textures and colors to accentuate, rather than punish original features.

Lastly, the take-home key point on wood paneling is...Lighting and color pairing are key components to living with (and loving) paneled walls!

Here are some inspirational woody interiors from the nets:

via midcenturia.com

via mid-century-home.com

via takesunset.com

via apartmenttherapy.com

This, That or the Other???

As major collectors of Art Deco, Art Nouveau and anything uniquely old and quirky, decorating our new 1956 home has been challenging yet fun. It's a completely different aesthetic. Imagine riding a stagecoach on the Autobahn. Not that I'm saying the stagecoach wouldn't be a cool portal for transportation, but it sure would be out of place. Same thing happens when you take gobs of early-century antiques and place it all over a mid-century home. It holds up the task of decorating, but just doesn't always look right.

Hubby has the theory that if you make a few modifications to the stagecoach, it should hold up just fine on the Autobahn. In other words, we will move all of our belongings to the mid-century home and see what might blend in, and what might be destined for the estate sale. I tend to agree that Art Deco design is compatible with Mid-Century design, and that "eclectic" is a lighthearted method of decorating...

Case in point: Here we compare a deco sofa against an atomic sofa. Pretty similar, right? Again, different aesthetic, but the lines are simple.

Deco-style sofa

Danish modern sofa

Another consideration are tchotchkes. They were plentiful (yet looked really neat) in our 1920s home. Hubby and I had many discussions whether or not to bring all the tchotchkes to our new home. As you might infer, mid-century design is typically minimal, with emphasis on the design of the home and the furniture. Tchotchkes will act as a strobe light in your face. You won't focus on a damn thing.

But again, Hubby the modifier believes that if we take it all, we can get a better feel for whether we can decorate differently. This had my head gears rotating. I thought, "if you give the tchotchkes structure, maybe we can make it work!"

Case in point: Here are a few examples where major collectors and mid-century lovin' collide. You will notice a theme of structured placement.

Mid-century odds and ends specifically placed on shelves

Ms. Lucia Eames was quite fond of tchotchkes! Note her designated place for each one on the table, and the tiki grouping untouchably behind the seating area.

Obviously, not all of our antique furniture will work out for us. The new home is expansive and some of our old furniture looked out of scale and dwarfed in some of the rooms. Some of the furniture we had brought over looked just "okay." I have always been a fan of eclectic design. I will make as much of what we already own work for us, by golly!

Here are just a few examples of eclectic design that I'm loving. A happy marriage of early and mid-century. Humor and seriousness. Structure and chaos.

Home Addict

We did it again. We have another baby. We bought a new house, (actually, it's an old house). We are living in this beautiful mid-century modern home by weekday, and by weekend, we are back at the home renovations with the 1920s stucco bungalow.

We originally intended to stay in our cool little stucco 1925 home when renovations began about five years ago (read about our journey here, here and here,) however, changes in our jobs have brought us to another city.

Once renovations and finishing touches are complete, to market it will go. Makes me sad...I miss our renovated kitchen that was tailored to my culinary whims. This house was so fun to decorate, too.

It's like sending our child off to college. You take care of it for so long, make improvements and watch it grow into something so beautiful before your eyes...and then you have to let it go. Facts of life, I suppose.

I will keep you informed as we head into this butt-kicking journey. One thing's for sure...that pendant light in our new mid-century home has to go! (Here's where it all begins...again.)

(All photos via Art and Facts)

A-Plenty on A-Plate

Been a while since you've heard from me. Not that I don't have an explanation...

We have been working diligently on our house with the goal to finish this year. (I'm sure now that I've been verbalizing this timeline to everyone, something will come up to divert us!) I'm not a pessimist, just a realist based upon past occurrences. Let me remind you that we've been working on this house for four years in the making. And from what I've heard, it never really ends.

1) We have (finally) replaced our roof with the help of some mighty hard-working roofers. Squirreling away some cash for several months helped with that one too!

Look at that beautiful dark architectural composite roof!

2) We gave the rear addition of the house a complete (much-needed) makeover:

Before - Ugly out of scale window and rotten siding. Yuck!

After - Amazing view with a giant corner window and metal siding!

3) The house used to have walls between the rooms. The previous homeowners knocked them all out. Open concept is great, but not in an old house. You walk in through the front door and viola, there's the entire house! It just never looked pulled together. Plus, laying out furniture and effectively decorating was a beyotch. We have added more wall space to separate the living room from the entryway and dining area. When we added the walls back in, we made the door openings wider than they were originally and the longer wall between the living room and dining area has two openings. This is how we determined to have the best of both worlds--separation and openness. To boot, we installed recessed lighting in the living room and master bedroom so we can stop bumping into things in the dark.

View of living room to entryway

View of living room to dining area and kitchen

4) Serendipitously, we had a friend whose father's business location was going to be demolished. We salvaged these gorgeous doors from their fate as trash and framed them into a partial wall that separated the rear addition from the rest of the house. It somewhat has shifted our house from a 2-bedroom to a 3-bedroom. The wall was built structurally "uncouth" by the previous homeowners, as I'd like to put it. Hubby spent lots of time fixing the wall and ended up beadboarding the entire wall to correct the major mishaps. We will eventually add trim around the walls and doors, which will beautifully highlight this room.

I am in love with how this separation creates a very private girl cave!

5) And--not on our list--but the house seemed to demand this one by nearly catching on fire: the task of re-wiring the other half of our house with newer wiring and safer circuiting.

Look at that scary old wiring! Bye bye!

As you see, we have a full plate. Unfortunately, most of the projects--except item #1--are not fully completed. We still have yet to finish the details on the kitchen remodeling project that I've blogged about previously. But...I'm very happy to share our progress with you and it's been quite rewarding. I hope seeing these transformations inspire you to restore and appreciate old things. There is nothing quite like it.

(All photos via Art and Facts)