Summertime? What's that?

Have you ever seen something and you thought, "Now that has potential.." Yeah, well Potential looks like many things, sometimes a piece of furniture, a heap of lumber on the side of the road that could 

become (fill in the blank), or even an old grain sack can have potential. 

This is my Potential. 

Not very pretty. Forlorn looking even. Discarded by a previous owner, and left to waste away. Exterior doors missing, windows missing, carpeting laying on the grass to keep weeds away...No one to love it.

Well not anymore!

(drum roll please)

You are looking at the proud owners of  Potential!

I'm trying to just ignore those ugly reality checks in my head. You know, the ones who are telling me this is a big project that must be done before the snow falls. Did I mention it's in the mountains, where there is snow, 3 hours from my house! Kind of a logistical nightmare don't you think? Oh yeah, and in case you've forgotten, it's fire season, and my husband is a firefighter. Hmmmm. I might be crazy. 

Well say goodbye to Summertime cause we now own, Potential! 

(Now you know why I've been absent from blogland...more updates to come) Have a great weekend!

A Historic Place You've Got to See!

Los Angeles Athletic Club -

While traveling to Los Angeles recently for a gift show we had the pleasure of staying at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. A hotel and private athletic club in one, the Los Angeles Atheletic Club was built in born in 1880 and was the first private club in Los Angeles. 

It is truly a gem. If you are in the Los Angeles area and need a hotel, I would recommend it. What a neat place. It is not much to look at from the outside, in fact you just might miss it when you drive by, but once inside you are struck by how beautiful and "manly" it is. I have stayed at many hotels in my travels but not many have made me want to explore every nook and cranny like this one. It has beautiful architecture and finishes on every floor in addition to one of the most ingenious athletic club layouts I have ever seen. It has a full size swimming pool and basketball court on the 6th floor with a running track that overlooks them both from the 7th floor. Amazing.

Here are just a few pictures of the decor of our room and the halls on our floor. Don't you just love the athletes of years gone by? Their work out attire was fabulous! Oh, and every floor had different sports pictured. Love it!

 The books in the library were to die for as was the ball room. Swoon! Makes me want a "Man Cave" in my own home.

Home Tour Part 3

So today I thought I would do a couple of rooms in one post, not because I decided to do a long one, but mostly because each room is the size of a postage stamp. 

No joke. 

The kitchen. When we first started remodeling it had apple print wallpaper and vinyl floor tiles that had started lifting up the sub-floor in certain areas. It was atrocious. I hated it, wanted to buy all new cabinetry, flooring, counter tops, etc. and just start over. Then 2 weeks after we ripped our house to studs, I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. Yeah, I didn't time that well...So, needless to say, I just wanted walls and flooring in most of the house and could careless about the kitchen. 
Amazing how nesting changes your priorities! 
After an emergency c-section and getting most the house done we tackled the kitchen, but with most of our budget wrapped up in a pink blanket in the nursery we decided that making due with the cabinets and being creative was our best bet. I have to say it turned out fabulous and I love it even if there is practically no counter space. 

 We recycled the hardwood floors from another area in the house and my husband made new doors for all of the cabinets. We added lots of trim, an upper shelf above the cabinets to put vintage items on, and shelves on either side of the sink for more storage. Oh and the amount of counter space that you see in these pics is ALL we have. House was built in 1915, counters weren't all that important back then, apparently. 

 Our only saving grace when it comes to entertaining is the buffet that is built into the dining room and has a pass through to the kitchen. It comes in very handy during large gatherings as a place to put food and it fills up with useless piles of paper during the rest of the year!

On to the mudroom/office/butler's pantry. It originally started out as a bedroom, but it is more like a hallway and presented us with some challenges as far as space planning was concerned. We didn't want to come into our house through an office or bedroom and we also felt strange about accessing the kitchen and laundry room through a bedroom so we came up with a mudroom that has pocket french doors into what we use as an office but could be used as a butler's pantry or storage area. It works out great and I am sitting in here as I type. 

 View from the kitchen into the laundry room, looking through the mudroom.

 The 2 sides of the office/butler's pantry. The left side used to contain my scrapbook stuff before my "room" was finished and holds the meaningful trophies and photos from my previous life when I owned a gymnastics and competitive cheerleading gym. My husband built all of the cabinetry in both of these rooms and it is so handy for all of the unseen items that go into an office.

Lastly the laundry room. It used to be a bathroom that opened to the outside of the house, remember, the house was once used as a preschool. The bathroom was gross and in need of serious work. We decided to elevate the washer and dryer (best idea ever!) but we didn't want to buy the drawers that they sit on, so my husband just built a box and covered it in the same flooring as the room. Works like a charm! The windows were falling apart in here and one had been replaced with a 1970's gold patterned glass window. Yuck! Needless to say, my husband and I learned how to rebuild double-hung windows because of this room. Amazing what an old house can teach you! The sink is covered by an old drape of vintage barkcloth that I found at a flea market. Wish I had more, I love the pattern! 

Well I hope you enjoyed my not-so-little tour of the hardest working places in my house. Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Home Tour part 2

Hey Y'all! No, I didn't forget about you...my computer has had a bug for about a week now, but, fingers crossed, I think we are back up and running! 

(Hurry quick, knock on wood!) 

While I was pulling my hair out, dealing with the computer, I received a few emails asking about the rest of my house and what paint colors I used in my living and dining room. The walls are painted in Restoration Hardware's Silver Sage and the trim is Ultra Pure White by Behr. 

Okay, that being said on to the next 2 rooms, my bedroom and scrapbook/art room! If you have been in to Vintage Etc. the french door set that greets you when you first walk in originally was a part of my bedroom which led out to a disastrous mess not-so-usable porch. We decided to remove the door set and re-do the porch into a scrapbook/art/sewing room. (Which really means that it is a room which holds all of the projects I am going to do "someday" because I never seem to have time to do them. Yeah, I am one of "those scrappers." 

 The view from my bedroom. We still have some trim molding to do around the baseboards, but since we have to make all of our baseboards and trim with a table saw, it is pretty far down on the "honey-do" list and I can live without them for a while. 

 The "work" side of the room. I salvaged pretty much every piece of furniture for this room and cleaned it up with a fresh coat of paint. The desk surface is an old single panel door left over from our house remodel which I am debating on whether to cover it with a sheet of tempered glass or put an old mirror in the inset to work on. Decisions, decisions. 

 The memo board, which I made from a found frame, some rolls of cork, and some fabric I had lying around, holds pictures and ideas like this necklace below. (Just another one of those "someday projects.")

 And on the other side of the room, is the sewing area. Well actually, the sewing stuff storage area. I have learned that I should have put another desk on this side so I wouldn't have to move the machine every time I have a project, but the dresser holds SOOOOO much stuff, it is kind of hard to give up. Oh, and did you notice my addiction to floral prints...I am glad my husband is secure in his manhood, just wait for my bedroom, you will understand.

Speaking of bedrooms, ours has undergone a series of interesting changes, when our house was a dentist office it was a surgical room, when the house was a preschool, it was the Toyroom. Now thankfully it is our room, and I love it, which considering I have painted this room 5 different colors is no small feat. Yes, I said 5. This room has very interesting natural light and this room was a tough one for me. Nothing worked well in all lights until I found this color. It is a Martha Stewart color that has been discontinued, and to paint the scrapbook room, I literally took a chunk of my wall to Home Depot and had them color match it, which it does, perfectly. That being said, the rooms look completely different in the two sets of pictures I took because of the time of day that I took them. See what I mean about lighting?

So here is the bedroom, now you know what I mean about the florals. You want to know a secret? I have more than this, lots more, they even change with the seasons...(yeah, I am obsessed, I know I probably need therapy but I really cant pass up a good floral!) The furniture in this room all has special meaning to me. The armoire was found on a shopping trip with my mom for my 16th birthday, and the small dresser on the side of our bed was the first piece of furniture my husband and I bought together. The headboard of our bed was made by my husband and I, completely on a whim, and was built in the kitchen of our first house because it was raining outside and naturally we decided that it was the perfect day to make a headboard. :) The blue side table was left in our house when we bought it and not seen on the wall across from the bed is the dresser which belonged to my husband's grandfather. This room feels like home every time I walk in it. Oh, and the picture above the bed is somewhere in Paris, and I am going to find it if I ever go there.

I hope you enjoyed some of my favorite places. What feels like "home" to you? Leave a comment and let me know!

Historic Home Tour

Our house on the day of the tour in 2009

The Atascadero Historical Societies Annual Colony Home Tour is almost here! April 30th from 1-4pm you can see 5 beautiful homes built between 1916 and 1927. Each home is uniquely different and this year is no exception! If you love old homes and seeing how people decorate them, then take this tour. The cost is $20.00 per person and includes refreshments at one of the house locations. You can purchase tickets at the Atascadero Historical Society House or (I think) through the Chamber of Commerce. 

2 years ago we were asked to be on this tour. Our house was built in 1915 by the F.O. Ingstrum Company as a home for the contractor who was sent here to build our towns City Hall and Printery which are about 2 blocks away. We have been lovingly restoring it for the last 7 years, taking on projects as we could afford them, and doing every bit of work ourselves. It had been a dentist office and a preschool previous to our ownership and the dentist office had removed some of the original detail work and changed the layout of the house. We started fixing, and then found out that I was pregnant with our little girl. Talk about great motivation to finish all of our projects around the house! We finished painting our living room/dining room and got carpet throughout the house 3 days before my daughter was born! We still have a wish list to do, but we love how it turned out. When I am at the shop, I get asked all the time what my house looks like inside. So this is the living room and dining room, picked up and ready to go. Keep checking back, I will be posting the rest of the house as well!

This is the view as you enter the front door into our living room. 

The picture wall as you walk in through our 4 foot wide front door  (I would have hated to be the guy who had to install this baby. Solid wood = HEAVY!)

View from Dining room looking into Living Room.

The glass on the light over our dining room table was out of my Grandma's old house and was rescued by my mom when they were tearing it down. The fixture that holds it was from a friend. It fits together perfectly, some things are just meant to be!

My pottery collection. Looking at this photo I am realizing how much more pottery I have now than I did 2 years ago. I think I like to shop, hmmmm...

Being on the home tour was loads of fun, and we learned a lot of interesting things about our house from people who had been former residents, or their friends who had visited our home in their youth. 

The tour is on the same weekend as the Remnants of the Past show (more on this wonderful show coming soon!) so if you are looking for an entire weekend of vintage goods, fun, and historic homes, this is it! Have a wonderful Friday!