So long 2010!

Phew, 2010 was a nusto year. I'm gonna pour myself a gin and tonic and make a list.

1. Ran in the Olympic torch relay, 22 yrs after my Dad ran in 1988. Whatever your feelings on the Vancouver Olympics, for me it was an empowering and special moment. I met so many amazing people who truly are working to brighten lives around them.

2. Got carbon monoxide poisoning from a malfunctioning furnace. PSA: get a carbon monoxide alarm. If you feel draggy or kinda bummed all the time and you don't usually feel that way get someone to check your furnace. We ended up buying a new high efficiency furnace and alarms.

3. Started my 2nd semester at SJSU in the MLIS program.

4. Bill and I celebrated our 6 yr of knowing each other. So far so good. I think I'll keep him around. Plus he can open jars and stuff.

5. We put our first house up on the market, which involved me painting all the trim on all three floors and refinishing the stairs by myself! I was especially proud of the stairs.

6. Bill loses his job, which was a surprise but...

7. That means we can go to Palm Springs! The most wonderful mid mod place of all!

8. Bill gets accepted to school. YAY! We officially decide we are moving to Lethbridge.

9. We sell our house, phew. Selling a house can be super stressful, but we have an awesome real estate agent who makes it almost kind of fun. Seriously, call Norm Fisher if you are selling in Saskatoon.

10. I stay in Saskatoon to finish my semester, and Bill moves to Lethbridge and lives in the dorms at 39. It's like a bad sitcom.

11. I pack up our house and recycle 6 yrs of Martha Stewart Living magazines (this was a big moment for me, I had been carting them around for ages, every issue!)

12. Our stuff goes into storage and I move into my parents basement at 29.

13. We buy our '53 bungalow, YAY!

14. I move out of my parents house and turn 30 a week later! My Mom comes over and helps me with my giant garden that I insist on planting even though it's a good month late. Later we go to Costco. It's a great birthday. I'm happy to be closer to my family.

15. Unemployed, I start a blog (and later neglect it) and finally catch up on season 3 of MadMen.

16. I do some fun contract work editing photos at my old job. If you are into design check out Veer. I'm especially in love with some of the type they carry.

17. We go camping in Nelson. I always have fun there, they have a dog beach! and clean showers!

18. I start my 3rd semester of library school.

19. I get an awesome new library job that I find out about via twitter, and become the 'breadwinner' of our family.

20. We find these same Youngstown steel cabinets in Edmonton (more on them later). We drive down to Edmo and back in one day in a rented van to purchase them. I make sandwiches with my mom's zucchini relish (it's worth mentioning cause its so delicious). We vow never to drive for 16 hrs straight again. Miraculously after a few days we like each other again.

21. I discover the Fort Macleod Santa Claus parade. Go next year! It's wonderful.

22. Bill and I have our 4th wedding anniversary, we both get horrible colds so we don't celebrate until a few weeks later.

23. We find the best burger in Southern AB at the Auditorium Hotel in Nanton.

24. We go out to the Crowsnest and spend Christmas with my folks and my wonderful sister and her husband and my Uncle.

25. I pour myself a gin & tonic and write this post.

I'm off to eat appetizers, drink champagne and watch 30rock and Arrested Development on DVD.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Pinch Pleat Curtains for the Bedroom.

I haven't always liked the look of pinch pleats. In fact in our last house I really wanted to have exposed rods with tab curtains (and I did). But after looking through some old decorating books and again at the fabulous Retro Renovation website I decided that pinch pleats were the only way to go. Luckily I had kept the double rods that came with the house (original pinch pleats were donated to goodwill), so I was able to put them back up. It was a good thing I kept them since our windows are really long and it's almost impossible to find rods without going custom.

My Mom and I looked up pinch pleats on the internet and we weren't able to find the instructions I needed (though I'm sure they are out there I'm just impatient). But then she remembered that I had some of grandma Harriet's sewing books in her basement (also an excuse for me to get some of my stuff out of her house). And of course I found great instructions in Better Homes and Gardens Sewing Book. Originally published in 1961 this book is a great guide for sewing and pattern making. I love the tag line too : Custom sewing made easy, Money-saving sewing ideas. So practical! In chapter 18 Sewing for Home I found the instructions I needed. I bought the pleater tape I needed at Fabricland and found the pleating hooks discounted at Walmart. I bought all the inventory since Walmart was closing it's sewing department down (which I view as some sort of sign that people are become less practical but that's a different rant). The fabric I got at the Lethbridge Sewing Center. The ladies at the sewing center are so helpful and nice, and they helped me determine how much fabric I would need to be able to match up the repeating motif. I chose to use a fabric called Lotus from the Amy Butler line. Behind the valance I hung ready made drapes from Ikea.

This is view of our bed with the window above. The bedspread and headboard are both from Ikea

Here is a close up view of the valance.

I decided to hang white curtains behind the valance after seein a similar style on Mad Men in Anna Draper's house in California. I really liked the sets that depicted her house, I think it was in Bakersfield? I could be wrong. Next up I will be making a set of pinch pleats for the kitchen and also a valance for the Living Room.

Palm Springs/Camera Found!

I found my camera this afternoon and was able to free my photos from my memory card. This is what happens when you stage your house, go on vacation, never unpack, show your house a bunch and keep it 'for-sale' ready, move your stuff into storage for a month, move to a new province, don't unpack for a month. I was starting to think the camera had been lost forever, but there it was in the bottom of a small box with some baking supplies, right where it belongs.

Anyway, on to Palm Springs. We spent a 10 days in Palm Springs this spring with my family, and it was mid mod marvellous! I had joined the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation (they have a free membership option) before we left to get the low down on the architecture of the area, but it's easy enough to pick up a pamphlet in town for a self guided tour.

Here's what we saw:

Palm Springs City Hall

Detail of City Hall, love the turquoise against the sky blue.

I loved the cut out! The shape was echoed on the facade with slanted cylinders that provided shade to the windows. Didn't get a picture though.

This is the old police station:

I love the mustard color.

This is the outdoor waiting room, the room is similarly mirrored on the interior with terrazzo floors if I remember correctly.

More pics to come!

Before and After- Floors

Before

In between

After

The highest gloss finish seemed like the best decision at home depot but now that we have it on the original floors don't look very glossy anymore! I'm sure Hank will get to work on taking down the shine with his toe nails. He's helpful like that.

He said She said

Today I went to the King Koin laundromat to wash our comforters. I was impressed with the King Koin, super clean and had helpful staff, but that's off point. On the way to the King Koin I got turned around and ended up by the Mennonite Central Committee thrift store where I thought I saw some Danish modern teak furniture in the window. That turned out to be a mid-c hallucination (happens to me all the time), but I did wander in and find a Sunset decorating book for recreation rooms. Of course I had to buy it since I am furnishing a rec room right now. Thumbing through I found some awesome pictures of what I call "Man Rooms" also know in the Sunset book as "Studies". Since Bill loves a good man room I pointed this one out to him.

Me: Hey! Check out this awesome man room, it's like the ultimate man room! (pointing at picture in book).

Bill: Yeah it's pretty cool. (trying to endure one more decorating conversation)

Me: Check out the awesome fire place!

Bill: Yeah... it's cool

Me: Ooh look at those cool Navajo rugs... and (laughing) look at the gun rack.

Bill: (Interest piqued) I was actually thinking about that today.

Me: (Surprised) Vintage Navajo rugs?!?! Cause I was totally thinking about that today too!!! You should totally get some, they would look awesome! Have you seen Dale Chihuly's studio? He has an awesome collection of rugs.

Bill: What?!... No. I was thinking about guns.

And here I thought we were having some sort of Vulcan mind meld about vintage rugs! In Bill's defense though he did find two awesome danish modern teak chairs at the antique sale this weekend. Unfortunately they had been sold. But the antique guy recognized us and asked for our email, since he had seen us at some other shows (and since I am physically unable to shut up about our retro reno, he nick named us the Retro people). He is going to email us when he does estate sales that have our style of decor. And.... he is going to nose around a bit when he does his estates to find us some vintage kitchen cabinets!

What's been shaking and the Bungalow

We have been busy! In the past week and a bit Bill and I have:

• Dug up three dead rose bushes and one tree (by we I mean Bill)
• Successfully turned 30 (me)
• Purchased a white leatherette vintage sofa bed for the spare room.
• Rented truck to pick up said couch.
• Discovered Harvest Haven a great organic market far close to Lethbridge.
• Built a fence and gate.
• Unpacked almost all of the boxes.
• Visited the farmers market.
• Introduced Hank to the neighbours. (involves cheese and playing fetch)
• Weeded rose gardens.
• Trimmed the rose bushes.
• Worried excessively about the lawn and the possibility of fairy rings. (Bill)
• Test driven an old truck. (still in the air, I like it but Bill is more practical about things like reliability)
• Played Mario on Wii. Thanks Mom & Dad, Stephanie & Andre!
• Realized that we gave away the iron before we moved.
• Decided on MDF slab cabinet fronts.
• Decided on Formica for the countertops

• Found an awesome dog park
• Fell in love with this pendant chandelier from rejuvination.com

Here is a picture I took of the roses. I still can't find my camera! But the iphone camera is not too bad.

Tomorrow we are going to an antique show and I am going to make pie filling for the crusts I made this afternoon before it got too hot to bake.

Heavy Goose or Dolphin?

Paint color names always crack me up. At one point when I was working at the ACAD library, my coworker and I looked up how a person gets the job of naming colors. Turns out it involves a marketing degree. It would be a pretty cool job.

I decided to go with subtle grey tones on the walls of this house. After checking out this super cool website Retro Renovation. I stumbled upon a post about mid century colors done by California Paints. California paints has a 20th century pallet with authentic period colors. Including the 1930's-40's, which would be a good resource for another gal I know who just bought a house, Stephanie I'm talking to you!

I started to look for colors that were close to Modern White, Organic White, Post War White, Conservative and War Weary. Because we don't have California Paints in the bustling metropolis of Lethbridge, Alberta, I looked for similar's at Home Depot. Instead of buying the gallons and then changing my mind later, causing the vein in Bill's head to pop out, I planned ahead and bought samples! Responsible!

*Please excuse the terrible quality of the photo, my camera is in a box so all my pictures are taken with my iPhone.

We ended up choosing the first (Silver Drop) and second (Heavy Goose) colors (going left from right). They are the closest to Post War White and Organic White. The third color which I loved in the sample and the one that is closest to Conservative, looks really flesh toned with the warm wood, and really grosses me out. And Bill nixed the last one since it was too dark for his liking.

We chose Behr's-Silver Drop for the living room and hallway.

And Martha Stewart's-Heavy Goose for the Bedrooms.

It's difficult to tell the difference on the computer screen but Heavy Goose is a darker cooler grey, while Silver Drop is lighter and warmer.

Here is a pic of the bedroom wall (I've purposefully cropped it so you can't see our bedroom, Bill and I are living like the Bouvier Beale's right now). Done in the Heavy Goose.

And a pic of the office done in the same.

Once it is on the Martha Stewart paint line looks nice, but I would not purchase the brand again. The coverage is not great and it's kind of gummy. I have a bit of sanding to do in a few areas. However I really like the the Martha Stewart palette and the chips are true to color and laid out nicely. If the paint formula was better I would be all over this brand. But won't use it again. I might just get the chips color matched into another formula.

Here is our living room in Behr's Silver Drop in a matte finish. The Home Depot guy was hesitant to give me a matte finish as you have to let it cure at least a month before you wash the walls. I assured him I would restrain myself from washing the walls for July.

Goodbye 80's carpet, hello hardwood!

Probably the only thing more boring than ripping up carpet is reading a blog post about ripping up carpet, but since I am a woman obsessed here is the play by play on how we did this. I don't have a before picture of the carpet prior to it being ripped out because I was at Home Depot, purchasing a paint samples when Bill pulled it up (convenient, I know!) But here is a picture of the carpet in our carport. I'm sure the neighbors love us. As you can see the carpet was a lovely shade of dusty rose and featured a marbled pattern in the pile. Yuck!

Underneath it we found a few surprises, one that the house used to have a faux fireplace,

and the bedroom had underlay glued to the floor and then half scraped up at some point, when I assume the previous owners decided it was too much work and carpeted over it again.

We were hoping for the best when we pulled up the carpet, in the living room with the exception of the area that used to be covered with the faux fireplace all we had to do was pull staples (my job) and removed the carpet tack boards (Bill's job). We are looking for a retro fireplace mantle to put in place of the old one, but for now we will just move our couch over top. Problem solved.

The glue was another issue though, we ended up sanding the floors down with a square sander rented from home depot and then used a belt sander for small bits. The glue came pretty good but there are still a few black bits that even a wire brush couldn't get. We'll address that situation by strategically placing furniture over top of those parts. Bill did all the sanding, it was a long and sweaty day for him.

After we sanded we stained the floors Colonial Maple it was the closest match we could find to our original floors. I did the staining and after few coats it turned out pretty good.

Our stain featured the lovely Lady Varathane.

Wonder how she stained the floor in roller skates?

Here is a much less glam version of Lady Varathane.

Personally I think the unwashed hair, rubber gloves and knee pads make the look.

After staining the floors we did a top coat of high gloss varathane which stunk so bad we decided to come out the the Crowsnest Pass to stay with my parents. I'll be posting the after pictures in a few days.

Welcome to the blog!

Bill and I just moved into a 1953 Bohne built bungalow (say that 5 times fast) in Lethbridge. If you know me or are related to me then you have probably had the pleasure (ha!) of hearing me pontificate on my love of mid century design. Now you can read about my obsession which I know is just want you've always wanted. In our last home we didn't take any before and after pictures of the transformation and I regret that after all the work we did. As well I was pretty caught up in making decisions that would be better for the resale of the house, which was worth it in the end, but this house I really want to let myself go and make it my own.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately on how I became so obsessed with 40s, 50s, 60s style. I can pin point it on a few key moments growing up. My grandparents Harriet and Jim lived in a fantastic ranch house in Calgary. Slab front cabinets with boomerang handles, metal rimmed bathroom sink, a super cool terrazzo tile fire place, and a great big backyard. I really loved that house. Another factor was watching Nick at Night with at grandparents Bonnie and Tom's house one summer when my sister and I visited for an extended time, and playing with my aunt Lisa's original Barbie. Growing up in Airdrie there wasn't always a lot to do. The movie store by our house rented a lot of oldies, my sister and I would ride our bikes over and rent old films. At some point we got really into I Love Lucy, then my uncle Harrison introduced us to the classic The Long Long Trailer. I've been ruined ever since.

In art school I started to think about postwar and mid century design more and more. What I love is the optimism, the colors used and the quest for ease of use. I started collecting Fireking and Pyrex dishware, and later Fiestaware, and then furniture. Eventually it would come to buying a house! I'm really excited and hope that you enjoy watching us as we work on our retro reno!