Finally one of the books I found on ebay has arrived. Most of the photos are in black and white, so I’m hoping the others I won will have more color. However, I am happy to note that we’re on the right track with our decorating. There were some “hints” of mid-century modern, but overall photos in the book are about 99.9% not mid-century modern. Granted, a lot of items I’m not particularly into, but some great ideas too! When I get all three books I’ll have to get a scanner and upload some of the more intriguing photos, but in the meantime here are a couple from the book:

This weekend my big plans are to paint the baseboard trim in the kitchen and *perhaps* paint the trim around the front door entrance. I think this should be a good place to begin painting the exterior of the house. If I do this project I’ll post some before and after photos.

If you just read the note in boingboing, you can find the conversation about 1940’s and 50’s bathrooms here: Link.

I took the day off to work on the house…and also to dream about things that we can’t afford. I’m currently thinking about our garage door. It’s an odd door, I’m not sure how it came to be. The backside of the door looks original, while the front side of the garage has that faux wood grain that many new garage doors have. Here is a picture of our garage right now (reminder: we are painting the house):

I started thinking about the garage door when I noticed a cute house down the street had a garage door with windows. I decided it really helped the house look open and inviting.
Here is a garage door I found that I want now.


I’ll keep dreaming.

Yesterday I got my book Working Windows in the mail from Amazon. Of course, I couldn’t wait to read it, so flipped through the pages and read for about an hour before going to bed last night. The book is written by a guy from Seattle who is known to the local Seattle community as “Mr. Windows”. The purpose behind the book is to show DIYers how to make the windows they have work. He also includes a lot of fascinating hints and tricks of the trade. Not as many pictures as I like to have (that’s for the elementrary school student in me that likes step-by-step 4-color illustrations). However, I have the feeling this book is going to be getting a lot of use over the next year.

Today I also called around to a couple of places to see if anyone could custom-make some molding for the 1975 addition to our house. I really really REALLY want all the molding and casing to match through the entire house. The 1951 section of the house has a lot of charm, while the addition seems, well, 70’s. After an exhaustive search at local hardware stores, we’ve given up on the dream of finding it in-stock and on the shelf. In fact last night we went to Jerry’s Home Improvement Center, about an hour south of us in Eugene, and we were told, “You’ll have to have that custom made. They don’t make molding that thick anymore.” Boohoo. So, this week I’ll be dropping my sample off at a local shop.

Right now I’m anticipating the arrival of the three books I won on ebay. 1949, 1951, and 1952 decorating books.

Oh, and another thing has been on my mind. I know our clawfoot tub is not 1950’s at all…and I was thinking that’s because of the “clawfoot” legs (thus the name). However, I’m now wondering if it’s possible to buy replacement legs that would be less ornate, less victorian…plain?

Well, we had a productive weekend! Amazing. Not only did I finish painting the blue in the kitchen, I continued into the hall to the garage, and the back wall of the TV room. Here’s a picture of Eric helping me by adjusting some light switches in the new blue hall.

And, here is a picture of the path to our front door. I’m guessing this path was made in 1951. Eric is going to jackhammer this path, and Trevor, from Stone & Cobble, will be putting in a new path for us using red pavers. You’ll also note on either side of the path there are red bricks that we’ll be pulling out.

And finally, Eric asked me to take pictures of the “piles of shit” around the yard that he created yesterday. This is probably only ¼ of all the “shit” he’ll be digging up in the next few weeks as we prepare to add paths, rearrange the trees and shrubs, etc.