house tour | Operation Home

This post begins as an ode to thrift stores. Oh, how I missed them. From the time that we found our new home and put in an offer until one mere week ago, I hadn’t allowed myself to step foot in one. I figured it was just more stuff to move if I found something. And I started getting twitchy. Nervous. Grabby.

I missed the hunt.

I missed the finds.

I missed the awesome 80’s slow-rock at Goodwill. (Yes, I’m that weirdo who sings along with the mad tunes as I troll the aisles. …I mean, come on… it’s WILSON PHILLIPS! Don’t tell me that you don’t pop into Goodwill strictly for a good WP fix.)

Anyways, I couldn’t wait to reestablish myself as Resident Thriftie of this establishment. And NOW, I have some specific items in mind to find (which, despite my recent thrift store visits, I have not yet found. So, it’s ON.)

For example, we decided to use Drex as a buffet in the dining area rather than our dresser in the bedroom…

(Please ignore the floor sliders under Drex… He ways a TON and I couldn’t get them out. And also, I forgot they were there until I looked at this picture just now. Go me.)

So anyways, now we need a new dresser for our bedroom. I know, I know… If you read about the PROFOUND struggle that I overcame to find a mid-century dresser the first time around you think I’m crazy. Well, I’ll have you know that I AM crazy. It’s a sickness of the MCM variety. I.just.cant.help.it. I’m seriously craving another mid-century modern dresser to fill the dumping ground that is our bedroom. Can’t you just see it?? …Isn’t it grand?? I’m hoping that the hunt is a little less taxing than last time and much quicker… I mean, poor Joey is living out of garbage bags. Garbage bags, I tell ya!! (In all fairness, I suggested that he use Drex in the bedroom until we found something else, to which he stated (and I quote) “I would rather live out of garbage bags than move that heavy {insert choice word here} again.” So, really, maybe it’s not that big a deal (tohim).)

Now, let’s hop back to the dining area once again….

This space really excites me because it’s the one (and only) space that I know exactly what I want to do. For example, the dining table will be painted white, then I’ll find a neutral, natural fiber rug (like jute or sisal) that’s large enough to accommodate the table and chairs. We’re very lucky as Joey’s parents had these patterned Ikea chairs and gave them to us when they bought new ones. Score. Our Ikea Lack floating shelves will be hung above Drex and I plan to hang a pair of floaty white curtains alongside the picture window (with bamboo roman shades between them?? I’m trying to come up with a window covering option for night that doesn’t obscure the view during the day).

You can see that I’ve put zero effort into styling the built-ins. Part of this was lack of time due to the many time-suck-must-do-tasks that have come up recently, the other part is that I want to paint the built-ins white before spending time making them pretty accessory-wise.

Getting back to my thrift store wish list, we’re also in search of a different media cabinet for the living space….

My cute little media unit from the last house didn’t work in here, so it’s in the foyer now. It was just too small to be a media cabinet now that the TV rests above it. We needed something larger to ground the TV. You may recognize the cabinets that I revamped for the foyer of our last house standing in. The TV stand between them was original to the set… I just need to paint it white if it stays. I’m just not sold on it staying. I’m on the hunt for some type of mid-century shelving unit or storage cabinet to replace it with, so that I can move these white cabinets to the atrium area of our bedroom. So, I’m searching for something cool. It might be a dresser. It might be shelves. It just depends on what I find. It needs to be something relatively narrow, but wide enough to accomodate the equipment. The world is my media-unit-oyster at this point. So, we’ll see.

The rest of the living room currently looks like this….

(Lucas, ‘er, Leonardo, requested a cameo… Icouldntresist.)

I haven’t officially hung any art yet. I’ve just been leaning things against the walls to get an idea of where I want them. As for window treatments, I’m kind of stuck on what to do for the sliders. I tried hanging a pair of white curtains the other day and it just looked silly. The fireplace is way too close to make curtain panels an option. I took them down almost immediately. I was thinking maybe bamboo roman shades hung high, but then the color is tricky as I don’t want them to compete with the fireplace. Hmmmm…. Only time will tell, I suppose.

And lastly, here is the wet bar as it is now…

I just accessorized a wee bit, though I’m still noodling with it. As I mentioned in this post, this area will be completely transformed once we’re done with it. Since there’s no lighting on this side of the room, I hung an inexpensive plug-in sconce from Ikea. Because the side view of the mounting bracket wasn’t super attractive…

I simply wrapped it with a bit of burlap ribbon….

Problem solved.

So, that’s where we’re at with the living/dining space after 1.5 weeks of officially living here. I still have a lot of work to do decor-wise, but at least we have our furniture in place and the spaces are functional for the most part. Our spare room is currently stacked with boxes of decor that are just screaming to be unpacked. You seriously can’t walk in there right now. I’ll get to it soon enough, I’m sure. And, of course, I’ll update ya’ll as we go.

So, does anybody have any window treatment suggestions for slider doors?? Any words of wisdom?

Wow, guys. It’s been an insanely crazy weekend with more than a few hiccups. I’ll eventually cover them here for all to read, but dang, ya’ll. I’m exhausted. And the stress-meter is through the roof. I’ll just say that I never expected one piddly little weekend to involve an unfortunate sales price reduction, mold, lead, and flooding all at one time. Seriously. I.Need.Wine. In any case, we’re trudging through and trying to keep our chins up as much as possible. And being the dork that I am, nothing helps me keep my chin up like a good ole’ fashioned house tour. So, onward with the fun stuff…

Last we left off with the tour of our new 1970’s house, I’d just finished showing you the foyer, kitchen, laundry room, half bath and living/dining spaces. So, let’s continue, shall we?

Off of the foyer we have the hallway to the bedrooms…

The hallway contains not one, but TWO linen closets, which are like a total dream for me. Iloveclosets. On the left hand side, we have two bedrooms. Both have built-in desk areas (which I can’t wait to get my hands on). Here’s the first…

It’s the smallest of the bedrooms, and we aren’t really sure what purpose it’ll have at this point… But rest assured, we’ll figure it out. 😉 Possibly guestroom/office? Yeah, that sounds good.

The next bedroom is the largest of the secondary bedrooms. This will be Lucas’s room….

I’d like to switch it up a little this time around. I’ll still probably use a lot of decor from his current room, just in a different way. And I’ll also be choosing a new wall color with little man’s help.

Across from Lucas’s room is the guest bath, which you saw in my first post about the new house…

The pedestal sink will be gone at some point in place of a vanity with storage. I’m not a super big fan of the black tile bath surround either, so that may eventually make a disappearance. And this room will be repainted, though I’m not sure what color yet. As neutral as the current paint color is, it’s just a bit too yellow for my taste in person.

Once you walk out of the guest bath and turn right, the hallway takes a 90 degree turn. I forgot to take a picture of this view but here’s the reverse view from the master bedroom…

That doorway past the sconce on the right is the third secondary bedroom, which we’re planning to use as another hang-out space. Our Friheten sofa that’s chillin’ in the front room of our current house will likely go in here…

My favorite feature of this room (of course) is the closet…

You beautiful, beautiful beast.

Then, at the end of the hallway, we have our master bedroom….

The bed will go on the wall on the left-hand side of the above picture. Standing from that spot, here’s the view…

That little atrium area leads to both the walk-in closet (left) and our epic master bath (right) …

From the other side of the room….

There are no words for this room. But then there are many as it’s quite the conversation piece. I mean, it’s purple marble with swirls of mauve!! How could it not be the topic of conversation?? This’ll likely be a full gut down the line. I’d love to replace the gargantuan purple tub with a nice (smaller) claw-foot version, enlarge the shower, add a solar tube for natural light, and just basically replace everything. Including the stained 1980’s floor tile. In the meantime though, I’ll be repainting the walls and doing whatever I can to make the space more visually appealing to tide us over.

As you exit the master bath, and are facing out of the atrium, you see this wall, which is where our bed will go…

This space will likely be repainted as well, since the purplish undertone clashes with our bedding. Actually, come to think of it, I suspect most of the rooms in this house will be repainted eventually. I actually love the color of the living/dining space, hallway, kitchen, etc., but unfortunately, it was painted in flat paint, which makes it impossible to clean. And from what I’ve been able to tell, they didn’t leave us any touch-up paint for that color. I plan to have it color-matched for the time being, but that’s really just a band-aid. The walls really need an eggshell finish down the line for more durability. I may very well use the same color, just up the sheen. But, I guess we’ll see!

In any case, we’ve got our work cut out for us. We’re really excited about it, though. We’ve been getting estimates, making smaller improvements and working on getting some of the floors replaced, so I’ll update ya’ll on those things soon. Plus, I owe you guys an outdoor “before” tour, as well. So, anyways, ya’ll have a great week and I’ll be back soon!