Design Sponge

My favorite design blog of all time, Design*Sponge, featured our bench before and after project today! Check it out!

Before & After: Patio Seating

Before: (3 office chairs found in a dumpster):

After:

(Also, notice the cute birdhouse Jason built and painted. It's inhabited by a cute little wren.)

New Front Door Color

Ignoring the results of the poll I posted on my blog Make a Good First Impression, Jason and I decided to paint the front door mustard yellow. We're still getting used to it but pretty sure we're happy with it. It gives the pop of color we were hoping for.


Side note: You may have noticed we pulled out the overgrown bushes that had been flanking the house. We haven't decided for sure what to plant as replacements but we're leaning toward a forsythia bush on the left side and a couple of tall, skinny evergreens on the right. Between the 2 windows on the right side we're still planning a screen block architectural feature.

Cobalt Creamer & Sugar Bowl Set

When I saw this at an estate sale, it immediately caught my eye. I was looking for items to resell which is a new venture for me. I know that I have to get a great price on something legitimately valuable. Although this set is beautiful and unique, it doesn't have a designer/maker listed on the bottom which concerned me. It also was priced a little high. I thought about it a while but decided to pass.

Two days later we went back to the estate sale (It was a 3 day sale) to see what was left. I was surprised to find that it was still there. Not only was everything reduced to 50%, one of the sale workers who we had spent some time talking to at our earlier visit kept giving us even better deals. We ended up getting this set for only $3. After Jason carefully washed our purchases and I photographed each piece, I decided that even if I sold this set for $20 I'd still be sad to part with it. Jason encouraged me to just keep it. After all, it was only $3 and I LOVE it!

Our biggest, heaviest MCM find yet!

Two weeks ago Jason and I found this beast at an estate sale. We fell in love with the design and color. It's big. It's long. It's a sleeper sofa. A mid-century sleeper sofa. Therefore, it is HEAVY! We're guessing it's at least 300 lbs. No joke. And in case you've never thought of it before—I hadn't—the people who work at estate sales won't help you load or move your purchases. Can you imagine Jason and I (who weigh less than 300 lbs. combined) dragging this sofa across a carpeted living room, shoving it through the front door and putting all the energy we had left into lifting it, carrying and heaving it onto a friend's borrowed truck? I still can't believe I was capable of that! The next 2 days my arms, legs and back were all sore. I'm so thankful that neither of us got hurt! The sofa is vinyl and needed a little repair but Jason did an awesome job! I helped to mix the colors from the vinyl repair kit—one of my specialties. By the way, this beautiful specimen cost only $25!

We went back to this same estate sale when it was almost over (reduced prices) and snatched up all the unique collectibles that were left. Most of those are now for sale on my brand new Etsy.com shop light hand design & vintage, with two exceptions that we couldn't bear to part with. I'll be blogging about each soon.

Make a Good First Impression

Jason and I are considering painting our front door with a *pop* of color. If you're interested in where we got our inspiration, check out this flickr photo, this flickr photo, this flickr photo and this flickr photo.

Orange (less brown than this)

Yellow (more mustard than this)

Lime Green

Red (a little brighter but flat)

Please take a moment to give your opinion!

Lovely Pictures by Beth Rose Photography

Sunday our dear friend Beth Rose Goin came over and took photos of our house for a submission to Atomic Ranch magazine. It was a lot of fun and she got some great shots! They haven't been edited yet but here is a little sneak peek:

Falling in love with Atomic Ranches

Jason and I have been talking about starting a website featuring the mid-century ranches in East Nashville for quite sometime. As my first post, let me explain why we care so much.

In January 2007, Jason and I sold our first home, a Frank Lloyd Wright replica in Madison, TN, after 3 months on the market. While we loved the house, we really wanted to live in East Nashville from the get-go. (Madison was a 2-year desperate compromise.) I'll tell you all about East Nashville another time, if you're not already familiar. Selling meant we were on a frenzied search to find a new house within 30 days. We really wanted to be near 5-points, the heart of East Nashville, perhaps in Lockland Springs, but nothing was opening up in our price range. Late one night I was desperately searching through all of the listings on RealTracs in Area 6. I came across a ranch in Eastland Acres, on the far side of Shelby Park. I was sure that it was too far from 5-points for serious consideration but I looked at the pictures anyway. Refinished dark hardwood floors, brand new kitchen with granite-tile counter tops and fresh IKEA cabinets, a glass bowl sink in the bathroom...hmm. I e-mailed the listing to Jason, who was out of town. I think the sink was what sold us. At least we knew this flipper had some sense of style and not just the Home Depot special.

Two weeks and 5 days later we were moving in. The accelerated closing helped us beat out the other 2 offers that also came that day, the 3rd day it was listed. (Special thanks to the greatest mortgage specialist ever, now turned real estate agent, Jeremy Hundley.)

We didn't know much about mid-century modern or atomic ranches. Jason had flipped through an Atomic Ranch Magazine at Borders more than once but that was about all we knew about the present movement. There are several unique 1950's features of our house that peaked our curiosity. First the skinny-plank hardwood floors caught our attention. Next it was the huge 6-panel windows that spread across the front of the living room on an angled (maybe 15º?) wall. On the outside, a stone-faced triangular planter countered the angle to be square with the face of the house. Neither of us had ever seen anything like this. The third detail that tickled us was the downward-angled face of the bathroom vanity. Builders just don't take the time to design things like that these days…each drawer and cabinet door cut and precisely measured to match the angle. Suddenly we were obsessed with finding these atomic details, driving around the neighborhood looking for other houses with the 6-paneled front windows, with the angled front wall, with retro front doors...Uh oh. We needed a different front door. The brand-new 90's "contemporary" glass inlay door just wasn't going to cut it. We needed to ditch the bright blue shutters. We needed to paint the brick…not so much to make it more 1950's but to streamline it, to make is stand out from the sea of brick ranches all around and in a way, to reach out to Eichler.

Here are some before, middle and after shots. (Of course, it's outdated already...new pictures soon.)