Our house, in the middle of our street.....

Oh yay!

(OK, I've GOT to get out of this "yay!" rut. It's the holidays, or something...)

I'd have to take pics, then develop, so will take a while before I have anything to put here.

But I'll be bavk!!!

I only have a few photos scanned, and don't have access to many photos from my loved houses just this minute...

so this will be spare for now.

Here's a photo of Pacco that shows some of my worldly goods and the room behind it.

The fireplace works; the tile you see is not original, the original being on the floor in front of fireplace. The credenza is my mother's, used to have legs - she and my father teamed to cut them off. I have added to the brutalisation by messing up the lacquer varnish.
The heating device you see works - I had it redone at great untold dollars in despair at the bills I walked into when buying the place. Now it's all efficient, and works in part through this old system.
The rug is a cheapo from a catalog. Whole new set of colors if you turn it over.
The lamp turns on if you touch the glass shade, how cool is that?
The dust? how can I care about dust with a corgi.
The corgi didn't cost much but has infinite value.
The chair was $60. dollars from a local schlocky used furniture place that I loved. Salmon velvet, give me a break.





and here is a series from the murphy bedroom/potential art book library

Ta da, the door...
and the wainscotting - redwood frame around eucalyptus veneer.
The crud on the walls is wallpaper paste. Preservations will be after my hide, but it all depressed me.
Love the coved ceilings. My arch historian friend tells me that this puts the house into partial colonial revival. What do I know. Fixtures original.



Cheapo mattress of the not that thick sort, from McMahon's, the last one they had at the time. People RAVE about how wonderfully they slept here... I think it's the springs..



Well, so there is a closet behind, into which this door twirls, and there is room for a whole set of about 13" deep new redwood shelving (read dollars)



There they are, waiting for varnish. I don't know what that line is - it isn't present in real life.



a hint at how this razmatazz attaches -

Oooooh...!

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh...!

You must've actually posted the Murphy bed before, or else described it extremely well, because I had an oh yes I've seen that moment.

But not in so much detail.

Infinitely cool. Love the coved ceilings, too. (Though I didn't know the word for them until your post.)

I even genuinely like the chair, salmon velvet and all! I'm a total sucker for curves.

Meanwhile, boomer, the first pic bespeaks a highly evolved artistic sensibility. Really like it. The flower pots are genius.

The bark valance is another one where I'm not sure if I've seen-it-seen-it or just in my mind's eye.

I can't wait to unleash color on the walls of this house -- haven't done that yet, and you remind me of the possibilities...

Color is what we have in common...

I have zillions of color swatches, not to mention the benjamin moore fippidy gibbits. That was why I took off all the beige wallpaper. I meant preservationists, by the way, in my earlier post. But..

my arch historian friends say there are prototypical houses and, er, lesser. One doesn't need to keep every stick of a lesser, though care is of course appropriate. So, in the property near me that is on the historic register, there are two houses... one old victorian, revivified with such things as wallpaper made to match that of the exact time.., no choices out of the time zone. And the other... a tad more playful but still not futzing up the house.

So the second is what I had in mind.. what I think of as jewel colors (greyed roses, sort of cloudy mustards, a sudden bright japanese yellow, greyed greens, blueberries, raspberries, slightly muddy limes, caramels, taupes, sludges, navy....)

with all that old wood.

Soz, on the murphy bed photos, I did post them for a short time before, but I didn't think you ever actually saw them. I think I put them on a site I didn't want to take up space at...
I think I did go on and on and on and on, verbally.

The photos can sit where they are now for a while.

Wow, osso! What a gorgeous place! I would love to have such an house. All that architectural detail. All the care that went into building that house.

<sigh>

My house was built of much baser materials but we've done our best with what we had to work with.

I've been working on my assignment this morning and will have some more to post shortly...

Here are some scenes from my kitchen:

This wall was an insanely ugly "rustic" wood paneled thing. I had a couple of yards of this monkey fabric that I bought just because I thought it was cool. I stretched in along the wall, Mr. B tacked up some wainscoating and it wasn't so ugly anymore. The bookshelf is one that has been somewhere in my house from the time I was a little kid. When I first moved out on my own mom sent it with me and I've used it ever since:



The kitchen cabinets were the ugliest thing in the house, cheap terrible things. I painted them to look like copper, just for kicks. You can't really tell from the photo because I altered it a bit to show off the hardware with I love. I bought the handles at a place here called The Rebuilding Center which sells stuff salvaged from demolitons. These handles were from a security gate surrounding some long forgotten park. I paid $3.00 for 20 handles:

This used to be a coat closet. We knocked the wall out and Mr. B built these shelves on the dining room side and a pantry on the kitchen side.

The shelves hold some of my favorite things: the little cup on top of the clock was my grandmother's when she was a child, the clock itself ticked off all the minutes of my life, my artist friend made me the dog biscuit bowl - personalized with a cartoon of my dog - it has held my many dogs biscuits for about 20 years now, the big glass jar holds rocks I bring home from visits to the beach:



I painted the shelves (they look a bit orangy in this photo) to try to match the color and style of the flowers in this print that hangs in the room:

Boomer, I like everything you're showing here. Love Mo's room color - that's the color, or close to it, of our old gallery walls. Enjoy the valence.. and the lights. The LR shelves are neat...
like the copper paint job on the kitchen cabinets and the fabulous handles.

What a cool thread.

Wish I had a camera.

Great style Boomer...though I'd replace tht bathroom recepticle with a GFI(Ground Fault Interrupter) to lesson the chances of a shock.

Osso. Neat wood...reminds me of a Raymond Chandler movie set. That door looks like it was hung upside down...ha ha. Just kidding.

At thanksgiving day dinner with mostly people I don't know, I said something about our house and she replied "I just assumed you lived in a cave somewhere in the mountains"

How very polite.

Ummm okay dupre you're off the hook unless you can get your hands on a camera.

Panzade, Dyslexia -- post something for us to see!

I wouldn't mind living in a cave in the mountains. Especially if it were The Bat Cave and came with a Boy Wonder.

That is a neat thread boomer, and I love what I've seen so
far. You have great ideas to utilize what your house has
to offer.

Gosh osso, such a nice old house, all that beautiful wood -
they just don't build like that anymore <sigh>

Okay, I took also some pictures. Here are bits and pieces of the child's room

Now that's a room that any kid would love, CJane! That shower is way too cool too. Thanks for posting.

I love yellow walls but I never seem to get them right. That is a really good yellow.

When we first moved into this house I really didn't like the place at all. The only thing it had going for it was the location and that it wasn't one of those cheap new houses that populate our otherwise fair city, that it has a huge yard and that it had some potential.

It required all the imagination I could muster. Now I like the house and love the neighborhood.

I think that's normal boomer, one always feels uncomfortable at first in a newly bought house. The more you remodel it you your liking the more it grows on you.

Here are segments of my kitchen, and since I believe that
every house should display some sillyness, I have a puppet
of Baron Muenchhausen hanging there.

I love the pics posted so far, boomer. My house is transforming befor my eyes. I'm still working on the kitchen. Don't know if I'll ever get finished. Right now my favorite place is becoming my study. I'll post some new pics as soon as I can.

Osso, I'm sure I saw the Murphy bed before, but not the hidden bookshelves. How cool! I love hidden places.

CJ, Your color choices are so bold! Love the shower!

I love the puppet! The color in your kitchen is great. I want some red!

<looking around at available surfaces>

Yeah Swimpy! You've been doing a big remodel haven't you? Can't wait to see.

We have a Murphy bed type thing that we built into what once was my office, then became the office/play room, then had to become the office/play room/guest room. I'll have to clear off some room on my camera and get some more snippets from around the house....