Mint

Over the Christmas vacation my husband and I did a few little home projects (above). My favorite update was that we finally turned our sunroom into a usable space (remember our pictures from last year?). This weekend we’ll go rug shopping. Built-in bookshelves, a second chair, artwork, and window treatments are on our to-do list. But I love how a new lamp from Target, a small Ikea rug, and a thrift store chair completely changed the space. We also started painting our kitchen cabinets, which I think will be the biggest change of all. So fun. Photos coming soon!

You can read more about our house projects right here.

Our weekend thrifting turned epic when we found the couch of our dreams, went out to lunch to think it over (since we were shopping for bookshelves, not couches, after all), came back from lunch to make the sale only to find… it sold 10 minutes earlier to a dude with a thin moustache and tassels on his shoes. Just picture a beautiful, perfectly-worn red leather Chesterfield at a fraction of its typical price. Sort of like this one, yet affordable. Why did we have to think that over??

At least we came home with this great mid-century hand-painted lamp, which almost makes up for it. OK, no it doesn’t, but it’s still pretty awesome.

Well, these might be the ugliest pictures Mint has ever seen, but they’re awfully beautiful to me. There’s a lot going on at our house this week… a new roof, about 1,000 square feet of concrete being removed from our backyard (at the last minute we wisely decided against jackhammering it ourselves, thank goodness), an old carport is nearly gone, and… by the end of the day there will be two new skylights.

Ahhh progress. And light.

Our 1950s home has a retro bathroom that reliably gets a strong love or hate reaction. I mean, everybody has an opinion about those green tiles. We’re keeping them and running with the black/white/mint combo. (Listen, the bathroom is the least of our worries).

One of the first things I did after we bought our house was run out and buy a new white shower curtain for this bathroom. (What’s cheaper and more satisfying than a new shower curtain? Not much). But when I climbed into the tub to hang the shower curtain, the bottom of the tub was kind of squishy. I’m not gonna lie, my first thought was, “Oh, a gel bathtub. I could get use to that, I guess.” And then I squished around a little more and realized that was sploshing water I was hearing under my feet. And I started to panic, just a little. A few google searches later (“my bathtub is gellin”) and my husband and I learned that we were standing on a plastic bathtub liner (below), which probably cost upwards of $1000 and covered the original porcelain tub.

So I called a tub refinishing company who came out and gave us a super reasonable estimate ($450) for removing the liner and refinishing the tub underneath.

(Above, what was underneath the liner, after some serious scrubbing. Gross. Below, freshly fixed and painted).

Isn’t the shape great?! The only bummer was that we learned that underneath the broken white floor tiles in our bathroom, there is another layer of green floor tiles. Who puts floor tiles on top of floor tiles? Sigh.

For now our bathroom is getting put on the back burner. I’m just happy to be able to take a hot bath again!

We’re far, far away from the tile-picking stage of our kitchen and bathroom projects. But I’ve been surprised lately at how much I love a backsplash/floor/wall with white tile and black or dark gray grout, so these are definitely going in the inspiration folder!

Images from Bolaget

Our bathroom has no storage (and it’s tiny) so we picked up these shelves from Ikea and organized our things within baskets. I’m digging it.

1: vintage woven basket from trampoline / 2: vintage blue basket from Confetti Garden / 3: magazine basket from West Elm / 4: Senegalese handmade basket from Connected / 5: vintage wire basket from Moxie Thrift

The house my husband and I bought last fall wasn’t the house we were looking for. In our minds, we were thinking a home built between 1900 and 1940 with tons of character, light, and a big backyard. It didn’t take long before we realized that kind of house in the neighborhoods we liked wasn’t exactly in the budget.

We bought a 1950s house with the right balance of charm, affordability, and projects. It has some pretty outdated features (popcorn ceilings, dark wood paneling, some carpet, and a kitchen that makes us cringe) but we love it. To pieces. The updating has been slower than we thought of course. Like a lot of first-time home buyers we underestimated how long things take and how much they cost!

One of the first things we started on was the sunroom, which I referred to as “a one weekend project” (as my husband likes to remind me). Two to three tubes of caulk, three gallons of paint, and four months later, the room is finally a bright white. We haven’t started the trim because at first I thought I’d want to leave it wood. But the reason I wanted to show you guys this room today is — LOOK what was underneath the carpet! We were positive it was plywood under there, but were so thrilled to find porch floor boards. This weekend we put insulation in the crawlspace underneath and started removing the carpet.

We envisioned the room with bold black and white tiles on the floors, lots of plants, books, a couple of comfortable chairs, and a kilim rug or two. But now that we have floorboards to work with, I’m thinking a painted pattern instead of tile, just like:

(spotted in We Own The Night)

More inspiration —

Bright bold rug and lots of books, Ford Wheeler’s home on The Selby; stand-out windows, plants, and vintage furniture, Nina Shen’s home on Design Sponge; Lori Dunbar’s painted floors on Design Sponge

Vincent C. Richel’s rustic wood shelving on Remodelista; a Kilim rug on The Brick House; plants from Air Plant Supply Co on Etsy

So excited!!