Sprucing It Up

When we originally looked at the house, we realized that it needed a lot of love. It was built in 1963 and when you walked through the house it felt as though you had stepped back in time. 

There were a lot of redeeming qualities about the house, though. 

One thing we really loved is that in the basement it is bright. If you have ever been to a house in Utah the basement rooms normally feel, a little cave like. Our house has a basement...but the interesting thing about it is...none of the windows are below the ground. That means that not only is there no window wells (something very normal here), but the basement is bright. Yeah!

The "First Family Room" as it is called (because we have two family rooms downstairs), was a beauty.

The ceilings were not only popcorn (pretty sure they were asbestos) but intermingled with the popcorn ceiling, was bits of gold sparkle.

What I want to know is....when they were building houses in the 60's, was one guy's job just to add sparkle to ceilings? Did he carry around a glitter bag? Did he secretly refer to himself as the "ceiling bedazzler"?

Anywhoo....

Since I may have lost you at the bedazzler, I will break it down fast.

Blake and our friend Bryan scraped the popcorn ceilings, Blake changed out the light fixtures (with some from the other family room), painted the ceilings, I removed the mirror above the fireplace, took down the curtains, and we had the carpets cleaned.

Then we set up a tentative placement of furniture.

It stayed like this for a little while but I just wasn't...feeling it?!

So I decided to sell our rug, paint the walls, move the chair out, and our other couch in, and I painted the book case.

Let me tell you about the book case for a minute.

It is built in. The back section of the bookcase is the wall. I had thought about removing the bookcase since I felt like it made the room feel lopsided. When I was looking at it I realized that they had carpeted up to the bookcase, but not below it, so removing the bookcase would mean that we would be left with a missing patch of carpet. Since we don't plan on replacing the carpet right away removing the bookcase also wasn't an option.

So I decided that a nice coat of white paint was in order. Maybe it was the fact that there was an outline of grime from the old books?

Perhaps it was the fact that someone had painted part of the bookcase at one point but didn't remove the books? Whatever the reason...

I started with painting the walls first. 

Which made the bookshelf stick out even more.

But now that the whole room has been painted it is quite nice.

It feels more like our house.

This room is probably used the most, 

and it contains some of my favorite things.

There are little treasures around our house that I pick up here and there. Vintage things carry so much personality, and I love that they are original. 

I got this chair from an estate sale for $2. (Funny thing is they make a reproduction of this that you can find here. I think I will stick with mine.)

My assortment of blue glass canning jars. They are filled with marbles and vintage pool balls. Also, further down the shelves are old powder metal music boxes.

Behind the couch...

Do you see those little doors? They go to a secret passageway.

More on that later.

Our Family room feels just like it sounds. Like a family lives here. Because...well...we do. Day in and day out.

Before:

After:

Still on the list:

make pillows for couch

replace carpet (one day) 

hang pictures on wall with TV

hang light in corner

change curtains?

paint fireplace, or maybe just clean it

remove old gas heater