Bungalow Nursery

Filled with love

Bedrooms, Before and After, Children's Rooms,

What better time to show you the baby’s nursery than Mother’s Day weekend? Since our families both live so far away it is important to us to incorporate items and memories of them into the baby’s room.

The nursery used to be our home office. It also served as a make-shift kitchen during our kitchen remodel. The baby came early and our kitchen remodel ran late leaving no time to paint the room. My heart had been set on the softest, peachiest pink color.

Instead, I left the wall color and added lots of pink and white with little accents of black to make the room seem more feminine. Resources: bed, rug, and ceiling pendant.

David and my Dad threw the room together in one evening while I directed where everything should be placed from my hospital bed. I hung the curtains and artwork after Juliet and I came home.

The painting of the bear was painted by my mother for me before I was born. The other artwork can be found here, here and here.

My Mom also painted the dog to hang in my nursery. Other artwork here, here, and here. Resting on top of the cabinet next to the lamp is a framed photograph of the house my grandmother grew up in.

My grandma and grandpa bought the little red chair for me when I was a toddler. It sat in their living room until long after I had graduated from college and moved to California. David’s sister made him the panda bear one year for Christmas.

Oeuf Sparrow changing table, mobile, artwork, and diaper disposal system (which we LOVE).

I am a fan of incorporating adult furniture into children’s rooms. The Chinese panels hung in the house David grew up in. When his parents moved to Hong Kong a few years ago the panels were the one thing David wanted. It makes me happy that they now hang in our daughter’s room.

Other items: Rocking chair, side table came from Target but is no longer available, and the Pottery Barn Teen lamp (the one we bought) is a knock off of this lamp.

The enormous stuffed bear was a gift from my father welcoming Juliet into our family. Her name is embroidered on the bear’s foot.

I will be celebrating my first Mother’s Day tomorrow! A very happy Mother’s Day to all the special ladies out there.

Comments { 7 } May 11, 2013

Bungalow Bedroom Renovation

Ta-Da!

Bedrooms, Before and After

Our bedroom is finished! Out of all the rooms we have completed, I am enjoying this room the most. It feels so nice to finally have a little haven, a place to rest, after basically camping out for all of these years. Why didn’t we do our bedroom first?

The room was in awful shape before with peeling wallpaper and holes in the walls.

This room was my home office for years. How did I ever work in here? Lets face it, the room before is not at all inspiring.

The bedroom feels very warm and inviting now.

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Comments { 19 } October 31, 2011

Making an Entrance

Our new redwood gate

Before and After, Landscaping,

Our new front gate! We don’t have the funds to swing for the whole fence, at least not for a while.

I tried to disguise our old gate and rusty chain link fence with vines and climbing roses.

Our fence is made out of redwood. The new fence makes such a difference. Our front entrance looks more inviting.

The design of the fence is based of a 1915 Thorburn’s Seeds advertisement. We hired a carpenter to build the gate using this advertisement as a guide. I requested that the posts be squared off to better match the architecture of our bungalow.

Our oversized letter slot from House of Antique Hardware. It is called the Bungalow Mail Slot. I admit the name sold me!

The mailbox is built onto the back of the gate.

We are in love with the new gate!

Comments { 9 } September 18, 2011

Home Office

Turning an unused bedroom into a workspace

Before and After,

We have moved into our newly renovated home office and are loving it! We were able to work a lot of our inspirational ideas into the room. We ended up using an IKEA table that we already owned as a desk. The white leather office chairs are from West Elm.

The original closet was very long and narrow…and had no light! This is a far cry from the large his and hers walk-in closets of today. We added double doors for easier access, as well as lighting. A salvaged door was modified to match the original.

The room prior to the renovation wasn’t in the best shape, especially after removing wallpaper from the plaster walls. We had the walls patched and re-plastered. Where the wallpaper has been completely removed, you can see the blue-grey color of the walls from 1912. We painted the room a darker shade of the original paint color.

Ah, the newly built-in window seat is one of my favorite parts of the room. The space was just crying out for it!

I really love our new work space. It is such a comfortable room to spend time in.

Bookshelf – IKEA; Grey Pop Tartan carpet tiles – Flor; Nelson Pear Pendant Lamp – Design Within Reach; red leather lounge chair – CB2; white leather office chairs – West Elm; desk – IKEA; and wall color – Benjamin Moore, Secret AF-710.

Comments { 11 } July 26, 2011

Bungalow Bathroom Remodel

It’s Finished!

Bathrooms, Before and After

Bungalow Bathroom Remodel, Before & After

The bathroom project is finally complete. Whew! We are thrilled with the results.

Starting with an inspiration photo, to picking out all the fixtures, to taking the room down to the studs and slowly putting it back together again; this has been the most difficult project completed in our house. So many decisions…

The updated bathroom is the project that has increased our enjoyment of the house the most. It is hard to believe that such a little room can have a big impact.

Our contractor built a door to match the original closet door and framed out a larger storage space.

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Comments { 46 } September 15, 2010

Tiny Space, Huge Project

All the stages of our Craftsman bungalow back porch restoration

Before and After, Exteriors,

bp_beforeafterEnclosed back porch, Before and After

When we purchased our bungalow it was covered in asbestos siding.

bp_01Our enclosed back porch covered in asbestos siding. 2003

The asbestos siding was in such poor condition that we decided to take our chances and remove it.

bp_02What we found underneath was a poorly constructed porch enclosure. 2004

Underneath the asbestos we found a poorly constructed, rotting enclosure. The enclosure was built with scrap wood and odds and ends.

bp_11Siding made from found odds and ends. The window juts out 10″ from the wall.

We were unsure what to do and didn’t want to put a lot of money into this little back porch. I considered covering over the whole mess with siding and dealing with it at a later date. I was lucky enough to receive some sage advice from a more experienced house restorer, “Covering over this would be like trying to fix a skull fracture with a band aid!”

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Comments { 10 } December 18, 2008

Before: Upstairs Bathroom

Our bungalow bathroom needs lots of work

Bathrooms, Before and After

Taken from the second bedroom/office looking into the bathroom. The door on the opposite side of the room leads to the back hallway. The smaller door is for a built-in linen closet.

The floor was covered in vinyl tiles and old linoleum. The linoleum appeared to date around 1920-1930s and must have been glued down with some old fashioned version of superglue because it was horrible to get up. The floor was black around the toilet and tub due to some serious water damage, so I stained the floor a dark walnut color for now.

Closer view of the linen closet door. It might be difficult to tell but the plaster wall to the right of the linen closet is scored to resemble subway tile. Notice the big crack in the ceiling above the linen closet. There are huge cracks all along the ceiling.

The walls were painted none too carefully before we purchased the house. The paint has peeled off in the past few years. It appears that the plaster color was originally left natural, the woodwork was painted a muted gold color (I often see it referred to as ‘wheat’ in modern paint samples), and the ceiling was a vibrant green color. The second bedroom/office walls were painted the same green color as the bathroom ceiling.

The bathtub and wall tiles appear to date from the late 1940s – early 1950s. We assume there was originally a clawfoot tub. The daughter of our home’s second owner told us that the house did not originally have a shower. Her family added a shower downstairs off the back porch. That area had been gutted when we bought the house. We now use it for our washer and dryer.

Our idea was to add a clawfoot tub with a shower attachement, but It has been pointed out that it might be difficult to get a clawfoot tub shower enclosure/curtain rod to fit into the available space because of the slanted ceiling. I’m not sure what we will end up doing?

Our duplex apartment from the 1930′s had a bath tub and a seperate shower stall which I loved, but no room for something like that in our 6ft x 12ft space.

We are fairly certain the bathroom originally had a high-tank toilet based on the holes in the floor. I found the outline of a wall hung sink. The pedestal sink in the photo is from our old duplex apartment and dates from the 1930s. The property manager was throwing the sink out so we grabbed it.

The strange thing is how high the medicine cabinet is placed. When I look in the mirror I can only see my eyes and I’m average height. I wonder how tall the original owners were?


Photo taken looking into the second bedroom/office.

One of my favorite things about the bathroom is the woodwork. The mint green register grate matches the others in the house, and was salvaged from Liz’s Antique Hardware located on Le Brea Ave. It needs to be stripped.

Comments { 12 } August 18, 2006

Calling All Kitchen Designers!

Desperately seeking a kitchen plan

Before and After, Kitchens

The problem is that this is our current kitchen…and this is what we want.

unfittedkitchen_01

Comments { 9 } January 10, 2005

Kitchen Before

Our 1912 bungalow kitchen prior to restoration

Before and After, Kitchens

before_10

I have begun planning, or trying to plan, the best way to restore our kitchen. It’s a little tricky for several reasons. We have 3 doors leading into the kitchen on 3 different walls, 2 large built-in cupboards, and really no easy or inexpensive way to expand the space due to bathrooms, a stairway, plumbing and heat runs to the second story behind every wall.

kitchenbefore_01

On the south facing sink wall, a tile backsplash, counter and under the counter cupboards were added some time in our home’s past. They block part of the original built-in cupboards on the east and west walls.

before_11

I want to rip out the tile and MDF cupboards and plan on restoring the original built-in cupboards and having new doors made for them. The current doors are cheap MDF replacements of the originals.

kitchenbefore_05

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Comments { 19 } February 18, 2004

Bungalow Living Room

Removing paint revealed our bungalow’s warmth

Before and After,

The front entry seems so much more inviting now.

The plaster wall has been repaired, the wood stripped and stained, and the walls painted.


Looking into the den before.


Looking into the den now.

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Comments { 1 } February 15, 2004