Back In Business....Kind Of...

Well it's been a while, my dears! I really have been swamped. Right after the festival in April, my grandfather had a car accident (what do 'Pappy' and Lindsey Lohan have in common? They both tried to french kiss an eighteen wheeler...) and has now moved in with my parents...and subsequently, me. He can't be left alone AT ALL, so one person always has to be home and in the same room as him. Fun times are being had by all at the doll's house...feel the sarcasm...

I've also started working at a local antique shop. Cute place with lots of great stuff! Luckily for me though, there is virtually ZERO interest in mid century or even 20th century for that matter in East Tennessee. They only want country, farm, corn-fed, primitive, and shabby. So that's what's stocked...which means I'm safe from spending my paychecks before I get them!! Which is a good thing because.....

...I'm officially moving into my own house for the first time ever! Well, I mean, it's not the first time I've had my own place, but the previous ones have all been tiny, furnished (always by someone who thinks white and Ikea are the only words in decorating) flats shared by someone else. This time, it's a three bedroom mid century that I get all to myself! And it's been untouched by either Ikea or white paint since building began on it in early 1971....

And the best thing is, it's my grandparent's house. I grew up there. I know it, it knows me.

Here I am running around at the back of the house as a toddler!

There's a lot of great things about the house and other not so great. We'll start with the not so great, as that's what's taking up my time at present (when I'm not working or watching my grandfather's every wobbly move).

The gutters. Rusted to hell. Riddled with holes. Those holes were then funneling water out....Yayy!

The funneled water then washed out a lot of dirt at the foundation. I mean A LOT OF DIRT at the foundation. More Yayy!

The dirt at the foundation that was missing created a slope for all the funneled gutter water to then be funneled directly toward the foundation. Triple Yayy!

The result is that water was seeping into the basement in two places. What fun!

Water is also seeping into a third place in the basement because of yet another super fun maintenance issue...the front walkway/porch has fallen in. I don't have a photo of the damage yet (don't worry, I'll post one soon!), but here's what it looked like a few years after it was built...
Yeah, that's Little Doll again! Today, there's a huge crack just to the right of where my little two year old bottom is sitting in the pic. The walkway has also fallen backward slightly as it cracked and fell. This was all caused, my Dad informed me, by my grandfather's decision to put steel bars in to help hold the concrete when it was poured. Here's the walkway and front stoop just before the concrete was poured about 40 years ago...

The concrete seeped water slowly, as concrete does and which is perfectly normal and fine unless there's steel to rust out from under it! Eventually the steel bars rusted, the stability of the concrete was then compromised because it was poured over them, and so, it's collapsed. Now we have a huge problem that could have been avoided by just leaving well enough alone back in 1974 and letting the concrete be poured normally! But then again, Pappy has never been one to do anything normally! Not sure how we'll address it, but it will have to be addressed very soon. I just hope the solution will entail keeping the original offset of the walkway/stoop intact along with the architectural integrity of the house. But knowing my mom, I'm not holding my breath. I'm just praying she doesn't slap a railed deck on the thing and ruin it! "Deck" has been mentioned....I'm truly scared!

Other "bad things" about the house:
The living room furniture...it's terrible. How can I put this nicely? Here goes: Pure 70's Western meets Moroccan meets Somethingerother.....

And a dark one...

One thing I will say about it, is that it's held up well. In fact, it looks as good as it did when I was tiny...not that it looked 'good' even then...


So, needless to say, it's gotta go!! Problem is, the furniture I WANT to use has been stored in the basement which, as we learned earlier has become a damp, dank pit of mildew because of water seepage. Wonderful. I'm really not sure of the condition of the living room suit (the most lush, sophisticated, Mad Men-esque MCM gorgousness that ever a Nauga's 'hyde' graced! Oh the humanity!), but it looks a bit rough to me...through the mildew fog of the dark corner it's currently in. It was covered by junk...luckily with the seat cushions off!...and subsequently the bottom has fallen out from under the sofa (super slim, three seater, slightly angled buttoned but untufted single cushion back, buttoned sides, spindle legs) but I'm hoping it's an easy fix. The rest of the sofa appears to be in perfect nick.

The matching chair has fared better in the 'seat' category, but has other problems...the main being that a mouse has chewed a little hole into the oxblood coloured naugahyde where the front meets the right arm. It's also missing a button on the back cushion, and there are a couple of cracks in the naugahyde.

The matching 'flying saucer' ottoman has a couple of places where the seams have ripped, but that's probably the easiest fix of all.

I know you're thinking, "Why would you even bother? It would be cheaper to find another set in good condition than to fix up this one". And you're probably right. But I've been coveting this set since I was little. Here I am sitting in the chair...
And on the ottoman....

I used to go to the basement and clean it myself twice a year as a kid! And it's the set my grandparents had in their house when my mom was young, so I lurve it because of it's history...too bad they didn't save the red and white sofa they had before it though....


Anyway, all of the things I love about the set have convinced me that even if, when the upholsterer comes to have a look, he says it will need to be completely redone (which I won't be able to afford at the mo, BTW), I'll still have it stripped to the frame and eventually recovered EXACTLY as it is...even if I'm 40 before it gets done!
BTW, how cool was the red and white sofa above? I'd kill for that sofa. Kill I tell you!! And that doll carriage of my mom's is pretty sweet too, huh? FYI, the pics above the sofa were found a few days ago by my mom! I don't know what either of us will do with them, but we're keeping 'em!
I'll post some pics of the set as it is now as soon as I get them into an area with better lighting!
There's also another chair that's got lovely lines, but it will absolutely have to be stripped to bare bones and completely restuffed and covered as it's brown with mildew from the middle down. Shame too, it's a loverly print...well, slightly garish, tacky 60's that wouldn't match ANYTHING...but loverly because of it. Here it is in better days (with a vague view of the sofa in the background!)....

That's me again, with my uncle! I think recovered to match the oxblood set it would be quite nice and it's lines would blend nicely.

I'm glad to say, however that the tables that match the 1960 living room set are in better shape than I could have hoped for...except that one of the end tables is MIA. No idea what's become of it and with my grandfather, anything could have happened to it. The other end table...lucky little bugger...has been in OUR basement for years. In other words, it's in perfect condition. The coffee table was in my grandfather's basement, so was covered in mildew. I wish I'd taken a before photo of it! Gross! But I'm about halfway through it's rehab (it's currently soaking up some lemon oil and awaiting an even better cleaning and a touch up on that rubbed spot on the top...

I may need to order a second end table if I can't find that other one!...



So, other bad things about the house as follows:

Weird smell.
Ok, so this is slightly more important than the hideous 70s living room furniture. My mom seems to think it's all combination of the mildew smell seeping up from the basement and the fact that the carpet is over 30 years old. We'll see. We're ripping the carpet out and installing wood floors in a week or two. Personally, I think another big part of the problem is the hideous living room furniture...only in this case it's not the ugly, it's their smell. See, I first started noticing the house having a funny smell about the time my grandmother began dialysis. I think it was the medication smell that can sometimes come out in body oils. She sat on the furniture, therefore, it has that funny smell.

Sculpted avacado green carpet in the master bedroom and master bath.
And unfortunately, it's practically pristine, which means it stays...at least until I can afford to get rid of it. Blech. And don't even get me started on the '70s Mediterranean Revival bedroom suit. I'm telling myself that I'll only use it until I find my dream MCM suit...preferably a Bassett 'Mayan' like this one...



The spare room, however has a nice pecan mid-60's Bassett suit. My mom bought it right after she graduated from high school. I've not got a photo yet, but I'll try and get one tomorrow and post it soon! In the meantime, here's a picture where you can just see the headboard...

That's my (originally my mom's) Steiff 'Leo the Lion'! I'll have to do a vintage stuffed animal post one day and include my beloved Leo!

The washer doesn't work.
That's more annoying than bad really. If it were only the dryer that didn't work, I could live with it, but whatever. Not a priority.

The thing most people would consider the worst thing about the house is the thing I like the most....the Brady Bunch kitchen.

If you kittens will remember back when I did this post, I mentioned Pappy's orange kitchen and promised to take a photo to prove it's far out groovy-ness. Well, here you go....


This photo doesn't really do it justice as I was in a bit of a hurry and didn't get the whole kitchen in the frame...and for some reason it looks like the counter is a different colour than the backsplash, which it isn't. But I digress...

My plan to tone down the 'groovy' is to add aqua and white into the room to bring it down into the mid '60s. Step one will be to get rid of that horrible late '70s Hotpoint 'poppy' coloured oven (with a broken oven and a broken eye) and the mini fridge and replace them with the white vintage appliances from my grandmother's basement 'canning kitchen'....

A mid '60s Magic Chef Oven (that, at worst, has the exact same problems as the Hotpoint oven...without the ugly factor!)

And her mid '60s Hotpoint refrigerator (that's actually plugged in and working, although it needs a major cleaning inside and out and de-icing.)

The great thing about this fridge is that you have plenty of space for eggs....

Honestly...what would anyone be doing with THAT many eggs at one time?

I've already begun to put my stamp on the living room! Here's the entry from the dining room before (that's the arm of the gross 70's sofa!) ...
And after I'd taken down my mom's old drawings and added some wall plaques and a lamp that thankfully wasn't ruined in the basement....

Well, anyway peaches, I just wanted to let you in on what I'm up to. This should be an interesting few weeks coming up. I'll try my best to keep you posted on my progress!

Before we say toodle pip, I'll leave you with a quick shot I took of some kitschy little deer that I found that my grandmother used to keep in a pot with a cactus...Memaw was kind of a kitsch queen. You'll see what I mean later on (I have some lovely tackiness to show you!)...

And yes, that's the kitchen curtains you're seeing. Aren't they wonderfully awful? I love them! Too bad they'll have to go elsewhere as they won't match once I get through with the place!

Bye my dears!