Tiny House

Someone asked me today if there were any tiny houses for sale in the Cary/Raleigh area.  She did not mean a 1,000 square foot bungalow; she meant a tiny house.  As in the 250 square foot homes made popular by HGTV's Tiny House Hunters.  I was genuinely sorry to say I did not know of any in the area because I would love nothing more than to tour a bunch of houses with less square footage than the master bathroom of the houses I typically show.

Adorable Tiny House

The appeal of tiny houses is undeniable. They are just so darn cute with their cozy porches and pipe chimneys. They are filled with little cubbies and hidy-holes to store all of your stuff. And speaking of stuff, you would actually have to get rid of most of yours if you moved into one of these small abodes which is a dream of many people too.

I think one of the big reasons people like want a tiny house is they get all this fabulous cuteness for a tiny amount of money. But from what I hear, divorces are expensive, and I am pretty sure that is where Hubby and I would end up if we tried to co-habituating in a space barely larger than a king sized bed.

This is why instead of a tiny house, I want a tiny camper. I think we could survive a week together in a canned ham. After all we do five nights in a tent at Bonnaroo. Believe me, accommodations that include A/C, a toilet and a shower would be pure luxury compared to that.  Plus with a Camper, it is only temporary. A week in it and then I can spread out in my suburban palace with all my stuff again. Seems like the perfect compromise.

My Version of a Tiny House

Extreme Closet Make Over

Our under-the-stairs closet is a little over three feet wide by ten feet long. Large enough to fit at least two - maybe even three - orphaned wizard children comfortably, or in our case, tons of stuff that had not found a permanent home in the new house yet.

The previous owners' closet organization system, consisting of one lone 38" wire shelf with a rack for hanging things, was pretty poor. Our organization system of cramming our coats onto that rack while stuffing the rest of the closet with unpacked boxes, unhung pictures and a plethora of other homeless items was no better. Last week, I finally had enough of tunneling my way through the junk just to get to my coat and decided it was time for a closet makeover.

I started by pulling everything out which was similar to taking an air mattress out of the box. The stuff that was tightly packed into a fairly small space was now taking up the entire dining room, and just like an air mattress, you know there is no way you are ever getting it all back into that box/closet.

I have no explanation for the number of lampshades.

I pulled the lone shelf down and painted the walls with some light blue paint bought, but not used, for a previous project. Then I put up a Closet Maid organizer I bought at Home Depot on the long wall across from the door. I have two 48" poles going from it to the wall, giving us more than double the room for all of our coats. During this process, I did have to wonder how have people who live in a fairly temperate climate collected so many coats?  For me it is probably a style thing, and I guess Hubby is preparing for his dream cabin in Vermont.

This is where the lonely wire rack hung. Now there is room for photo albums, storage boxes, mail supplies, files and vacuum cleaners.

The shelf with the hooks was another thrift store find that I painted white. It is a great place for the take-the-dog-out coat, my picnic blanket scarf and the all important Georgia Bulldog scarf (both survived the great scarf purge of 2016).

I put up two shelves were the wire shelf had been. In the corner I placed a nice two drawer file cabinet that holds legal size files - very necessary for real estate agents - that I bought at the Durham Rescue Mission Thrift Store. Next to it was room for my two downstairs vacuum cleaners.

You can see in the photo that there are still quite a few unhung pieces of artwork stacked against the wall. That is a project for another day.

Before putting everything back, I purged - again. I was stunned to see some of the useless junk that made it up here from Georgia.  How many winter scarves do two people living in North Carolina need? Certainly not 17! I was able to cull down to nine. The same held true for mittens, wrist braces, entire packages of school photos (I kept about three for each year) and so on.

There was a lot of work, and a good week and a half of stumbling over the out-placed closet dwelling junk, but it was oh so worth it. If you are a person like me who loves nicely organized closets, drawers, cabinets and pantries, you know the feeling of joy I get when I open the door to this closet now.

A Mid Century Modern Dilemma

My interest in mid century modern design really started when I began looking for a our new house. I was drawn to low roofed ranches with avocado green kitchens, and if I had an unlimited supply of money to sink into one,  I am sure that I would the proud owner of a 1969 North Hills ranch. Instead I am the proud owner of a five year old West Cary faux craftsman track home.

One of the great things about our newish house is the complete lack of decoration. There are no built-ins, no crown moldings, no chair railings. The most decorative thing is the mantel, and Yankee has promised to rip that thing out for me (a story for another day, I'm sure). Most people would find this a negative, but for me it just makes it easier to get that MCM feel I'm looking for.

Another way to achieve the look I want has been to load up on some nice pieces of furniture. One thing I have been searching for is a make up vanity for my bathroom.  I found a really fabulous piece at Gremlina Vintage in Fuquay-Varina, but while I debated buying it, someone else snatched that baby up. So I was again on the search until I found a desk on Craigslist that I thought might do, and the best part was the price - $30.

Yankee and I drove to North Raleigh to pick it up. The seller was absolutely the most hipsterish dude I have ever had the good fortune to meet. He lived in a tiny little hundred year old cottage that he had been renovating for several years. In true hipster fashion, he did not appear to be making much headway, but I digress.  We paid the guy $30 bucks and drove off with this:

In the  Craigslist photo I could not see what made this piece the true treasure it is. What I saw in the photo was a desk with nice MCM lines and drawers on the right side like I wanted but which were surprisingly difficult to find. I figured I'd bring it home, paint it and have a great little vanity.  When I saw it in person though, this is what I saw:

It has charcoal and rose Boomerang Formica! This was a really popular pattern in the 1950's. It is really cool and in pretty good condition too. The yellow top and edging are not it great shape though.

My dilemma is - do I paint it? On the one had I absolutely hate when people Pinterst-up MCM furniture. I see it all the time on Etsy and Craigslist. They will have a beautiful Lane Acclaim piece painted with gray chalkboard paint advertised as "Shabby Chic." It is really painful to think that beautiful piece of furniture painted and called shabby. On the other hand, the piece is the perfect size and style for my bathroom, but not the perfect color.

My bathroom is painted a light blueish gray and there is a lot of white in it. There is absolutely no pink. The pink in the laminate is very pale though, so not too noticeable. The yellow part is pretty rough with some holes in the top and gouges in the trim.

Last night I decided I was definitely painting it, so I took the whole thing apart to prep it, but I did not do any painting. It just feels wrong. I am considering just painting the yellow parts and leaving the boomerang. Any thoughts and/or advice from my readers?

On the inside, they used left over laminate. Now this color would be perfect in my bathroom.

This leftover piece is exactly like the counter top in my parents bathroom when I was growing up. 

Could the shape of this support get more 50's? I think not!

The two legs on the right side are wood painted black with metal caps.

These Floors Score

In the latest edition of my newsletter* there is an article about two trendy flooring options - stained concrete and cork. I have never seen cork floors, and it is a little difficult for me to imagine flooring made out of such a soft material.  It seems like a bold ( or crazy) decorating choice - similar to putting white carpet into a house in Georgia's red clay country. Stained concrete on the other hand, seems like a brilliantly practical choice.

Concrete floors can go with any decorating style.

With a talented contractor, you can make your floors look like just about anything you want. I have seen them look like wood, flagstone and tile. They can look traditional or ultra modern, and your color choices seem infinite. My brother and sister-in-law just bought a new house and one of the main deciding features were  concrete floors  in the entire house - even the bedrooms. Even with their three big, rambunctious dogs, they can have beautiful, but easy to maintain floors.

                                             Modern Flooring by Passaic Artists & Artisans Concrete Shop

My sister was far in front of the concrete floor trend when she had them done in the house she built nine years ago. I asked what her opinion on them was after having lived with them for so long, and she said for her family of  a husband, three kids, a cat and multiple dogs, it was a great choice. Her recommendation was to hire an experienced contractor to do the work, so that the finish will last for years to come. One thing I can say is that after almost a decade, her floors look as good to me as they did in the beginning, and they have held up style-wise too.

*My newsletter is really interesting with a few short articles (written by professionals who are not me) and other features like demographic information and local events for whatever part of the country you are in. If you would like to receive it, just send me your email address.

My Thrift Store/Craigslist Problem

When I look at something - particularly something that falls into the category of houses or furniture - I rarely see what is actually there. Instead I see what it could be. I definitely inherited this curse talent from my parents.

One of my earliest memories was looking at a house that my parents bought when I was about four. It stuck with me because the upstairs was still charred from a house fire. It takes some real vision to buy a burned house, but they did it. They restored the unburned downstairs to it's 1910 Georgian splendor, and created a fabulous mid-century mod kids space (complete with yellow paneling and green carpet) out of the burned carcass of the upstairs.

My parent's biggest project - other than raising five kids that is!

 My projects are on a much less ambitious scale than that, but I almost always have something in the garage that needs sanding or painting. I must admit that I spend way more time finding pieces to work on than I do actually working on them. I am a regular visitor of the Triangle's many thrift stores, and every night I'm cruising Craigslist looking for cheap mid-century pieces that just needs a little love.

I thought I might share some of my latest acquisitions/projects over the next few weeks. I will start with the bamboo etagere* I found on Craigslist for $20.

Clearly my new shelf had been used to store paint cans at one point in it's life

Bunches of other projects in the background. Sigh.

I should have taken a video of how wobbly it was when I got it. Quite a bit of wood glue and some small nails helped me sturdy it up. I wanted to keep the antiqued yellow finish, but there was so much discoloration that I had to paint it, trying to get as close to the original color as possible, then I took a paint brush with some stain on it and flicked it to give it those random spots it originally had. The little corner pieces were in good shape, so I left them as is. After everything dried, I sealed the whole piece with an oil based, satin finished polyurethane.

Now the holder of many things including some Daughter made art.

It's sitting in front of my kitchen window with my colored glass bottles and the mint-condition early '70's green goblets I got at the Durham Rescue Mission Thrift Shop. It brings back memories of that yellow paneled and green carpeted playroom I spent my childhood in.

Green and yellow. A perfect color combo.

*Fancy new word I learned from endless hours of shopping for open shelves on Craigslist.

The Royal Shower

In the two weeks since I last posted, we have done more unpacking, but sadly there are still so many boxes left to go. The good news though is our first major project in the house is done.

This house has many really great features such as a very good floor plan, large bedrooms and ginormous closets. It also has some pretty bad design choices such as putting granite counter tops in the kitchen with vinyl flooring. Seriously?!

Another questionable decision was in the master bath. It is very large with lots of natural light, an eight foot long vanity and a large linen closet - all good. Now for the bad - a two foot by two foot prefab shower. And when I say it is four square feet, that is the outside dimension. The space where you actually do your showering was even tinier. There was also a small garden tub that had a bad case of the uglies and that vinyl floor I mentioned in the kitchen? It was in the bathroom too. Yay!

 

I took videos of the house for Yankee when I looked at it the first time. I just watched the one from the bathroom, and the first comments I made was "that shower has got to go." I am happy to say it is gone and has been been replaced by a beautiful, roomy tile shower.

Because I have not taken a bath since I was nine years old (sitting in bathwater grosses me out), I see a bathtub as a floor space hog that must be kept clean, so I had my contractor, Jack Misnick, rip that baby out and make us a nice big shower. He and his people build me the most fabulous shower I have ever set foot in. Okay, I may be a little biased, but it is pretty great.

One of my favorite parts of the shower - the floor - almost did not happen. Well of course there was always going to be a floor since I have not mastered the art of showering whilst floating, but the floor was not going to look like it does now. I was determined to have marble tile on the floor, and I am sure that would have been beautiful, but it was soooo expensive.  Thankfully Krysta at Florida Tile came to the rescue and picked out the tile I have now. There is some marble in there along with blue, green and grey glass. It was a third of the cost, and I believe way more interesting than a plan marble floor would be. 

I had a pretty great shower in my Georgia house. It was one of those things about that house that I did not realize how nice it was until I moved to the rental. The rental shower had nice tile work, but it had a prefab pan for the floor that I really hated and the worse part was that it had no shaving ledge. I used one of those little plastic step stools which I was really happy to toss when we moved out. My new shower has a marble ledge that fits my entire foot, so I can shave away. 

Stepping into this tile and glass masterpiece is like stepping out of my real life and into some luxurious world that I am normally not part of. Sure I may have just come in from pulling weeds or scrubbing toilets, but while I am in this shower I feel like I am the Queen of Northwest Cary.

Painter's Block

When we bought our first house, we were coming from living in those bastions of  builder's beige walls - apartments and military housing. I could hardly wait to put color onto my new walls. I had  the paint picked out before we even moved in. I painted our dining room midnight blue, the living room forest green, and our bedroom burgundy. Trust me, in the early nineties this was the palette.

We moved to our second house in 1999, and I took a break from all that partying to paint my foyer eggplant and my dining room chili pepper. The family room was spring green and the sunroom had yellow walls and a blue ceiling. There was not a wall in that house that I did not make colorful. I was very sad to paint everything the same color when we put it up for sale.

We closed on our new house last Monday. One of things I so looked forward to about moving out of the rental was getting away from the taupe that covers every single wall. The New House has off white walls which is a nice, blank canvas to work with.

Here is the surprising thing - I just cannot get started. I have taken a tree's worth of paint samples from Lowe's and Home Depot. They are taped all over the house, but I have not been able to make a decision. I have owned this house for a week now and have not bought a single gallon of paint.

I clearly have painter's block. As a writer, I know how hard writer's block is to overcome. The only real cure for it is to write which does not really make sense, but it does work. I just sit down and start typing out anything that comes to mind. I often have to resort to writing blah, blah, blah when I am really stuck. Then I come back to that part later and replace the blahs with real words.

I think this what I am going to have to do in the new house. I want to paint my sewing room first because I am very anxious to get it set up, but since I cannot choose between the multitude of color samples taped on the wall, I am going to pick out a nice creamy white and just paint. If you know me, you know how bizarre this is. I have never willingly painted a wall white in my life, but I am pretty sure it is the only way to get my color flow back. The white will be my painter's version of blah, blah, blah. Hopefully I will be able to come back later with a real color.

A Great Real Estate Day

One of the main reasons I decided to be a REALTOR is my love of houses and design. My guess is that the majority of people who make a career out of selling residential real estate feel the same way, but when we get into the business we quickly find out our business really has very little to do with houses and a whole lot to do with people.

The part that has to do with houses is mostly related to our clients, so we see the houses our clients see. According to The Triangle Business Journal, the current median sales price of a home in the Triangle is $231,00. This means most of the homes REALTORS are touring within a range of that price. These are good houses for people to make their homes in, but they are not the million dollar homes you find in magazines. Just like most people, we in the industry rarely have a reason to go inside one of those homes.

That is why when one of our agents had a broker's open house yesterday for her 1.8 million dollar listing, I was one of the first ones at the door. I expected spectacular, and I was not disappointed. This was absolutely one of those houses that could be in a magazine.

The overall look of the house was impressive, but as someone in the business, it was the details that blew me away. They are way to many to list, but I did take a picture of the home theater that I think really shows off the attention to details.

 It is designed to look like the inside of a theater, and the riser even have small lights in them just like in a movie theater. Of course the seats are way more comfy than any movie theater I've ever been to. And this is just a basement room, so you can just imagine how grand the rest of the house is.

Getting to see the inside of an incredible home like this made it a great real estate day for me. If you would like to see it, AND you are pre-qualified to purchase a 1.8 million dollar home send me an email, and I will set you up. 

She's Got That Sparkling Personality

The perfect house we are buying is, like all houses, not quite perfect. We did just what I advise my clients do when choosing a new home - separate things that cannot be changed  or would be prohibitively expensive to do so like location and major structural and/or renovation changes, from things that are easier and relatively inexpensive like minor updating such as painting and new flooring. Buy according to the first list not the second.

The perfect things about the house are its location, floor plan, and condition. The not so perfect thing is that some parts of this house were finished to builder's minimums. Although the kitchen has granite countertops the floor is vinyl. The master bath is huge with an eight foot vanity, a water closet with a window (goodbye claustrophobia), and even a large linen closet which is a great.  The not so great features are the same not-so-lovely vinyl floor, a 24" X 24" prefab shower and one of the ugliest prefab tubs I have ever seen.

To be fair, I am slightly prejudice against bathtubs. I have not used one since I was ten years old, so I  see them as space wasters and dust collectors. I want to pull both the shower and tub out and have a nice, big tile shower built plus replace the vinyl floor with tile. The hall bath has a plastic surround that College Girl hates, so we are going to have it tiled and have the kitchen floor tiled as well.

I am pretty good with design, but I needed to pick out about seven different tiles, so I made an appointment with Krysta at Florida Tile in Morrisville. She was a huge help - particularly with keeping me on budget. Yankee says whatever is the most expensive; that is what I'm going to pick out. I like to tell him - I only want the best Baby, that's why I picked you.

Anyway, Krysta and I got the bathrooms picked out but were having a really hard time finding something I liked for the kitchen floor until she pulled a piece out from the back. I liked it the minute she showed it to me, but as I studied it, I noticed something a little different about it that I did not notice at first.

Me - Are those tiny little sparkles?

Krysta - We call those flecks. It's meant to be like natural quartz.

Me - Flecks. Sparkles Whatever. I want it!

A few of my sparkliest items. I've worn the silver shoes maybe three times. I actually carry the purse almost daily because silver sparkles brighten any outfit. As for the gold shoes - what can I say? The caught my eye on the clearance rack at Target a few years ago. I have never worn them outside of the house, but every once in a while I do like to try them on.

I realized I had an obsession with sparkles when I first started working and was going through my wardrobe looking for appropriate work clothes. What I found were the things I wear all the time - jeans, cardigans and tee shirts - and an inordinate amount of sparkly clothing that I almost never wear, mostly because I have no place to wear sparkles. At this point, I had to admit to myself that I am much girlier than I ever thought. Until now, I have been able to hide this part of myself, but in a few short weeks my secret obsession with sparkles is going to be laid out on my kitchen floor for all to see.