House Tour - Kitchen, Bathroom & Master Bedroom

Did you look into the kitchen in the last post? I told you to save that so-sweet-it's-sour eye candy for a dedicated post and here it is. Behold the kitchen in all it's pink glory!

The kitchen cabinets were a wedding gift to my grandma from her mother.

I'm not sure why the oven is open and the light is on...

Before these appliances, there were avocado green ones but I'm not sure what was there before that.

There was a stainless steel sink before this one. More Precious Moments on the shelves here. The door on the left leads to the back yard.

The lower cabinets have pull-out slider shelves. Very ahead of the times! The narrow cabinet on the right has a slide-out towel bar.

Grandma intentionally had the soffit made shorter than the cabinets. She definitely had a vision. She used an old wooden cream cheese box like the one below and covered it with wallpaper to use as a built-in planter.
This room was rewallpapered on 10/27/1978 with the paper you see here. Before this was a geometric 3D square patterned paper. 

She's a fan of Raggedy Ann and Andy and this is just where SOME of the collection lives.

This side of the kitchen next to the fridge has more slide out lower cabinets. The center cabinet has a shelf that swings out and up & locks at counter height which holds the mixer. I forgot to take a photo of the insides of the lower cabinets. 

She has an interesting way of storing her dishware. but she doesn't use it much so it's not inconvenient to keep it this way.

Some more Raggedy Ann stuff and her handpainted eggs. She did a lot of ceramic work and was very skilled with a paintbrush.

She had always wanted a range hood but grandpa installed this exhaust fan instead. She hates it. She kept the circular cutout from this fan which is what I scanned to to make the background of this blog so look to the left or right to see the countertop and backsplash detail. The door on the right of the fridge leads to the basement.

The floor is standard linoleum floor tiles and the star was custom inlaid from larger pieces of the same kind of tiles.

Now we can head back down the hallway and check out the bathroom.

While I'm not fond of the colors in here, I do love this bathroom. I think the tub is so cool and the room is large for a 50s bathroom. 

Two of the things I hate most about this room are the lighting and the mirror but the mirror is probably what makes the room feel so much more spacious. I hate fluorescent lighting with a passion along with the weird floating soffit that contains the light.  

The built in linen storage is great. The bottom cabinet has a laundry chute on one side.

Now the last room on this floor, the master bedroom.

SO...MUCH...PINK.

The Case between the door and the closet is Grandma's dollhouse. She made it in the 70s. I'll post pictures of that someday.

Hope you enjoyed the first floor phase of the house tour! I still have to take photos of the basement where grandma lives now and the second floor bedroom and attic space which is currently a mess.

House Tour

I decided to take photos of the house as Grandma has it right now. These will be both nostalgic photos of my grandmother's house that I can look back on but also as "before" photos for the changes I plan to make. The house has always been a labor of love for her. She definitely has her own (pink) style that may not be everyone'c cup of tea, but like it or not you have to admit that it certainly is impressive.

My grandparents designed the house themselves and my grandfather did most of the construction as well. Grandma tells me that when they brought the designs to the architect, the only mistake on the plans was one extra tread on the staircase! Pretty good for a 30 year old cop and a 27 year old housewife with a part time job.

I'm going to spread the tour over several posts because there's a lot to take in. Eventually I'd like to do a sort of "Room-By-Room Timeline" for each space. Kind of like a visual history to show where things started and how they've progressed and got to the way they are now.

On with the tour! Today I'll cover the Exterior, so you know what the house looks like. Don't forget to click the photos to enlarge them.

Exterior

This first set of images is from Google Maps Street View which explains anything that may look funky or blurred out.

These are photos I took recently which show off the front a bit better because it's winter and the tree is leafless.

The bay window supports belonged to a neighbor who was getting rid of all their wrought iron porch elements.

The column on the porch was also from the  neighbor who was getting rid of their wrought iron porch railings. Grandma hand-painted the rose details. White Frame, Pink Roses, Green Leaves, Brown Branches

Grandma made the shutters on the front windows. The man and woman silhouettes are on the master bedroom window and the girl and boy are on the upstairs bedroom window.. 

The railing on the front stairs is also from the neighbor.

The back yard and patio.

Right now everything's packed up for the winter.

This is the "other side" of the stair railing from the neighbor. One side was used on the front stairs, the other on the back stairs.

This is the greenhouse. My grandfather had a vegetable garden. in the back next to the garage. There were alwyas lots of pink and red geraniums around.  

Can you tell my grandma has a thing for pink? I'll keep adding to this post as I come across more photos of the exterior.