Name: Ethan
Location: Corpus Christi, Texas
Our house is a 1955 tract home that is fortunately neutral enough to fit our modern tastes and vintage purchases along with contemporary, affordable goods from mainstays like IKEA, DWR, and Crate & Barrel, along with a few home-made pieces as well. The home had only two owners before us, and the second inherited it from the first, remodeling and removing carpet that fortunately for us had covered gorgeous hardwood floors for 40 years.
Upon moving home to Texas after living in Los Angeles, where we acquired a taste for midcentury modern, we began purchasing what we could afford from a local dealer who scoured all over south Texas. These include a Saarinen armchair for $75 dollars (still with an IBM label on the bottom) a Peter Hvidt daybed, and six matching yellow Eames shells that spent the previous 35 years in a local Statefarm insurance office. Like most people forced to be on a budget, we've had to bide our time in order to get lucky (our living room includes a folded plastic lamp I found on the side of Fairfax Avenue in LA) and figure out how to fit in what might not seem obvious additions (like the Ethan Allen mirror from my parents' old bedroom set that enlarges our living/dining room.
So far, the highpoint of our self-renovations was tiling the kitchen floor with large gray tiles evocative of concrete, as well as white subway backsplashes. Most recently, I built two plywood nightstands based on my own "re-design" of those DWR sells to go along with their Case Study daybeds. Their cost: $500 each. My cost: less than $200 for both.
We've creatively used paint for a more modern look, in particular a stripe design for the entryway we presciently painted before finding a Flor carpet that almost matches at Target. In order to add some visual interest to our big green living room wall, hung panel curtains from Ikea next to a yardsale art-find: a large print of a logo for the 1972 Munich Olympics designed by Vasarely. We also installed a concrete block patio in the backyard to create an outdoor room, and arranged the blocks in a pattern to evoke the 1950s concrete/stone on the front of the house.
With 3 growing kids, we will probably have to upgrade to a bigger house soon, but we dread leaving this place that we have made so much our own.
Thanks, Ethan!
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While the home's style isn't really my thing, I love that it looks real. This is a house that a family lives in -- a family on a budget, a family with busy lives.
I'm not sure why this house is resonating with me so much; I'm a grad student living in a studio in Boston, I don't have kids, and the "oooh shiny!" factor for me is usually "oh my goodness, that space is almost as tiny as mine! But look how awesome it looks!"
I like that this house is on AT today -- I like that it's not a perfect sanctuary of zen, unhappy hipsters, and clutterless bliss shot with a really fancy wide-angle lens with lots of vignettes. I like that the furniture is MCM like so many AT homes, but that it just looks so lived in, normal, comfortable, unpretentious. I like that not all of the houses on AT that involve a reasonable budget aren't just grad students.
I really like this tour.
We have similar styles - the mix of ikea, dwr, c&b and vintage finds. I especially love your living room. Very calming.
I love this! Affordable, durable, liveable with kids....yet beautifully designed.
The color palette is soothing too. Nice job.
You have a great home - You should be proud of yourselves.
And just because you have 3 kids doesn't mean you need to move up to a 4 bedroom house - Lots of families have done just fine in smaller homes, and kids don't really benefit from the additional space (or expense)
love the striped hall. a lot. so sweet!
I like what you've done to the house indeed, it's very nice and in many ways, similar to mine but less vibrant in color since you went with more muted color pallets outside of the bright yellow chairs.
I agree with bepsf, with 3 kids one does not necessarily need to get a larger home, unless you need a family room or some such and can't add on for some reason.
I grew up in a 2000Sq Ft split entry home from the 60's being the youngest in a family of 4 siblings and both parents, we managed just fine and my sisters were Jr/Sr high aged, me in grade school and our friends hung out all the time there - and we had at least 2 dogs and a cat most of the time.
posts like this remind me why i keep reading a.t.
love your diy spirit, and the final result! and your daughter's cute!
i love the emac!!!
Love it. Like twitteringbird said, I love the "normal" feel with a sense of style and thoughtfulness. And if you could tell me the source for that kitchen table, I'd be thrilled.
I'm not sure how many bedrooms you have (I know you generally do need more than one for the kiddies if they're not all same gender), but as I'm getting ready to usher my teens out into the world and finish up the parenting years, I'm so happy we stayed in a small house. Better relationships all around, less to clean, less stuff accumulated, lots of money saved. And with an adorable house like yours, I'd never want to leave!
I love your place! Great job. It's inspiring to see a home with little ones in it. We can relate! I would love to know where your kitchen table is from as well. I love that it has sturdy legs and has a minimal footprint in the room.
wow, you made the bedside tables? Good job!
Lovely home, and daughter and doggy are both adorable.
Thanks for all the compliments, everyone! I especially appreciate the suggestions that we don't need another bedroom. That's certainly the economic choice to make. @suzee unfortunately the kitchen table came from our vintage source, who had the tabletop made for a random base he found and had painted white. So I can offer no help, except to say that if you find a base that you like, consider having a top made and getting it painted. I think we paid $200 for it, so he couldn't have had much in it. @lesova the secret for making the bedside tables is that I did away with the drawer and made a single opening on the side. this actually is really useful, allowing the easy stacking of books and magazines while lying in bed! i actually posted some more about building it on my (seldom updated) blog here: http://swigzine.blogspot.com/2010/06/dos-modos-bedroom-side-table-project.html.
please keep the kids out of house tours!
this is house tour...not a photo album!
You obviously don't have kids and know nothing about them if you think I intentionally included her in these photos. Your other comments show you are a bitter and unpleasant person. Next time, just keep your obnoxious comments to yourself. I'm sure the other readers and contributors will appreciate it.