Take Notes: This 1930s Tudor-Style Home Has the Coziest Living Room
Name: Brooke Bundy, husband, and three kids
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Type of home: House
Size: 1700 square feet
Years lived in: 3 years, owned
Tell us a little (or a lot) about your home and the people who live there: My home is a 1930s Tudor-style house in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that I share with my husband and our three kids. The house needed a lot of work when we bought it but as soon as I walked in I felt at home. I love the creaky floors and the glass door knobs and the radiators. I would love to have a real laundry room and a master bedroom with an ensuite, but the nostalgia I feel from all the character of an old house is worth the sacrifices you have to make to live in one. I have always loved old things and old places, so I really enjoy living here.
Describe your home’s style in 5 words or less: This is so hard! Lets go with slightly Southern eclectic transitional.
What is your favorite room and why? The main floor bathroom, because it is the room that came out looking the most like I had originally envisioned. I absolutely love how the whole house came together, but because of budget I had to keep changing a lot of my plans in other rooms during the remodel. Luckily in the bathroom I had put together a design from the beginning that used very affordable finishes that also make a major impact. I just love the drama of the black ceiling with the heavy crown moulding combined with the black floor, and how the black grout on the subway tile walls connect the two.
If you could magically change something about your home, what would it be? The basement would be finished. That’s probably a really boring answer but it’s a project that we don’t plan to tackle and every day I think about how nice the extra space would be. Also, I would magically make a third bathroom appear somewhere.
What’s the last thing you bought (or found!) for your home? The last significant thing that I’ve bought for my home was a wooden sculpture that I found while my husband and I were on a trip to San Francisco. I had it stuffed into my carry-on for the flight home and TSA sent my bag back and forth through the X-ray like eight times, then searched my bag while my husband kept sighing and giving me side eye. But I think a little extra time getting through security is a small price to pay to bring home something awesome from a trip!
Which fictional character would be most at home in your place? Belle from “Beauty and the Beast.” I have plenty of books that she could read in front of the french-style windows in the living room.
Any advice for creating a home you love? Gather up every single thing that is meaningful to you, whether that is mementos, souvenirs, or things passed down from family members, and then get creative with displaying them everywhere. I love the decor that I have purchased over the years, but what I love the most is seeing things like a piece of my wedding dress framed in the living room, beads my kids made out of salt dough hanging on our dining room wall, and a palm frond from my home state of Florida standing in a corner of my bedroom. Those are the kinds of things that really make it feel like home.
Of course there are always those things that I really want to keep because they mean a lot, but they just aren’t pretty enough to display. In that case, I buy a really beautiful container or box to keep them in and display that—that way the things inside are easily accessible and I can still look at them whenever I want to. I have a really pretty geode-topped box on my dresser with the most random things inside—one being my dad’s old Blockbuster card from 1996!
Thanks Brooke! See more on Brooke’s interior design website.
This submission’s responses have been edited for length and clarity.
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