Friday, June 29, 2012

Beloved Vintage 1970s Dream Home: The Master Suite, Living Room, and Basement

Part three of my beloved 1970s Dream Home (part one herepart two here, part four here). Let's do this. We were last walking down the hall, and now we've passed the laundry, dining library, hall bath, girl bedroom, and also a linen closet that is not pictured. Next we arrive at the master suite. For the king and QUEEN of the castle.


I'm not sure how the colors read on your monitor. On mine they look silver and pink, but in reality the color scheme was more peach and blue. That blue tone-on-tone damask wallpaper? We're gonna see a lot of it. The master bath has a bathtub and separate shower, a vanity, and I'm assuming it also had a toilet but I don't see it in these pictures and I don't remember where it was.


Carpeted bathroom. Moving on to the master bedroom proper. First we come to the walk-in closet.


Like the dining library, this room is long and narrow. It is lined on both sides with closets. Just imagine a mirror image of this picture on the other side. Like the dining library, the walk-in closet has a huge chandelier. Okay, I think by the looks of it I'm going to stop calling it a walk-in closet and start calling it a dressing room. It doesn't have a door that closes it off from the rest of the room, though. So maybe dressing hall? If you were standing and taking the photo above, you would have your back to a bunch of floor-to-ceiling built-in cabinetry. Doors, drawers, etc. You can see a tiny portion of it in the next picture.


Let it be known that this carpet is MORE PURPLE in real life. And there's our first taste of the wood paneling that will now become ubiquitous throughout the rest of the house. Fireplace #2 makes an appearance.


Another view of the bed, and a conveniently located avocado green telephone. Some of you may know that I am obsessed with tufted velvet headboards.


More built-ins in the master bedroom. More EVERYTHING. More wallpaper, more drapes, more purple carpet. MORE! While I know books would look great in those glass-front cabinets, personally I'd fill them with rows and rows of gorgeous shoes.

Switching gears, let's pretend we're guests and enter through the front door. I said they had a surprise, right?


Stained glass! (Not two creepy eyes. though that's kinda what they look like in this picture.)



As you come in the front door there is a coat closet to your left in a little entry area, a biiiiiiig coat closet in perpendicular to you in a hall that leads to the main hall of the home, and there is also the fancy staircase that leads downstairs. I wish I had rung that fancy doorbell. I love a good doorbell chime!


One thing you can kind of see in this picture, and hopefully a little better in the next one, is the crown molding. It's a chunky, thick (maybe 7" tall by x 5" deep from the wall?) curved convex molding with an egg-and-dart detail. Kind of like this one. It is lovely. It's used throughout the entry, living room, and master bedroom, though I don't think it's shown to best effect by the dark wood paneling that often abuts it, such as in our next stop, the living room, which is on your right as you come in through the front doors..


For having such lovely molding, it's a shame there are no baseboards! The carpet runs up the walls instead. Above you see fireplace #3, another grand chandelier, some heavy drapes, and blue wall-to-wall in the cavernous living room. The drapes shown above cover one set of the french doors onto the east covered patio.


These drapes cover the huge south-facing bay window. There are sheer drapes against the glass, then the thicker drapes across the bump-out, so you could walk in and stand in a little room surrounded by curtains. My usual m.o. with curtains is to never have any because I can never decide/afford what I want. But after all, "Curtains!?! Who needs curtains!?!" That was for you, Alice and Emily :)

The staircase is quite wide and grand. Of course, it goes downstairs rather than up, so it's not really all that grand. At the bottom of the staircase is another odd feature. When you reach the bottom of the grand staircase, to your right is this:


Now, for some reason I don't recall this being closed off by a door of its own, but it must have been, right? The realtor said the family referred to it as "the vault". It's a concrete room under the front porch and portico. Most people use this type of space as a cold storage room, but there's actually another cold storage room in the house that we'll see soon. This concrete room is a big old question mark. but I have plans. Oh yes, I have plans.


On the other side of the staircase a short hall leads to this gigantic family room space. It's divided into two rooms by a huge walk-around double fireplace. This side of the room might be for lounging or movies.


This side for games? Again with the built-in storage. There is room in this side of the room for a pool table and a game table.


The double fireplace as seen from the game room side. The back side of the fireplace also features a safe concealed in the brick. You know, where I can keep all my valuables.

Then we have a room you already got to see, but in case this sight wasn't seared into your brain, I'll refresh your memory.


The "exercise room". I'll let you determine what kind of workouts we're talking about.


The bathtub. I didn't mention this before, but the faucet on this bathtub is identical to the one at my current kitchen sink, and the one in my parents' Centerville kitchen sink. ????!!!!???? Sort of like this one, but an older model. Again, my reaction can only be summed up with question marks. ????? Why a kitchen tap in a bathtub?


That's the 3/4 bath that adjoins the tub room. It can also be accessed from the hall. It's hard to read the date on that calendar, but the last times April 1 was on a Monday were in 2002 and 1996. Update: On closer inspection I think it says 1991, which also had a Monday, April 1. I guess someone hasn't worked out for a while!



Attached to that bathroom is an imported Finnish sauna. For some reason I'm remembering it as having two rooms, but I don't know if I'm right on that.



Hmmmm. This large bedroom contains a wood-burning stove. I think I'm beginning to get the idea about heating this huge house in the Cache Valley winters. I pretty much can't get on board with the idea of my boys sleeping in a remote bedroom next to a hot stove. I'll have to think on that.


Also downstairs is this gigantic storage room. But what I'm thinking is, this = theater room and the "vault" = storage room. Good idea?

That concludes the interior portion of the tour. You may be wondering, where are the rest of the bedrooms? But that's it. This 5000 sqft house has only three bedrooms. I mean, I guess someone could sleep in the dining library or the tub room, but as it stands there are really only three bedrooms. See why I said the house is wrong for us in size and function? Twice as big as we need, with half as many bedrooms. One of the whole reasons for moving is to gain another kid bedroom and hopefully a guest bedroom. This huge house has neither, without some creative rearranging or the addition of a second story (don't think I haven't thought about it!).

Okay, despite that leeetle drawback, there are still more things I've yet to show you that go in the plus column. Come back tomorrow for a walk around the grounds!

----

Let's be honest here. Some of you who have been yaysayers, what do you think now that you know the bedroom situation? Anything anyone liked particularly about today's set of pictures? I know the photo doesn't do it justice, but the master closet is quite amazing. Too bad I'd have to give the master bedroom up to one or two of my children so I could sleep in the room with the wood-burning stove. But hey, then I'd be that much closer to the heart-shaped bathtub!

10 comments:

  1. Wow. Wow. WOOOOWWWW!!! I'm speechless. And Lisa, you know that is really saying something.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The house and I will take that as a high compliment!

      Thanks for reading!

      Delete
  2. This place is unbelievable, but fascinating. I'll stay tuned for the next episode. Love, Grandmom

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Grandmom. It's fun to house hunt and just imagine the lives of others, or my life in their houses.

      Delete
  3. Every inch of this place is a project. Perfect nominee for a makeover show. There's got to be a way to use a sledgehammer or put up walls to create a few more bedrooms.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sooooooooo many projects, But you're right. I genuinely do think that red shag carpet room could grab some media/makeover show attention. "World's worst bathroom" and all that.

      Delete
  4. cool, please guidance so that I can create a blog like yours

    ReplyDelete