Thursday, June 28, 2012

Beloved Vintage 1970s Dream Home, Part Two

Many thanks to my yaysayers and my naysayers who commented on my post about my vintage 1970s dream home. (Click that link to catch up on my ill-advised, unrequited crush on this house.) I'm back today with the more of the pictures and info. (See Part One here, Part Three here, Part Four here)

I should probably tell you that the MLS# of this home is 1092769 and it is listed by Jacob Howell of Century 21 N&N Realtors. But don't go running out and stealing it out from under me! Jacob told us the home was built in 1977 by a custom homebuilder for his wife. She designed the layout and gave mucho design input. Something tells me the "exercise room" (sauna, tub, etc.) may have been his domain.




Okay, you'll recall that when you approach the home you're greeted by this amazing automatic wrought iron gate that says, "You're not allowed to come in here and steal my furniture, but you wouldn't want to anyway, because I don't have any, because I spent all my money on this house."

Before you enter the gate there is a large, level asphalt area with a basketball standard and parking for a few cars.


Proceeding up the drive you first see the east side of the house, which has a covered patio reminiscent of the north facade of the White House. Those french doors lead to the living room. More ironwork. Lots, lots more! And that's just the start of it.


Next you proceed past the south side of the house, which features a portico over the main entry. Waaaaaaaait a minute! Where have I seen this before? Sensing a theme? The bay window on the right is in the living room, and the window on the left is in this room that I'm not sure whether it's a library or a formal dining room, or in my world...BOTH.


"Why yes! I DO have a lion on my porch! How kind of you to notice! No, no, no, no, no...not at all ostentatious!" Incidentally, my current front door is of the exact same style as these front doors (though single, rather than double). Coincidence? Or fate??? I say exact, but I mean in shape and style. These doors hold a special surprise you'll see when we reach the entry hall.



Arriving at the top of the driveway you can pull into the double garage, or just under the double (possibly triple?) carport. The door you see to the right enters into a small vestibule off the kitchen/family/informal dining area. There is also a large additional room behind the garage for wood storage and a workshop. Or for hoarding vintage furniture. Whatevs.

See that railing to the left? Go ahead and walk over there.



Boom! Sorry it's blurry, but that's the western view from the property. Oh, the sunsets I could watch from here! Let's make a quarter turn and look southward.



BOOM! Hello, entire valley. Hello, mountains. This is also the view from the living room, formal dining/library, and semi-formal dining room windows. Yum.

Okay, for good measure let's make another quarter turn to take in the view east.



It's about a half-mile walk up into the mountains. And what's that building on the right? We'll cover that later.

Moving on, we'll head into the house. We're family, right, so we can enter through the kitchen door rather than through the fancy double front doors. Like I said before, we enter into a little vestibule with a coat closet and bench. A mini-mudroom, if you will. Not pictured.


To our left is this family room, with a fireplace and french doors (more ironwork) that lead to a covered patio in the backyard. I hope that tangled, corded phone is included. What a treasure. You'll also note our first of many sets of extravagant draperies. This is the casual part of the house, so these are casual draperies.


Closeup of the fireplace (one of six in the home). Sign me up for the hot pink cinder sweeper!


Okay, here we have the kitchen, which is on the right as you come in through the vestibule. You can see the coat closet door and the knob of the exterior door. The cut-out above the dishwasher looks into the family room. Is that a....microwave??!? Cutting edge circa 1977? And a very complicated-looking wall oven with lots of instructions? And a brown dishwasher? But wait, there's more.


Flat range with two burners that seem to be more popular than the others, brown trash compactor, and then there is, of course, the special cabinets and cabinet hardware. 


Bar and semi-formal dining area as seen from the middle of the kitchen, Where is the fridge, you might be wondering?


Fridge-ezzzz, I think you mean! Two side-by-sides sit side by side on the wall opposite the sink. #AstronomicalRenovationApplianceBudget.

A door can close off this informal wing from the rest of the house. If we proceed through that door and into the hall, the first room on our right is the dining room-slash-library.


I wish I had a better shot of this room. It's long and narrow and is lined on both long sides with identical banks of room-length, floor-to-ceiling built-in cabinets. SERIOUS amounts of cabinetry. Up there in the upper-right of the photo you can see a bit of the chandelier.


There are at least ten chandeliers in the upstairs of the home. Most of them are big like this one, with a few smaller ones thrown in for good measure. Oh yes, you can bet I'd find a way to work with them!

Across the hall from the dining room is one of my favorite rooms in the house.


The laundry room! I wish this photo were better, because it is more PINK in person. PINK. PIIIIIIIIINK! Wallpaper = Keep. It's a fairly spacious room with more cabinets, a counter, and a sink on another wall.


Next on that side of the hall is this pink room. Not the same kind of pink as the laundry room. In other words, not the good pink. Though it really wasn't as dusty pink as it looks in this picture. But yes, very pink. Carpet, wallpaper, drapes, chandelier. Could be kinda sweet, though.


Hall bath with harvest gold sink, bathtub, and, yes, toilet. My world, my question: If I had a yellow toilet, how would I know when someone...was letting it mellow...so to speak!? Very concerning. I live with a bunch of boys, you know! The little ones try hard and usually remember to flush, but the big one...

Okay, this post is getting epically long already, and we still have so much more to see. So many more drapes. Sooooooooo many more. The royal purple carpet. The paneling. The paneling. The paneling. The other five fireplaces. The sauna. The lot. The orchard.

I think we better save some for tomorrow!

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What's your favorite pic/part from today's post? I think my favorite was when it dawned on me that this house was trying to be the White House. But if I lived there, my favorite part would be the laundry room wallpaper. PINK!

16 comments:

  1. LOVE it! I totally think you should buy it!

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    1. OK!!! Let's you and me convince the bank!!!

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  2. Lisa, you are hilarious and a seriously descriptive and wonderful writer, but I always knew that! I guess I have to go for the floor to ceiling cabinets - one can never have too much storage. I will be interested to see what happens. Love you always, Grandom

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    1. Your compliments are so sweet, Grandmom. I'm not sure if my overuse of exclamation points adds up to being a wonderful writer, but if you say so, I'll go with it!

      If your favorite is the cabinets, you'll be glad to know there are lots more cabinets to come.

      I don't think anything will happen, but it's fun to look around!

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  3. Love the cabinetry in the dining library. And like you, I would probably use it for both!

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    1. It's hard for me to even explain how excited I was at the prospect of having a library. Probably the only way is by using a zillion exclamation points.

      !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  4. Wow! You are right about the laundry room being PINK. Like, seizure-inducing. I must say, though, that I could totally go for a dining library. A room that brings together two of my favorite things: FOOD and BOOKS!!!

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    1. On my monitor it's showing more orange, so I'm glad you could have a seizure induced by its true pinkness.

      Yes, FOOD + BOOKS = Dining Library = Best Ever.

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  5. I love the Dos Fridgerinos! Also how they are way far from the other stuff making food preparation so nice and convenient! I guess it would be good if one needed to go on a diet because the extra trip to the fridge would probably convince me to just not eat. Can't wait to see the paneling, as ours had some horrible, I mean lovely stuff when we moved in.

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    1. Paneling, paneling, paneling! So much paneling to come. I didn't see much of your house in its "before" state. Did you paint directly over the paneling, or did you putty and sand all the lines before painting, or did you cover it with new sheetrock, or did you tear it out and start over? I'm curious. Planning ahead to when I renovate this dream house ;)

      Also, I thought the kitchen picture might throw someone off. I think it's just the angle that makes the fridges look like they are not lined up with the kitchen, but actually it's a regular U-shaped kitchen, then the fridges are directly opposite the sink. The other, I guess, is sort of at the end of the bar. Anyway, they technically are "in" the kitchen.

      But how much food does one house need? Just wait till you see the food storage room!

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    2. We tore the paneling off and Jesse did texture painting (I'm sure there is a more technical word for this) on the wall after puttying up the holes that resulted. I was sooo nervous about doing this but it turned out great. I talked to a realtor about our basement apartment and he said painting right over the paneling can look quite nice if you do it right. Just read the next installment and my excitment for this house dimmed quite a bit at the idea of little boys sleeping by hot stoves. :( But keep on dreaming and showing girl, love to see what is next.

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    3. I've see painted paneling look good. In a basement I would think that would be fine. The bloggers at Young House Love did it in their kitchen. You can see it in their house tour at http://www.younghouselove.com/photo-gallery-2/our-current-house/

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  6. aw I love it! I was hoping you guys would truly buy it! that would be awesome!!! happy house hunting!! :)

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  7. I need a new home security system. I'm running myself through all possible scenarios that could happen to me. If my system is on and I lock myself out, could a locksmith be able to override my alarm locks?

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