Olive and Love Home Tour
Welcome to Our Home
My house is always a work in progress. I seem to love controlled change in the form of moving furniture, a LOT. A couple months ago you could have found me wedged with a couch in the hallway while Dan was at work. (And yes it remained stuck there till he came home).
Our house has a very open floor plan. I blocked one opening to my dining room from my entry way with reclaimed windows and a buffet cabinet. The refinished bench is the spot that gathers the coats and bags when people come to visit. I’d love some sort of artsy fartsy coat rack on the wall pillar to the left of the bench….someday.
Closing this opening has helped to provide a better sense of an entry area. The windows help make it cozy with out closing it off too much.
Here is my shutter wall room, I mean….the dining room. Country Living Magazine loved it so much they put it in the April 2012 edition.
My 12 foot dining table is an old conference table from UNR and my turquoise Eames chairs I found on E-Bay. I have since added a ten foot church pew from Red Chair that I am currently recovering. My next purchase for this room will be jute carpet tiles from FLOR.
Across from our front door is our living room where I have another console table and plant blocking one of the three openings.
Our entry way has a curved wall. What does one hang on a curved wall? Chairs.
My living room, or “the blue room” as we call it is probably my favorite room in the house. I love my couch because my husband and I can sit next to each other when we watch television, but it’s large enough to host a group. The ottoman was a coffee table that I covered in fabric and foam.
To the left of the television you can see a round wall where I have my Sierra Nevada map. The china hutch displays my glass bottles and was a thrift store find. And you can see a peak of my upcycled lamp.
My up cycled lamp is either awesome or ugly. It depends on who you ask. But who could live with out that fun Anthropologie lampshade?
The master bedroom was probably the most neglected room for the longest time in our house. It seemed to collect old furniture and cast offs we didn’t really care about anymore. Finally inspiration hit and we installed a ceiling mounted canopy for our bed and tree branch curtain rods. Our nightstands are thrifted finds. The one on the right is a small buffet. Read more about our bedroom here.
The curtain hanging behind the chairs hides an area where I store a treadmill that does nothing but collect dust. I like to pretend that I use it.
Our master bath has tile that mimic my childhood 1920′s home. The black wall light above the mirror used to be silver and a bit bronze but we sprayed it black. I want to frame out the mirrors above my sink in two black frames and one thicker green one in the middle.
My shower is behind the white curtains hanging from the hooks on reclaimed wood.
I love my antique green chair (thank you mom). The fabric has seen better days, but I love the color. Behind the chair are nursing photos of me with my three children. The metal leaf garlands are from West Elm on clearance.
I love my Epsom Salt baths super hot with a good book. I swear they are the cure-all.
I’d love to bring the subway tile up the wall all around the bathroom to chair height. I’m still not sure about wall color. Perhaps after the tile I will decide. The ladder above my bathtub holds my plants. You can also see my up cycled wall mounted candle holder.
Double doors open up to my office from the entry way. My desk is a dining table from a local thrift store. It was love at first site. I think I’m going to make an angled bench out of the matching chairs. My plan is to sand it, leaving the nooks and crannies dark and cover the top with a piece of glass. You can see I have four Bedford filing cabinets in a row (from PB) with an Ikea bookshelf (legs unscrewed) on top. I forgot the name of this shelf from Ikea, but it is the same one that used to be the color coordinated library bookshelf in my family room. I don’t believe it is still available at Ikea. In the shelves I have baskets with projects, white notebooks with hundreds of pages from magazines, and green magazine files from Ikea to store paper, directories, art books and other items. My big giant ugly lamp is covered in chalkboard paint and I’ll have more details on that soon.
The desk is a bit high for my giant green yoga ball that I used to sit on, so I had to design my own yoga ball chair which is working out great.
My 72 drawer card catalog is perhaps one of my favorite furniture evolution projects of all times. It stores a lot of art and office supplies.
Down the hall from the entry and dining room you can see all our framed family photos. We have a completely random selection of frames and they are hung with out rhyme or reason.
My kitchen lights are three upside down lamps that Dan and I rewired together with pendant lights from Home Depot. Our bottle opener on the island is from Virginia City, and you better believe I save every one of those perfect bottle tops (in the jar on top of my card catalog).
The kitchen stools are lab stools originally from UNR. I bought them from Tessa at The Nest.
The flowers in vase artwork you see in my kitchen was our home version of the school auction project in 2010. There are five Ds, one for each of us.
Our ’round room’ is where we dine for most of our meals. The chairs match my office desk that I picked up at the thrift store, the table was from craigslist and the round floor rug is an indoor outdoor rug so I can take it outside to hose down if needed.
The signs are from WWII, bought off e-bay about ten years ago. They’ve been sitting in a file folder until like last year when I decided to start saving my Michael’s coupons for the frames. They are all double sided and we switch them around now and then.
This green table is has been recently up cycled (more later) and rolls around to be used for game night when sitting on the couch. I have four of those black vinyl chairs that I inherited from my grandma. You can see a peak of Charlotte and Gabrielle’s cage here on the right (guinea pigs).
My family room has had the latest update. This couch is kind of like legos for Mommies. I can re arrange it forever…
The former green walls have been repainted yellow with a dark green ceiling. The curtains are my favorite and are from Anthropologie. The carpet is a piece of cut shag carpet that was bound on the edges. My mid-century modern console under the television is one of my all time favorite pieces.
My fireplace is glossy grey (formerly the same Okra color as the ceiling). The kids seem to bounce around in this room a lot so I have to watch the amount of nik naks and breakables.
My oldest son has my dream green bed, an Ikea shelf turned on it’s side and his own Eric Carle inspired artwork.
His closet has a loft. Someday it’ll have a proper ladder too ;-)
He picked the color himself. I love it. He goes up there to play games and legos.
His desk is from Pottery Barn and the awesome nature display cubby was from Red Chair. Read more about his room here.
My younger son’s room has a monkey on the wall and a train shelf. YES, a train shelf meaning there is a train that goes around the top of the room, into the closet, out into the hallway office and back into the bedroom. Someday I will blog more about this most awesomest project installed by Dan.
Read more about his room here.
Zebra’s room is fun and cheary. Her curtains were made from multiple skirts tiered together. I store her dress up wings on the back of her desk chair.
The drawers under her bed provide convenient toy storage that can be wheeled where needed.
The hallway office niche is perfect for the kids to do art projects and work on the computer. The walls I “wall papered” with maps make it a playful environment.
I removed two doors on one of the cabinets above the desk area for my books since I moved my color coordinated bookshelf to my office. I’m also working on a collection of globes. I plan to paint this area yellow. But at the rate I change my mind on paint colors, there’s no telling what color it will turn out to be.
The guest room holds the furniture we bought for our master about six years ago. The night stands (clean ace at PB) both match and the cal king iron bed is from Macy’s. The shutters were a gift from a friend and used to be the only headboard for a queen bed.
The yellow door I found at Habitat for Humanity.
The white mirrors attached to the side of the armoir were blue and from Ikea. I painted them and added wood decorative elements that I painted with metal paint.
I think that about rounds up the home tour today. Check back frequently because you know it’s gonna change!
