Our MCM (the Prairie house as we call it), was our dream house. We even considered getting the blueprints from the original owner’s son so we could re-build it when we moved. (But with our mobile lifestyle, there wouldn’t be enough time for that!)

The Story

To recap our MCM story: we purchased it for a STEAL back in the mid-west. (The local real estate office literally didn’t know what a mid-century modern was and just called it a “unique” property. They thought the real selling point was the view of the farm across the street.)

When it was first listed for sale, we immediately ran out of the house and called and emailed the realtor while we were on our way. We knew it was already vacant, so we walked around like creepers peering through the windows.

Not only was the house amazing, it had a special story. It was custom designed by an architect in 1961–who had studied Frank Lloyd Wright style at the same school that Wright went to–for his aunt and uncle. We were only the second owners.

We intended to start restoring it right away, but 6 months after moving in, the job that moved us out there very unexpectedly ended. After 3 years of job struggles in our dream house, we were only able to get small (to us) projects done.

When the Hubs job offer came through from New England, we had ONE MONTH to pack, start and finish projects like replacing laminate flooring, a minor kitchen reno, bathroom reno, and then put it on the market and move.

The MCM Living Room

That fireplace! The brick work was so beautiful. The Hubs’ father even mentioned that the bricks were some special and expensive variety they used to use in Milwaukee.

Then of course, the amazing copper sheets…

The fireplace itself was about 5 feet wide, and there was a nook for firewood to the left.

And the wrap-around floating concrete hearth…

The Dining Room

The movers had already come and packed up most of our stuff by the time I took the listing photos of the dining room, office, and kitchen, so it was prettier with real chairs of course, but you get the idea here:

The MCM Kitchen

The house still had the original wall oven and stove top, and we still used them until our last month in the house. We wanted to replace them individually, but time and money didn’t allow.

So we turned the spot next to the fridge where the wall oven was into another cupboard and put our very nice KitchenAid range (that I miss very much) in.

We purchased the matching dishwasher and fridge when we moved to the area. (In case you’d like to know, we liked the range–though it could have been better, loved the fridge, h-a-t-e-d the dishwasher.)

They all sure looked good though.

This was a built-in desk with peg board off the kitchen that we turned into our coffee bar and recycle center. Perfect height for a shorty like me.

The Office Area

This was at the end of the dining room. (You can see it was before we put the new floors down!)

The MCM Master Bedroom and bath

You can read more about that here.

The Guest Room

Unfortunately, we did nothing to the guest room, not even paint.

And the Main Bathroom

You can read more about that here–the before was CRAZY.

Some “Before” Pictures

You can read my first post about this house here. And see all of our posts about the MCM here.

The post Our Mid Century Modern tour appeared first on Little Victorian.

Waaay back in week 3 of the fall 2018 One Room Challenge we were making over our bathroom. I had a post written about our progress, but before I could publish it, we got big news: we were moving across the country again.

There was no time to hit publish. There was no time for anything but a mad rush to finish our renovations at the highest quality could, pack the house, get the MCM on the market, and move to New England. In one month. Our usual fashion…

So here is the original post I had written back in the fall at the half-way mark of the One Room Challenge:

Once we pulled out all the rotten drywall and built a wall between the tub and the powder room, it was time to finish it. 

What we WANTED were mother-of-pearl tiles.  Because that’s what was originally there (though in plastic form), and because it’s gorgeous.  However that would have cost us well over $1,000 just for the tub.  Definitely something we would have saved for if this were our forever home. 

But it isn’t.

2019 edit: Ha! Good timing to think like that.

And while keeping the home close to original is very important to us, we can’t go overboard in over-improving.  The fact is, this is still, and always will be a two bedroom house, and number of bedrooms, baths, and location trumps any improvements you make no matter what “they” say.  We’ve lived through it twice…

So…well over $1,000 or $144 for a shiny new, fast, and easy plastic tub surround that will be covered by a curtain anyway?  

Yay for plastic tub surrounds!

We got it up and caulked in just a few hours.  I didn’t get pictures of the process because it took both of us to put the panels up.  But it’s just putting adhesive on the backs of the panels and pressing them onto the wall.  

We weren’t able to replace the vanity like I was hoping, but we did replace the counter top with a nice one from IKEA.

Sorry again for the low-quality photos…as mentioned, we were in a mad rush.

The floor is obviously new as well. And we took out the medicine cabinet and replaced it with a nice big mirror from a thrift shop.

Here’s how it was before we bought the house:

Then after our super-quick reno:

We didn’t add up the cost, but it was under $500 for the new wall, tub surround, countertop, mirror, paint, flooring, and accessories.

I’ll be sharing a photo tour of our whole house as we moved out soon.

The post Affordable bathroom reno (the after) appeared first on Little Victorian.

We got the dividing wall up in the bathroom, and our house officially went from a 1.1 bath to a 1.5 bath.  It’s week two of the One Room Challenge!

The shower had pretty cute mother of pearl plastic tiles on the two walls.  But the bottoms of the walls were rotten underneath, so they and all the very hard glue they left behind (the brown stuff in the photo) had to be chiseled off so we could save the drywall on the top halves. (Wow that part took a long time.)

The tub is rounded on both sides, so we couldn’t just make a wall that butted up to the tub, we had to overlap the tub a little with the studs.  

We framed it out, and put up water resistant drywall.  

We were of course hoping that this would be a one-day project so we wouldn’t be without a shower, but of course things didn’t go as smoothly as we hoped.  We purchased cement board to use for the walls, but it was SO difficult to work with that it was taking about 5 times as long as usual. 

There wasn’t time to go back to the store that first day, so we had to go without a shower.  Thankfully, the Hubs is awesome, and when we first moved in, he set me up a dog bathing station in the basement.  Complete with a nice hand-held showerhead, and easy hot and cold adjustments.  We have concrete floors, and he placed the station right between two floor drains.  

So we showered in the basement.  

Because the Hubs had to be back in the office all week, there was hardly any time to work on it, and it took all week.  But it’s done!  And it’s solid, quality work.  And it’s good to be showering in a shower again.  

Finishing the tub area is up next!

The post We have a wall! And a 1.5 bath house. appeared first on Little Victorian.

I’ve mentioned our…unique bathroom a few times here and there.  But you haven’t gotten to see it yet.  Because it’s been awful.  

The reactions–including ours the first time we saw the house–are always a blank stare in utter confusion, and then laughing.  

Here’s the listing photo from when the house was listed for sale:

Yeah, that’s not a mirror behind the tub, that’s another toilet and sink.

When the house was appraised before we purchased it, the appraiser put down that it was a 1.1 bath house. ?

The toilet and sink on the other side of the tub make up the “Powder Room” that we made over last month for the $100 Room Challenge.  Obviously, it looks a little bit different now.  

There was no way we wanted to have overnight guests over with that room (and we like to have guests often), so we put up a temporary wall between the tub and the second toilet shortly after moving in and we’ve been living with it that way since.  

It was all temporary though, because the other 2 walls around the tub were in bad shape and needed to be replaced, and we wanted to do something better than the plastic 1960s tiles that were in there.

The bathroom also has a cabinet built in.  The cabinet actually goes all the way through the wall, with doors in the hallway behind it too.  It is nice, but it is so awkward-looking as it is.

So, it’s perfect timing for the fall One Room Challenge!  This makeover challenge doesn’t have a dollar limit, just a time limit of 6 weeks (5 to do the work in).  In all honesty, we did get some things started already.  Nothing is even close to finished though.  Next week, we’ll show you the temporary wall, and the demolition of it, and the putting up of the new wall.  After that…here’s the plan:

• New vanity
• New sink
• Replace medicine cabinet with mirror and light fixture
• New flooring
• Repaint ceiling and walls
• Something to make the cabinet wall look less awkward

The post The World’s Weirdest Bathroom appeared first on Little Victorian.

It’s the last post for the $100 Room Challenge!  Sadly, we didn’t quite finish the makeover yet. We searched the house for an hour and couldn’t find the hanging kit to hang the mirror. I was also hoping to put up two small shelves next to the mirror to balance out the off-center mirror and sink.

We were actually going out of town, so we only had just under 3 weeks to do it all in, BUT I’m pretty happy that all that didn’t get done was hanging the mirror and shelves.

So three weeks and $96 later, here is our powder room makeover:

Here is our cost breakdown:

• New light fixture, Menards clearance (!) $30
• Mirror, IKEA $20
• Paint, Menards $1
• Contact paper, Amazon $10
• Floor tiles, Menards $19
• Cabinet knobs, IKEA $15
• Seal for cabinets, $0 (already had)
• Shelves (still to be put up) $0 from scraps we have

Total: $96

We also had the setback when we discovered the rotted subfloor, so that took time, and cost about $10 for the new plywood, but I’m not counting that towards the decorating.

To start from the top:

• The walls were repainted
• The light fixture replaced
• The mirror replaced
• The backsplash removed and counter lip removed for a more modern look
• The counters covered in marble contact paper
• The vanity sanded and sealed
• New knobs on vanity
• Old vinyl flooring pulled up and new peel and stick vinyl tiles put down

We were happy to find the slate-look tiles because slate is something that was often in mid century moderns. Staying close to the originally intended style is very important to us.

If you’ve never used the peel-and-stick floor tiles, let me tell you…they’re super easy and super inexpensive. And we’re always way happier with them than we expect to be. As much as we don’t like synthetic materials, sometimes, it’s just the best option.

We also didn’t get the cabinet pulls we were planning on.  We wanted tab-style that is much less visible, but IKEA only had 4 in-stock and we needed 6, so we had to switch styles to get it done in time.  

Here’s the before and after:

I’m SO thankful to Erin for hosting this challenge! There’s no telling when we would’ve gotten the powder room done without it, and we definitely would have ended up spending more without the goal of staying within $100!

Here is how the other ladies finished, go check out everyone’s great work!

Here are the process posts:

• The “new” counter
• Demolition
• The before (SO ugly, guys)

Oh, and we did end up having time to put the shelves up that I was dreaming of before we had to put the house up for sale, but we DID get the mirror hung.

Pin it for later!

Hover over the image <– and click the PIN button that pops up.

The post $96 Powder Room Makeover appeared first on Little Victorian.

This post contains affiliate links, which means if you purchase something after clicking a link, Amazon will give me a percentage for recommending them, at no cost to you.

Another week in the $100 Room Challenge is done!  Plans changed slightly because of what was and wasn’t available in my budget/time frame.

Accomplished this week:

• Removing glue on walls from backsplash
• Covering countertop with contact paper
• Sanded vanity and filled holes from previous knobs
• Mudding and patching holes in walls
• Painted walls
• Pulled up flooring
• Discovered (and repaired) a rotten subfloor under the toilet

The vanity countertop was TRICKY.  The hardest part was getting vinyl that had been curved for 57 years to lay flat so I could have a smooth surface for the contact paper.  It didn’t totally happen.  Once the backsplash was off, I heated small sections with our heat gun, then used a brad nailer to fasten it down while it was still soft.

In a couple places, the paper backing had cracked, so I have some pretty good lumps, but I’m just going to pretend they’re not there!

Once it was as good as it was going to get, I covered it in the marble contact paper.  This was SO easy.  Last time I did that project, I used a granite look, so the seams were nearly impossible to find.  Because this was marble, I was a little worried about the seams being obvious, but it wasn’t a big deal at all.  The application was a piece of cake too and took less than 30 minutes.  I splurged on the high quality contact paper rather than the stuff from the dollar store, and I’m so glad I did.  It’s much thicker and easier to remove and reapply if you don’t place it correctly the first time.  (And the cheap stuff only has 2 patterns to choose from, and I didn’t want either one.)

The room was repainted too!  I was planning on going with a white-ish color, but when I was at the DIY store, there was a quart of Oops paint in a warm dark gray for $1(!).  So that’s what I did.  It turned out being very dark and charcoal-y, which I loved, but it was a little too dark for this room, especially since it would have been the same color as the floors.

So I lightened it up with white paint I had on hand, and here we are:

Then finally, we ripped up the old vinyl floor so we could put down new vinyl floor tiles, but in the process, found that the subfloor under the toilet was rotten and spongy.  Boo.  Hubs had to go back to the DIY store for the 137th time this week.  (And FYI: I am NOT counting the cost of new subfloor panels towards my $100 budget–I’m considering that home maintenance and not decorating.)  

We did get the floor repaired in just a couple hours, but it delayed the new floors going down, obviously.  

Still to do:

• Finish laying new floor tiles
• Clean up caulk lines on countertop
• Refinish vanity
• Install new drawer knobs
• Hang new mirror
• Hang new light fixture

Easy peasy.  ?

Go check out what the other ladies participating in the $100 Room Challenge are doing too!

The post Updated vanity and walls in the powder room appeared first on Little Victorian.

Not really demolition…I just removed the counter’s muffin top and backsplash, took down the light and mirror, the floor’s backsplash and mudded the walls to get ready for painting.

It’s week two of the $100 room makeover challenge!  On day one of the challenge last week, I spent over half my $100 budget.  On Sunday, I spent another $29.  So I currently have $15 left and I really hope nothing unexpected comes up.  The good news is that I don’t have a plan for that extra $15 at the moment, so I might get to splurge on some cute accessories or something!  ?

After shopping (of course), the first project was the vanity.  I’m not excited about keeping it, but I have hope of making it look decent

The wood will be sanded down and refinished, but that had to wait until after the painting.  So the countertop is up first.

Things I didn’t like about it:

• How far the lip hung over the edge
• The curved backsplash (to match the flooring throughout the house)
• The old and stained laminate
• The sink (can’t change that on the budget)

So here’s what happened:

I cut the laminate off at the curve, then found that the muffin top was an additional piece of wood nailed in place.  That made my job much easier, because I was planning on just running a saw down the length of the counter and hoping I kept it straight!

I did the same on the front, and then scored the backsplash and started peeling it off the wall.  The corner support pieces for the curve had to be pulled out as well, which was tricky and kinda tore up the laminate.  

I am hoping to keep the laminate so I have a smooth surface to adhere the contact paper to.  We’ll see how well that goes.

Better so far!  I also removed the light fixture and the giant mirror.

The mudding of all the holes isn’t pictured (there are half-a-dozen in the wall behind the door.  

Next will be painting, then sanding down and refinishing the vanity, putting on new knobs, and tearing out the floor.  

So far so good!  Here is what the rest of the ladies participating in the $100 room challenge are up to:

The post Powder Room Demolition appeared first on Little Victorian.

Our master bedroom has a powder room. A sad, sad little powder room.

It’s actually possibly one of the weirdest powder rooms ever designed…but more on that next month when we remodel the main bathroom.

As with the rest of the house, it hasn’t really been updated since it was built in 1961. We would really like to a big overhaul with a new vanity, but that’s not in the budget (monetarily or time-wise) at the moment.

For some context (and mostly to start this post with a non-hideous photo), here’s our bedroom, and the powder room is that door in the corner:

This is the view from our bedroom. ?

So we’re going to make it pretty, but try to do it fast and cheap. And to keep me motivated to stay on track, I’m joining the $100 Room Challenge.

It’s a challenge Erin created for herself to makeover rooms in her house with a budget of $100 and a time limit of one month, then she opened it up for others to join in and do it together. It’s pretty fun to see what can be done with so little money.

So what’s the plan?

Good question…I really don’t have a concrete plan yet.  But I did have insomnia last night, so I spent several hours thinking up a bunch of brilliant ideas (that are probably all actually pretty bad now that I’m fully awake).  

Here is the inspiration I’ve been gathering on Pinterest since we moved in:

Anyway…probably/hopefully will accomplish:

• Sanding and refinishing the vanity
• Changing vanity hardware
• Contact paper over the countertops
• New mirror
• New lighting
• New flooring
• Repainting
• Accessorizing

All that for $100 seems pretty unlikely at the moment, but I’m going to see how far I can get!

Here is what the other ladies are doing for the challenge: (and a link to join us if you want!)

The post Powder Room Makeover Coming appeared first on Little Victorian.

Our bedroom updates are done(ish)! The spring One Room Challenge is over and I’m SO glad we participated again. I know our bedroom would look exactly the same as it did 5 weeks ago if it weren’t for the challenge. Here’s what it looks like now:

We removed the closet doors and built our open closet in one side with a small dresser and laundry baskets in one side. In the other side, we built the bed for the dogs, and added a face-out rack for my blouses, and a shelf for a few more things. On the underside of the shelf, there are some cup hooks screwed in to hang my scarves from.

Where the dog bed (small sofa) previously was, we put a little seating area and a pretty little tree that I’m sure the Hubs will be able to keep alive. We have the arch lamp and the painting (that I think is still hanging too high) too that we scored from Goodwill.

I still need to hang the bamboo blinds above the bed. All it takes is a couple cup hooks, but it’s way too high for me to reach. I was tempted to start stacking things on the bed to stand on, but I knew I would just fall and likely injure myself. So I will wait until we can move the bed out and put a ladder back there and do it properly…probably at some point in the next 6 months(?).

For some reference of where we started, here are the listing photos from when we bought the house:

And here’s what it looked like 5 weeks ago when we started:

And now:

Since we’re still on a major budget, the only things we purchased for the room were the bedding (actually a surprise gift from the Hubs!), the MDF to make the dog bed with, the tree, and a few accessories from Five Below. So our total was under $100!

Click here to browse all the other One Room Challenge participants!

We’re already planning on the fall One Room Challenge. And we’re thinking something much bigger, like the kitchen…which needs new floors, appliances, counters, and some cabinets. ?

The post Master Bedroom Makeover appeared first on Little Victorian.

Update: this post was part of a series about making over our master bedroom. Click here to see the full before-and-after.

Everything is still in progress in the bedroom.  This week is all about the furniture.

(We LOVE having this corner of our bedroom back from the dogs!)

The townhouse we rented a few months ago was unfurnished.  We brought a few things up from the house, but we had to turn to Craigslist for the rest, and we scored big time.  I saw a sectional sofa from the 50s in decent condition…for only $120(!) and contacted the seller immediately.  She offered more of the furniture from her mother’s house, including two mid-century chairs (which I immediately agreed to buy for another $20), and two end tables.  I declined the two end tables, but her mother was sentimental about the furniture and really wanted everything to stay together, so we agreed to buy those as well.  And I am so glad we did because they make the perfect nightstands.

The color isn’t good for our house though, it’s a dark red and all of the wood in our house is very tan with orange undertones.  I was hoping to refinish them for the challenge, but there just wasn’t enough time.

Almost everything in here was purchased for our rental, and it all just worked perfectly for the bedroom. The floor lamp was from Goodwill for only $20.  The bookshelf was from there too for only $5, as was the painting above the chair for another $5.  The painting is an original, painted on a course woven fabric.  I couldn’t get over how the colors matched perfectly.  The cream stripe is the same as the walls, and the pink is the same pink the closets are painted in.

The Hubs also surprised me with new bed linens!  The bed is the same one we got for last spring’s One Room Challenge, it could use a fresh coat of rub-n-buff.

Window coverings were supposed to be hung, but we misplaced all of the curtain rod hardware in one of the moves.  We have all the rods, just nothing to hang them on. ?

Still a long way to go and less than one week left…

Click here to browse all the other One Room Challenge participants!

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