the one where jen and dustin do a podcast.

OKAY SO. Let’s just jump right in and say we are by no means professionals in the field of restoration, renovation, or preservation. BUT we are attempting to do what we can, when we can, with what we have in order to update and refresh our little home. And we do have a story- a story that we chatted with Boise Mid-Century Homes about. And they just so happened to release a podcast episode of said conversation! (What?!)

This group of enthusiasts have big plans for the world of mid-century modern real-estate and their vision extends far beyond their home base in Boise, Idaho. It’s inspiring to talk to people who genuinely love what they do. And it was such an honor to be included amongst the professional interior designers, architects, preservationists, historians, and who’s who of this movement that have, or soon will, grace you earbuds.

Without further ado, click play below to hear a small piece of our story. And please forgive the audio issues… who knew the distance between face to microphone made such an impact on output quality…! haha #podcastnewbs

currently crushing: enamel pins.

Can we talk about the huge comeback enamel pins have made? There are millions out there now! While lapel pins are no new trend- according to the internet they’ve been manufactured for almost 800 years- they’ve definitely been having a moment over the past few years. Here are a handful of modern day designs that caught my eye.

I love them and want them all… but who has a jean jacket big enough TBH?

A personal fave for obvious reasons- Mid Mod Pin.

The cutest outdoor camping set by National Dry Goods.

Happy pins inspired by cities by Megan McKean.

Love these state pins! Looks like this is just the first batch. I'm holding out for the mitten state.

Step aside BEST FRIENDS necklace, there is a new way to display your everlasting bestie bond! How clever are these pinky promise pins?!

Love that this shop offers ALPHA-pins! Nice nice nice.

Retroooo pins from Big Bud Press.

There is a story with this one. My mom's maiden name is Strange. So how excited was I when I stumbled on these pins?! I got them for all the women on my mom's side of the family. They come in multi colors, like the image above. For all you other strange ladies, check out the society here.

I didn’t know I needed a pretzel pin until this moment. ♡ From illustrator, Justine Gilbuena.

Lost Lust Supply has such a unique collection of pins in their shop!

Carolyn Draws with the simple truths.

And last, but certainly not least, the latest collection by The Uncommon Place & Dunn-Edwards are CUTE. Look at these Palm Springs homes- I want all three!

progress post: a bedroom update.

We’ve been navigating through a variety of life happenings lately and our house, per usual, takes the back seat. So I thought I’d update on another room, that like our bath, that has been finished up until the fun decor part!

Aside from the second upstairs bedroom which is currently a giant storage space, our newly appointed master bedroom had the least drastic of changes. We did have to remove two exterior facing walls in order to add insulation to our insulation-less house. New drywall, mudding, priming, painting, new window frames, and new trim. While extremelyyyyy tedious- mostly just small cosmetic changes in the grand scheme of things. We decided to take on this project shortly after we got married. For the most part, the mess could be quarantined in this situation. And we set up camp in the living room for a couple months.

While not completely without drama- our bedroom is the reason why we hired out a painter for the front half of our main level. We tried our hand at a paint sprayer and felt like we were wasting A LOT of paint… so either the tool was broken (which we did call support and they were very helpful, but couldn’t 100% solve our dilemma, so it’s possible!) or user error. I’m going to assume the later. But don’t you worry, we definitely had a nice little photoshoot in our initial blissfully ignorant pre-painting state.

The master bedroom closet was a slightly bigger project, as we increased the square footage by four. Not quite a standard size walk-in, but much larger than it was in 1960. We opened it to an adjacent closet from the third upstairs bedroom, which we have since removed. We then bumped the back wall of the closet out about an extra 18 inches. We are using Ikea’s Algot system for organization and will have a post about that too.

So all the heavy duty stuff has been done! And we are living in a world of white. The bedroom and closet function, but they are begging for color, organization, and new furniture! I cannot wait for those to be the focus someday. It’s hard for us to keep the mess in one designated area. As we work on the kitchen, everything accumulates in other rooms… dust, papers, food, stuff. I hate it. So we don’t want to add more, albeit new, stuff. But we’re also still in love with watching our house evolve. And eventually we’ll have much more storage that we are severely lacking now.

By the way, you can find our initial ideas for the bedroom here and the closet plan here.

So about that photoshoot…

One of us may have been a bit more into it than the other…

date night selfie.

james from rivertown woodcraft helping us with our new window frames.

mike the drywaller, our vip.

mike's right hand kitten.

lavender walls and (once) teal trim. #glam

our short lived careers as professional paint sprayers.

mitten house swag.

bye lavender walls!

contemplating fixtures.

this is so aesthetically appealing to me.

♥

space claimed.

trip tease: mackinac island.

Happy New Year!

This past September, we traveled to San Diego, California and Mackinac Island, Michigan. The latter was with family. We took a step back in time and stayed at the Grand Hotel for a weekend. It was a short little stint full of color, horses, fudge, biking, some major waves, and good ‘ol fashion quality family time.

Here is our family video I’d love to say I just threw together, casually. But honestly, it took me dozens of hours. However, I love having it to relive the trip. And gifting it to my family this Christmas was very special.

So here you go Grama, this one’s for you!

Also, if anyone knows the secret sauce that prevents your videos from looking like faded garbage or adding random borders on in YouTube- do tell! It looks so pretty in Premiere!

progress post: a bathroom update.

Update!

I have so many posts to finish about various areas of the house… but ya know, editing vacation photos just wins me over every time.

Remember the plans for our little baby bath? Well, we're sticking pretty close to it so far. We've got all white mostly everything. A beautiful custom vanity by our friend, James, at Rivertown Woodcraft. And the signature Ikea mirror. I purchased that like... pre-demo. Everyone puts this mirror in their bathroom, do they not?

We did not however, pull off the hex tile floor. Just wasn't going to work out. We contemplated the flooring forever, per usual. But I think sticking with a simple grey stacked mosaic ended up working out well. We'll bring in unique elements elsewhere- in non permanent ways. It also took us forever and a day to decide on a vanity faucet (because the round mirror hung down and out from the wall so much), and light fixtures (I wanted your entire face lit, not just from above.) The struggle with balancing modern and functional with midcentury and appropriate adds to our decision making delays too.

Pro tip: Make sure you measure ALL pieces and parts. I was convinced the light fixtures were not evenly spaced around the mirror and in relation to the vanity. But we kept measuring and realigning, and almost put new holes in the wall! The measurements were telling us everything was evenly spaced and aligned properly, yet the whole placement felt off. Last thing we thought to measure- the round mirror. It wasn’t perfectly round and the nail holes on the frame were not centered!! So we eyeballed that and it looks much better now. #ThanksIkea

And now some things we tried, things we learned, and things we redid.

Things we tried

We initially tried to cut individual tiles to create a custom floor pattern. I love our creativity and blind ambition. However, it would have taken much much longer to finish and the saw blade kept chipping the tile edges. We probably didn’t even have the right tile to be cutting like that anyway. But look how fun our idea was!

Things we learned

Another failed attempt was mudding and taping our drywall. My exact thought was, “Hey I went to art school, I know how to sand things! Dustin works on vehicles. This is just like bondo, I’m sure. We got this!” Absofrickinlutely not. One attempt at a corner and I was done; again fearing we were ruining the house. So we called in the pros! For the first time we hired out work and I’m so glad we did! MikeTheMudder, our OG VIP came in to save the day and has since returned to do our bedroom, closet, and living/dining/and kitchen area.

This was big because we learned when it’s necessary to call in people who already know what they are doing! DIY is F-I-N-E until it’s not. Mike saved us time, and in-turn money, because we won’t have to redo his work. No ripply bubbles in our walls! He also uses like five different compounds! There are specific reasons for each separate layer. Some are sticky and strong, intended to hold. Others are thin and easily sanded. We had purchased one… newbs.

us.

pro.

Things we redid

Like the DIY tile and drywall mud, we’re not going to get everything right the first time. That was the case of our trim. Our first plan was to match the trim in the rest of the house. The rounded edge style common to all our grandparent’s homes. Our friend Drew, who has helped all throughout our renovation process, worked with Dustin to install the trim in the bathroom. The new toilet was set into place. I even got the new trim painted. After a couple days Dustin decided he didn’t like it. He wanted something thinner. We’ll end up replacing the trim throughout the rest of the house, so it reallllly wasn’t necessary to match anything at that time.

I’m stating right here, right now, if you’re ever contemplating changing something out in your house and get cold feet- call me in. I’ll rip off the bandaid for you. My mom can attest. I will tear down that strip of wallpaper, carefully remove the newly installed trim, roll on that scary bright paint color. I’ll do that initial scary step for you. You’re very welcome.

So I stepped up on the latter and said, “Yeah? You don’t like this anymore?” And popped off the first piece. Second time around we had a paint sprayer and painted the trim ahead of time. Our caulking skills had improved by then too. :) So it wasn’t the worst project to have to redo.

Round two!

not as fun once the toilet is in place...

Ongoing bathroom debates and projects:

Frost the windows. We have yet to come up with a privacy screen. We removed the lace contact paper and have since taped towels over the windows. So we obviously need a better solution, it just has not been the first priority. As a reminder, this window looks out into our garage, which through garage windows looks into our neighbor’s windows and into their house. Hiiiiiii.

Update the shower hardware. Still working with those plastic gems, guys. Need to find a stainless steel option to match the rest of our fixtures. We just haven’t yet because pickiness… are you surprised?

Decorate!!! Oh my gosh, I CANNOT WAITTTTT. We’ve avoided stores and antique malls for awhile. I didn’t want to decorate the finished rooms because of drywall dust and general construction woes. But we’re getting there!

Organize the vanity. My OCD tendencies can’t wait to make a trip to the Container Store for this specific reason. Kind of waiting to do this and the linen closet right outside the bathroom at the same time.

Refresh caulk and grout. Eh. ya know, eventually.