4 years ago, we purchased our first home in Arcadia. I walked in and knew it was the one immediately, and I’m pretty sure everyone else thought I had lost my mind. It was built in 1957 and hadn’t been touched since, (except for a nice 1990s kitchen update) it was old, dark and needed a ton of work, but I saw the potential.
This is a before shot of the living/dining room and behind that wall on the left was the kitchen. (please enjoy the mirrored wall in the dining room and fake wood paneling on the walls!)
We removed the walls around the kitchen to open up the space and create one large room and used the dining room as our breakfast nook. All the walls and ceilings in the house were smoothed and painted white with Cool December by Dunn Edwards.
Our living room was dark and had tan shag carpeting (hello 70s!). I only have a shot of the room after the demo had begun. But you can see how dark and closed in it felt with all the brown paneling.
White paint can change the look instantly! One of our biggest expenses during the remodel process was the trim work. I wanted the house to feel like it had been here forever, so we modeled the trim work after an old New York apartment.
This lovely 1990s kitchen update was quite the project to tackle! Opening up the two walls made a huge difference, however, did reduce our storage drastically. We added an island and went minimal on our kitchen and I couldn’t have been happier!
This stove I purchased from one of our vendors and is a 1957 Wedgewood. I designed the whole kitchen around it! I wanted to use brass in here, but the stove had the original chrome handles, so I decided to mix metals. I added a chrome faucet and went brass everywhere else. I was really nervous about this decision, but I ended up loving it!
This back room has gone through a few changes. There was originally no existing way to get to the backyard Through the back room, so we added french doors, as well as lots of windows to brighten it up!
We started off using it as a playroom.
DAVID TSAY PHOTOGRAPHY
DAVID TSAY PHOTOGRAPHY
And then we turned it into a dining room.
We always had plans to change that back door, but never got around to it. The previous owners were passionate about locks apparently!
The boys’ bathroom is one of my favorite rooms in the house! Having 3 boys share a bathroom can be challenging, but I found the triple sink from one of our vendors and worked the whole room around it. The kids each had their own sink= no fighting in the mornings!
The master bathroom was the biggest project in our renovation. When we purchased the house it was a room set off the master bathroom with a small window and builtins on every wall. I knew instantly I wanted to make it a walk-in closet and large master bathroom. We moved the plumbing and added walls to make this our dream bathroom!
DAVID TSAY PHOTOGRAPHY
DAVID TSAY PHOTOGRAPHY
I, unfortunately, don’t have before pictures of the kids’ room, but it started as two small rooms and we knocked the wall down between them so they could all share a room. Our boys are 6, 8 and 10 and they still love sharing!
DAVID TSAY PHOTOGRAPHY
DAVID TSAY PHOTOGRAPHY
We poured our blood, sweat, and tears into this house and love it so much! Comment below with any questions and I am happy to answer!
xo,
Coley
*All photos (unless noted) were taken by Rennai Hoefer