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John Mueller, our remodeling contractor and an artist, has been working away on the project. The picture on to the left shows the new tile that is now completely laid. The grout still needs to be applied, which John will do next. That's it for for now. We’ll keep you informed as things develop. |
 We have been amazed at the number of comments and questions we’ve gotten about our floor. Interestingly, Anne really didn’t like the floor when we first bought our home. It’s quite a contrast from hardwood floors! But then we found our dishes!!! As previously reported, we spotted our dishes in an antique shop in Portland soon after we bought our home. Anne said, “They match our floor,” and we bought them. That purchase turned the tide. We began decorating around the black, and Anne now loves the floor. Gary always did. |
Assumably, our floor is Armstrong vinyl composition tile, the kind they’ve been making forever. You can see a picture of our dining/living room flooring to the left. Compare our close-up picture with this Armstrong product. We first thought the floor was original. However, the previous owners of our home told us they had the floor installed to replace worn out wall- to- wall carpeting which was also not original. As a side note, we may love the floor but we have not been pleased with the heavy chemical smell of the Armstrong floor care products which came with the house. A lucky accident with Murphy’ s Oil Soap is giving us hope that this product touted for use on wood may actually work as both a cleaner and a polisher for our floor when used in higher concentrations. Does anyone have ideas for “green” cleaning products that might be even better for this type of floor? |
Below is a short video tour or our living room/dining room/kitchen.
To start the video click on the small triangle at the lower left of the viewing window.
We recently had the good fortune of buying this wonderful mid-century couch at an estate sale for $35.00.
It was custom made for the owner in 1964 and was kept in a part of the house where is got little day to day use. The cushions have springs and are really comfortable to sit on.
The couch is in really good shape and we couldn’t believe we got it for that price.
When we got the couch into the living room, it looked as if it belonged there. The scale and style of the couch are just right for our new home.
With the addition of the couch the living room is really coming together. It feels more like home all the time.
We love sitting on our new couch and looking out over the Grande Ronde Valley from our living room.
Life doesn’t get much better than that.
Here we are in our new home! Note the camp chairs we’re sitting on. Those and the Murphy bed which came with the house are our only furniture. Note also the mid-century modern details: floor-to-ceiling glass, clerestory windows, and expose beams. Finally, note also our dog Molly and our cat Elroy. Our other cat, Gertrude, was hiding under the covers on the Murphy bed.
We love our new home! We are especially enamored with the big, spacious living room and its nice view across the Grande Ronde Valley during the day and of the lights of La Grande at night.
Fortunately, the living room doesn’t need much work. The floor, which looks similar to 50’s asbestos tile, was put in by the previous owner. We will be painting the walls and fireplace.
We plan on using YOLO Colorhouse no-VOC paints. Using their family cards (paint chips), we have chosen several colors from the Air and Stone series. Next we’ll be getting the poster size color swatches to narrow our choices. We like that their color palette is fairly limited; too many choices can be overwhelming.
See our Lotta Living post with a question about the paneling which is on the fireplace wall and also on the dining room wall. We wonder if both the paneling and the bricks of the fireplace were originally unpainted. It’s too late now. We stripped a lot of paint in our home in Portland and just aren’t ready to tackle anything like that again.
We’re very excited about working on our new home and look forward to sharing ideas and information with the rest of you mid-century modern house enthusiasts out there.
