retrotastic

We knew that to buy a house in the neighbourhood we wanted, in our price range, we would have to find a bit of a fixer-upper - a house we could work on over time, and a  house the nobody else wanted.

When I first saw the real estate listing for our house, I had a good feeling about it for two reasons: the description included the words "long-time owners" and, unlike most listings, it didn't have any photos of the interior of the house. In our experience long-time owners + no photos = old carpet or pink bathrooms or wacky wallpaper.

Our house had all three.

It was completely retrotastic.

Luckily for us lots of people couldn't see past the carpet and the wallpaper and the outdated colour scheme. So on February 9, 2011, the Van Tates became the proud owners of a pink toilet (and the house that went with it).

The rest of the house was just as, um, colourful.

(to see even more "before" photos, click on our photo album below)

our house

In January, after months of searching, we bought our very first house.

Three weeks later, we moved in.

Our house was built in 1955, and it hasn't changed  much in the last 57 years. Although we love the mid-century 1950s vibe, we knew that some things would have to change. This is the story of how we turn this house into a home.