Saturday, May 09, 2009

The Bungalow Blog Tour

Hi everyone, welcome to the 1st (annual) Bungalow Blog Tour. If you came here from one of the other Bungalow Blogs, then you already know the drill. If not, then you should know, this tour was initiated by Stucco House because she was lamenting the fact that the Twin Cities Bungalow Tour was not going to be happening this year. The tour started there and then continued to Bungalow '23 or Foxcroft (all awesome bungalows). If you came from Bungalow '23, this might be your third stop on the tour.

Anyway, welcome to the Tiny Bungalow. It got it's name because, obviously, it is tiny. We're extremely creative, that way. There is a whopping 860 square feet of living space in this 1914 beauty and we use every inch of it. It was built by builder/developer Raymond Hancock along with almost 30 others on the street. Ours has the distinction of being the smallest.


We've done quite a bit of work on the yard. We were tired of the 100 year old yews in the front so we decided to take them out and replace them with something a little more native. Yep, that is a giant barrel in the front of the house. No, it is not for moonshine or anything illicit like that, it just collects rain from the roof that we use for gardening.

C'mon inside. There's no need to take off your shoes. Just wipe off the dog poop as best you can and stay with the group - I wouldn't want anyone to get lost or to stray off, get lost, or wander and consume any of our fizzy lifting drinks. We had the ceiling in that room cleaned before the tour and I don't want to have to do it again anytime soon.


This is the front porch. The stunning lighting display was put up about two weeks ago and the furniture was made by yours truly. In my off time, I like to make things.
This is it, the money shot: the living room and dining room is one big open room and we haven't done shit to it since we've moved in (except for ripping some bad vinyl wall coverings off the wall). The furniture is a mish-mosh of old stuff we've collected over the years. The dining room table is actually Stickley. We have a soft-spot in our hearts for their furniture. Partly because of the great style and craftsmanship but mostly because I grew up in CNY and it reminds me of "home". The built-in is original as are the stunning beamed ceilings. One of these days, we'll clean up the wood and put some paint on the walls in here.The next room on the tour is the bedroom. We actually have done some work in here. Believe it or not, it used to be entirely white and had no natural woodwork. It took about a year to complete (actually, it's still not officially done but calling it "done" keeps me sane). The next room is the small bedroom, my daughter's room. This was the "yellow room" when we moved in. We've toned it down a bit with some new paint and decor. Finally, here's our basement. When we moved in, it was a complete mess. We've tried to brighten it up a bit. It is pretty much our family roomOkay, everyone has to put on this blindfold now as we walk through the kitchen and out into the back yard. Be careful not to trip over the back step. This is our back yard. I like to garden so it is usually filled with lots of flowers and bunnies. Feel free to hang out and have a mojito if you'd like. When you muster up the energy, you should go down the street and check out Humphrey House. I am not sure if they are ready for the tour but they always have something going on down there. Oh, and grab a sledgehammer before you go - they've been known to put their guests to work immediately.

Feel free to check out the rest of this blog to see what other stuff we are up to. There are links to all sorts of awesome bungalows to the right as well. Finally, if you haven't had enough of bungalows, the OP will be having it's semi-annual bungalow tour, Beautiful Bungalows, this fall. Come back for it because we have some real beauties on tap.

5 comments:

Josh said...

Great post-- welcome to the tour! I love love love that dining room photo with the ceiling beams and buffet. I hope someday my dining room can look half that good.

StuccoHouse said...

Welcome to the tour! Your post is great. I don't remember seeing photos of your dining room before - very nice.

design girl said...

860?? I never would have guessed! you said the magic word (mojitos) I'll figure out a way to make it for the girls and we are there :)

Sandy said...

It's been a while since I've visited your spot (since you did the stenciling). I think the online Bungalow Tour is a great idea!

Nicole said...

Great house! We also live in a tiny bungalow (in Lansing, MI). The charm just sucked me in! :)