A Peek Inside: Patterns

It's no secret that I love estate sales. That said, the treasures being sold are only half of the joy for me. It's the homes themselves that often hold the greatest allure. Especially if they still have original vintage touches. Admittedly, it's often very hard to take photos because there are other customers around (and who wants to be the freak who gets caught taking photos of strangers?) and the majority of times, the people holding the sales don't understand why one would want to photograph the homes. That last bit is a shame to me. So many times, they just don't get the charm of the houses that they are holding the sales in. Or the history. Or the relevance.

Often, the fact that the houses are being emptied and put up for sale further fuels my fire to document the great old touches in the homes because for good reason, I fear that they'll be removed and thrown away within mere days or months. I've decided that even though sometimes, the photos that I take at the sales are covert and rushed and blurry, I'm going to start sharing them with you all here. Today, I'm pulling from my stockpile of photos from past sales and would like to focus on pattern.

People in past generations were extremely into using and mixing patterns in their homes. Today, it seems like if a pattern isn't carefully coordinated in a bed linen set in a bag or in a matching towel set that a department store suggests, many people fear using pattern in their homes today. It's like people feel like they have to be given permission before bringing a color or pattern into their home. Is it in style? Would my neighbors approve? What would Nate Berkus say? Remember, the home improvement stores may highlight certain colors and patterns because they think that they're the current trend - but if you look further, you'll notice thousands and thousands of colors and patterns displayed mere steps away from what they think we want.

I'd love it if the fear of choosing patterns and colors would go away and more people could just go with their hearts when decorating like we used to do. Sure, people have always gone with trends but it seems to me that we've felt a lot more comfortable veering from and mixing trends in the past. Here are some shots from several different houses that I'd like to showcase because of their use of patterns in the decor.

This house belonged to a local politician and his two story home was packed full of historical and travel mementos. This wallpaper was in his Den. We stayed at this sale for three hours because there were just too much wonderful things to see and go through.

I love this linoleum. And that harvest gold dishwasher with the knotty pine cabinets with original hardware. It also had the period yellow cracked ice counter tops with metal edging. I recall that everything at this sale was cheap and wonderful. And that a dealer beat us to our dream couch (which we eventually accidentally bought back from him).




This one is a more subtle bit of patterning. The original linoleum goes great with the two-toned paint on the cabinet doors. I love the little bar on the end. The white counter tops might be hard to keep clean but they look really nice with the color combo and help the newer appliances blend.

This was the inside of a basement pantry.
Pristine old atomic patterned shelf paper in pink and gold. 

This was a little funky farmhouse in the country. The woman at this sale couldn't understand my wanting to take photos of the floors but did give her permission. I



I loved this kitchen so much. They put wallpaper on the door fronts, the walls and even on the back door. I really loved the combination of the soft green and orange. And the kitchen was huge and felt so happy and sunny.  The rest of the house had a mostly bicentennial theme. 

You can see here that the house even had the original floor and metal edged counter top.

This is Helen's kitchen (whose crafts I showed you on the last post) with a bright flower print wallpaper. It's hard to tell from the sale merchandise everywhere but her kitchen was so pristine. Glossy wood cabinets and the original counter tops. I wasn't able to get a photo of it but there was also a built-in knotty pine wall pantry. I love the unexpected color combo of yellow, orange and periwinkle blue. 

A closer look at Helen's wallpaper.
This is the breakfast nook with vintage dinette and off of this room was a little knotty pine den.

And here is a peek down into her basement. Sweet linoleum and a complete kitchen down there. One of the great things about this house was how decorating from many decades happily coexisted. The house was built in the fifties as evidenced by the kitchen, the wood trim and the basement lino - but the sixties and seventies had a strong voice too.  There was also an original pink tile bathroom.

That's one thing that we have to remember when decorating or restoring a vintage home. Most homes wouldn't have all things from one decade like a museum. People would have brought handed-down family furniture with them or renovated certain areas of their homes while leaving other areas intact. Don't be afraid to mix and match things that you love.

I hope that you've enjoyed the first in my series of peeks inside of local estate sale homes.  There will be more soon, you can bet!

Meanwhile Back At The Ranch: We're still working on the hall and foyer. The drywall is done and cleaned up after, thank goodness! We've got it primed and are now trying our best to pick a paint color. The kitties are still sailing on the rough seas of getting to know the new kitten (who has become quite the biter and wire chewer). The new Blogger format makes posting take three times longer than it used to and I sometimes see coding in my sleep. The kitten likes that it takes me longer because he likes to stomp on the keyboard and chase the cursor. I hope that you all have big weekend plans. Hey, some of you will even get long weekends due to the holiday!

Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha