A 66-Year-Old House Went from “Literally Everything Gray” to “Cozy Retro Rainbow”
Adrienne Breaux
·7 min read
"We found our house as if by fate. There was a home for sale on the same street that had a lot of the things I was looking for, but it needed a lot of work too," Mary Darling begins of her and her husband's house hunt. Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
"I had toured the house with our real estate agent once, then my husband and I went to see it and he hated it. The old cabinets had been painted so many times they didn’t close properly, it had old carpet, and the bathrooms were old; it made him very uncomfortable. But I was having a lot of trouble letting it go because the location and the price were perfect." Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
"A few days later I asked our agent if I could go see it one more time on my lunch break so I could get it out of my system. As we were walking out of the house to leave, a woman with a flyer walked up to us and asked if we were looking to buy a house," Mary continues. Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
"She had just finished renovating the white house at the end of the street and, according to the flyer, it was the same exact price as this house. She invited me and my agent to go over to see it — and as soon as I walked in, I knew this was our house." Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
Mary and her husband were on a budget, and saved lots of money by DIYing projects. "For example, the mint green 'wallpaper' behind our pink sofa is a pattern I saw on Instagram," Mary begins. Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
"To buy the wallpaper would have been a few hundred dollars to order. Instead, I made a stencil out of cardboard, penciled the design on the wall, and painted it myself with a mixture of paints I already had on hand." Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
Mary says that the first colorful piece of furniture that they bought for this home is this pink velvet sofa from Joybird. "I was shocked that my husband agreed to a pink couch, but he loved it when I showed him!" Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
"From then on pink has slowly become a statement color in our house. Next was the pink front door – a pink color I like to call Darling Pink, because I had to mix the color myself and then I had the color scanned at our local Lowe's store!" Mary explains. Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
"Then I covered our stainless steel refrigerator in pink contact paper. And finally the pink wall in the front room!" Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
Mary says the first thing that caught her eye about this home was the sunken living room. "It was just like the living room on my favorite television show, The Dick Van Dyke Show." Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
"The DIY I’m most proud of and the thing that gets the most questions from people is my retro television! I saw a couple of small shops that make these retro television boxes with modern flatscreen TVs inside, but they cost about $3000 or more. One day I showed them to my husband and he actually said 'You should just make one.' So of course I accepted the challenge!" Mary describes. Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
"I started out thinking I would use our current TV that is hanging above the fireplace – because I’ve always hated it up there, it really makes it hard to decorate the mantel for Christmas! I measured our television and started drawing rough sketches with measurements and brainstorming how it should look." Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
Mary believes that "most of my vintage things are from the 1940s at the latest." Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
Mary says that a good design name for her home's style is "Cozy Retro Rainbow." Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
The tulip table is from IKEA and the Poly and Bark pink dining chairs were found on Amazon. Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
"I love to mix patterns and textures which I think could go horribly wrong, but it’s turned out quite well in our home, I think!" Mary writes. Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
The shelf is from Amazon and the orange contact paper installed on the shelf is also from Amazon. The orange rug is from Rugs. Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
The "Grape Hyacinth" paint is from Home Depot and the counters are from IKEA. Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
Mary says the first room she updated "was the guest room/craft/junk room. I found the loudest floral wallpaper I could find on Spoonflower and I made one whole wall floral." Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
"And I loved it! I wanted the feeling I had when I looked in that room to be the feeling I had throughout the house!" Credit: Mary DarlingCredit: Mary Darling
Mary Darling and her husband had quite the challenge when they bought this three-bedroom house in Indianapolis six years ago. Originally built in 1959, it had only had one owner previously, and Mary describes the house as “the quintessential ’50s/’60s home with wallpaper, linoleum flooring, wood paneling, and a sunken living room!”
But unfortunately, before Mary and her husband bought the house, “Home flippers bought it and made literally everything gray. Gray walls, gray carpet, gray fake wood floors. And that’s how it was when we bought the house.”
The first three years the couple lived with all the gray everything. “The biggest challenge was money,” Mary begins. “My budget was basically nonexistent. But I was doing everything myself, which took time, so it worked out!”
“I would save money while I was completing a task and then when I had completed it, I’d have a little bit of money to use on the next project. And anything that I really wanted that could be made by hand I would just figure out how to make it myself.”
She says she started her home’s de-graying by painting every wall with Behr’s “Bit of Sugar” white to create a blank canvas. “Then the first room I changed was the guest room/craft/junk room. I found the loudest floral wallpaper I could find on Spoonflower and I made one whole wall floral. And I loved it! I wanted the feeling I had when I looked in that room to be the feeling I had throughout the house!”
Now, six years later, there are still some white walls in the home — but most of the gray is gone. And Mary says the whole home “is colorful with retro-patterned wallpaper, full walls of solid color, and bright, cheerful, colorful vintage pieces around every corner.”
“We tend to lean toward lighter, airier creams in primary bathrooms where occupants get ready and lighting is key,” says designer Lauren Svenstrup of Studio Sven in Chicago. “It’s much nicer to wake up to bold pops of color and graphic floral prints when you’re getting ready for work,” she says.
“Red and green are traditional Christmas colors, but I love to break away from tradition a bit and use bright jewel tones to create a dramatic and sophisticated look for the holiday season,” says Annie Sloan, paint and color expert and creator of Chalk Paint. “My Tyrian Plum Wall Paint is a rich, jewel-toned plum with maroon and red elements,” she says. “It works beautifully with metallics, fairy lights, and flickering candlelight to create a Christmas fit for the three kings!” For an easy DIY project, fill glass jars with small holiday decor items, like dreidels or gold coins, as seen in this Hanukkah-adorned living room arranged by LA-based designer Ethan Charles Greenfeld of Ethan Charles Design.
Walterhoefer placed a Hiroshi Sugimoto oceanscape photograph purchased from Form Atelier beneath the loft’s main windows. A vintage table lamp from PRB Collection and a vintage aluminum wall sculpture from Marked NY illuminate the kitchen. A matching pair of vintage Jack Cartwright for Founders dressers were a miraculous Craigslist find.
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