Little Mid Century Modern House on the Prairie

Tags for Little Mid Century Modern House on the Prairie: mid century modern gardening diy canada restoration preservation

Little Mid Century Modern House on the Prairie documents the restoration of our 1955 split level mid century modern house in Calgary, Alberta.  The blog chronicles everything from challenges with restoring original elements of the house to the near impossible task of gardening in the Rocky Mountain Foothills to profiles of local mid century architecture and businesses I love.

Shades of Summer

Authors: Laura

Too bad it's like 8 degrees and raining because our trees were finally delivered and planted this week.

Mayday in the backyard - this sucka is about 12 feet. 
Cute little Scotch Pine
Of course with anything new that crosses the prairie property line comes oodles of new plans to integrate it into the landscape.  And luckily, as...

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Weekend Update II

Authors: Laura

We've been in the Prairie house for just over two years now.  And I've finally settled on the fact that any project in our house is a two phaser.  Not a conventional two phaser where you build on the previous work but an entirely new second phase, where you completely throw the design of the first phase in the garbage....

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Planter Redux

Authors: Laura

I have two of these brassy bad boys I picked up at an estate sale last year.  Love the mod lines of these 1950s plant holders but needed to lose the 24k. So I decided to paint.  Much sweeter, non? 

Before: tawdry..

After: tantalizing.. 

And with an ill-fitted white potted plantLP
...

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Big Chair Love

Authors: Laura

Day-um...  I think I'm in love with this chair.  Picture me and the chair on a lazy Saturday afternoon with a book and glass of wine. TLF?


It's never a good sign when they ask you to contact the gallery for pricing.  Like there's only two of them for sale - maybe these two pictured here? 


Bet the designer (Robert...

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Trees (for Earth Day)

Authors: Laura

Trees.  We finally bought some yesterday!  We cut ALL of them down out of the yard last year as they were either scraggly or useless bushes with ugly foliage. Half our backyard was taken up by overgrown Cotoneaster.

Note we actually had removed a row of these suckers on the far right.  The whole yard was filled with...

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The Sorbet Seelecshion (with french accent)

Authors: Laura

My laptop crashed last week.  It's 6 years old and is too hot to even keep on your lap.  I think that's like 99 in laptop years.  My mac guy was fortunately able to recover everything (he's amazing - and didn't even lecture when I told him I hadn't backed anything up on it in over 3 years). Hence the late posting on...

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House Colour Trial #1 = Fail

Authors: Laura

What I wanted was a punch-coloured door.  We did a trial test of the house colour and the door this week on the garage.  Turns out more like a punch in the face .  This black/charcoal base is tricky.  It can look subtle and almost like a shadow with the right colour trim/door but totally offensive with the wrong...

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What Lies Beneath...

Authors: Laura

One of our biggest fears is what lies beneath the vinyl siding on our house.  I'm always spouting off to my clients about the evils of vinyl siding. And yet.... we have old vinyl siding on our house.  Removing the siding has been a big stress for us and an unplanned expense (if we need new siding) that makes it more...

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House Colour Trial

Authors: Laura

Hubby picked up some paint colours today at Benjamin Moore to try on the house.  The first couple were too light, so he went back to pick up a black range.  I've been thinking of the downside of painting a house black or dark black grey:
  • trouble finding the house at night
  • ear marked as local 'haunted house'
  • turn house
  • ...

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House Colours Part II

Authors: Laura

So it's been a while since I've posted.... Because I've been WORKING.  At least 12 hours a day since January.  And you know what happens when you work 12 hours a day with between 4 to 6 hours of sleep per night?  You get really sick.  Sick enough that your doctor tells you to take a month off, but you say  no...

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