After 14+ years of talking about it, there is no turning back.  We tore out the floor, walls, and avocado green sink in our home’s addition in 1971 of a half 1/2 bath and bare laundry room.   It is our huge summer project of changing the bathroom into a full bath, opening the adjoining wall to our bedroom, and then adding badly needed storage in the laundry room/mud room.  We are working within the existing footprints of the spaces.

The 36″avocado swirled cultured marble green sink was actually too small for the room and the cabinet had no drawers.  We put it on the curb, listed it on craigslist, and it was gone in 30 minutes.  Although I learned to like the avocado by working with the color over the years, rather than against it, it never really fit in with the rest of the house, and it was just too 1970s.  Back in 1998, I did paint the chocolate brown cabinet a soft shade of white to tone down the 70’s look.  Not that I don’t like some of the funky stuff from the 70s, just not in my 1940’s house.  Since those colors are back in style, I am sure the sink has a nice home now.

My daughter thinks I am nuts that I love all things mid century.  Our house was built in 1944, it is small, and contemporary decor just doesn’t fit the scale or character of the tiny house.  Therefore in updating our house, we are trying to go back to the 1940s and 50s.  I love a blog called RetroRenovation and visit pretty regularly for ideas and sometimes just to feel like I am not the only person with a love of old vintage tile and colorful bathrooms.  It always aggravates me to watch “home improvement” shows tear out beautiful mid century tile and fixtures preserved in older homes.  It is disimprovement in many cases!

Well, we have a local tile store that has been in business for more than 70 years that still makes colored tile on site.  They use the same colors they have been making since 1940 and earlier.  I was like a kid in a candy store when I went in there with my children.  They had so many colors to choose from, I had a really hard time deciding.  When I came home with a bunch of free samples, my husband said I could pick the pepto pink, if I really want it.  Now there is true love!