our second sneak peek opens to the door to the home of photographer rachel saldaña (aka buttons magee). she and her husband live in a 937 sq. ft. ranch built in 1956 in kansas city with their two daughters. their home is another great example of an extremely tight budget resulting in using mainly thriftstores, craigslist, and retail clearance sections (but not without a few treasured splurges). and, you’ll probably recognize her blue patterned wall as a finalist in the lena corwin printing by hand pattern contest. click here for more, full-sized images. [thanks, rachel!] -anne
Master Bedroom- My husband is a resident who is frequently on call. When he comes home the next day he needs a dark place to recover his sleep. That is why we chose the Chocolate Brown wall color (BM). When the curtains are closed it is as dark as night in there. I also believe bedrooms should be kept for rest, so we don’t need much more in there than a bed and dresser. The dresser was an antique from my childhood that I painted aqua and added the Anthropologie coral handles to give the room some pop.
Living Room: Paint color is Silvery Blue by Benjamin Moore on walls and Silver gray on ceiling (BM paint). The couch and vintage Eames lounger were both craigslist finds which I search frequently. Giant Lamp, easy chair, ottomans and most decorative items such as mid-century magazine rack were thrift store finds, none costing more than $20 each. I group like items together, like the inexpensive milk glass collection on mantle to give the inexpensive items more presence. The linen pillows were sewn by me with Ikea down inserts. Coffee table was my first real furniture purchase in college at an antique booth. We cut down the legs to make it more versatile. The leaves can be raised to make it suitable for casual dining. The other lamps in the room all bought for $6 each at Target clearance with new shades purchased. The area rug is a carpet remnant we had bound at the edges ..only cost us $80 total for 10×12 ft. rug.
When moving in I decided on a base color scheme of pale silver blues to make the tiny house flow from one room to the next. The unifying color is the silver gray ceiling in each room.
Kitchen eating nook with Rattan pattern accent wall was handpainted by me. Artwork- mostly my own photography, flower photo by Jen Causey, watercolor paintings by friend Heather Smith Jones, bearded man Ashley G, keep calm srfgrlbybay.
Kitchen- I am an avid cook, so I needed the kitchen to be able to handle three meals a day and plenty of space to spread out. Not to mention this is over a third of our livable square-footage. We remodeled the kitchen this summer completely by ourselves… even plaster work. The entire kitchen was done under $4,000 including appliances. Cabinets- Stock cabinetry from Lowes that I painted myself using Drabware from Martha Stewart paints at Lowes. I was a bit afraid the open shelves would feel cluttered, but after a bit of purging and switching to more attractive storage solutions like the vintage refrigerator containers instead of plastic, I find it much easier to keep the kitchen clean and organized. Granite counters- I installed them myself over a few days - muranocollection.com all for under $500. Stainless steel island from target.com. Linen curtains made by me.
