From England with Love - Page 2

"The purpose of this was to record it so we could look back at it," Andy admits. "It's great to be able to look back and see how far we've come."

"Also, we wanted to connect with other Eichler owners," he says almost as an afterthought, noting that they have now befriended numerous other MCM bloggers.

Among the couple's most challenging tasks were picking the right color to paint their home's exterior and restoring those trademark Eichler mahogany panels.

"Some people think once it's been painted, it's ruined, but that's not the case," Andy says of the "huge job" of stripping the painted paneling. "We've done that in three different rooms....We've actually gotten pretty good at it."

Perfecting the best technique for stripping the mahogany was a learning experience, while picking the right exterior paint color required patience as well, even after they had decided on gray.

"It's so difficult to come up with something that doesn't have shades of blue, or green, or red," Andy says. "So, we just kept experimenting until we found the right color."

This included trying—well, perhaps not 50 shades of gray, but several—and seeing how they looked in varying light over the course of several months.

"We tried to set ourselves deadlines so we weren't painting in direct sunlight," Andy says of painting their home last summer, sometimes in 100-plus degree heat. "We've gotten more sunshine here in a year and a half than we got in our whole lives in England!"

They can't argue with the end result, though, which has been admired and even emulated by numerous neighbors as well as a passer-by who was interested in painting his Sacramento Streng home.

"It's just kind of funny because we've gone from [having] the only gray house on this part of the street to, now, there's a few others," Andy says. "I don't know whether it's coincidence or a compliment."

After 18 months of steady work, trying all the while not to neglect their home business—they design and market their own modern home décor as Olli + Lime—Andy and Karen's 1955 home is getting close to finished.

"We do everything ourselves, all a do-it-yourself kind of thing. It's our hobby," he says proudly. "I mean, it looks finished if you point the camera in the right direction.

"We're both pretty passionate about what we've got and preserving it."

For a closer look at Andy and Karen's Eichler home, and their impressive renovation handiwork, click here.