This little house has a big personality

With planning, spare change and the help of a decorator's eye, a young woman lives large in 966 square feet.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF Times Correspondent

Published August 24, 2007

SEMINOLE HEIGHTS

Anne Mize could teach a few 20-somethings the secret of decorating on a dime.

Four years ago, she paid $111,000 for a 1940s bungalow on a sleepy street not far from Sligh Avenue.

Mize, who works as a project manager in land development for a national builder, thought hard about buying new.

But a tight budget and love for old houses swayed her decision to buy the two-bedroom, one-bath, 966-square-foot house with a detached garage and call it home.

"I lucked out because I bought it from an investor who was in the middle of redoing it," explains Mize, who got the kinds of touches that might have cost her thousands otherwise: black and white tile on the bathroom floor, the original refurbished bathroom fixtures including the claw-foot tub and the original farm sink in the kitchen.

Mize fixed up the home using her eye for antiques, plus guidance from Seminole Heights design expert Nikki Couture, known for her ability to pair history and elegance with a spare hand and sophisticated eye.

How did a young professional with a shoestring budget manage to hire an interior decorator?

"I trade babysitting for her services," Mize said.

She credits her mother for passing down her passion for antiques. "We used pretty much all my stuff, mostly hand-me-downs from my mom and family."

Couture helped Mize, now 30, bring together her collections of antiques, artwork and furniture in an organized, thematic manner.

The house is decorated mostly in whites and blacks, giving it a sophisticated, layered cottage look. Mize's collections of vintage white pottery are displayed in groupings throughout, as are collections of white enamelware, and old Wexford crystal. White is used to accessorize in unexpected ways, including an antique jar Mize filled with old white buttons. (She sorted through a discarded button collection and pulled out all the white ones.)

Her stashes of pottery and crystal, although extensive, don't appear to take up much space because of their lack of color. Both are inexpensive to collect - you can still buy Wexford at Goodwill - and give the house a pulled-together look.

Her brother found an antique mission-style rocker "in a Dumpster dive," she jokes, and her four-piece bedroom set cost a grand total of $150 at a garage sale. Mize painted the set a distressed white, giving it an updated, clean look.

In the master bedroom, the duvet on the antique wrought-iron bed and the sail-shaped window treatments are made from inexpensive drop-cloth from Home Depot.

"I only had to wash it once to soften it up and it was a lot cheaper than fabric," she says.

Mize's mother sewed the bedding as well as most of the window treatments in the house.

Her only splurge was the living-room sofa - a fetching Victorian-era piece that Couture recommended she cover in soft chocolate upholstery.

"Not your grandma's sofa!" Mize says, laughing, a reference to Couture's ability to give old things a youthful twist.

She estimates that she decorated the whole house, including a sweet, cottage-style garden area in back, for $5,000.

Truth be told, the sofa cost an additional $2,000, but it was a worth-it splurge, she says, because it looks good and it pulls together the living room.

An editor for Better Homes and Gardens heard about the house and made a trip from New York to check it out, along with Couture's bungalow. Word is the homes may be featured, Mize says, though no date has been set.

Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebetttendorf@hotmail.com.

Fast Facts:

Tips on redecorating a small home

- "Everything needs to flow from room to room," Anne Mize says. Hers is clean, simple, layered and feminine. Find a theme and color palette you like and stick with it. Save the different theme in every room for a bigger house.

- "Mix new with old," Mize advises. "Otherwise, if you just have all old things, it will look like Grandma's house."

- Look everywhere from garage sales to thrift stores and antique shops. Mize acquired her 1940s-style wrought-iron-and-glass table from neighbors after she spotted it in their carport and asked if she could buy it. "EBay is also a good place to start out, but not if you enjoy the actual hunt," Mize says. Half the thrill of collecting is going out and foraging.

- Hire a designer or decorator. "You'll actually save money in the long run because you won't make a lot of expensive mistakes."