Chapter 6 - Bathrooms & Bedrooms

As we wind down the tour of the house, here are just a few pictures of the groovy bathrooms and bedrooms. Their days are numbered and they will soon be as by-gone as the era they came from.

Bathrooms of Lisa Lane - just a fabulous surplus of cultured marble, cheap cabinets, inconsistant and erratic tile choices and some seriously rank toilets. Everything goes.

Bedrooms of Lisa Lane: To keep the bedrooms straight, we labeled them, the airplane room, beach room, rose room, ugly-wallpaper room and the striped room.

Some fun oddities of the house: Laundry room chute, outside pool bathroom (demolished), garage work room.

Chapter 5 - The Wayne Newton Bathroom

The Master Bedroom is located on the second floor on the back side of the house. It is a large and open room with some special features that bring to mind our very own Wayne Newton. Covered in gold lame wallpaper, the walls shimmer like a disco-ball over the very pink Rosy carpet. There is a cosmetic make-up table decked out in Broadway lights and a fireplace made of white quartz stones. The white stone is not smooth and polished but very rough and jagged, really unfriendly.














But the Master Bathroom is the jewel of this Vegas crown and it's all because of the Love Tub. The perfectly round, shallow jacuzzi jet tub is made from "cultured marble" - a type of synthetic engineered composite of plastic and marble dust. Our tub is beige with streaks of pink, matching the lovely Pepto Bismal rug. The bathtub is surrounded on two sides by tub-to-ceiling mirrors and framed by curtains of white gauze and lace . Underneath the jacuzzi, there are 4 fluorescent lights that "turn on" the bathtub so that it glows - beckoning to all you swingers. Best of all is the brass fish faucet that spouts water in our Ultimate Love Tub. Steve and I are keeping the fish faucet as our personal memorabilia, symbolizing our adventure into this time machine to the 70's.

Although we love the Wayne Newton Bedroom, there is just one thing that really bothers us - there is no privacy at all. The bedroom just opens into the bathroom and even the toilet sits right next to the bathtub and therefore the whole bedroom. That's just a little too "free and easy" and borders on gross.


The Master Bedroom boasts a very large although currently unsafe, balcony with views of the Strip. Because the room and balcony face East, the morning light gently awakens this room in beautiful soft sunrise every morning.

We have great plans for this room to update and modernize but I will always fondly remember the Wayne Newton Bedroom. Viva Las Vegas!!

Chapter 4 - Aloha Family Room!

The Family Room right off the kitchen is one of the most bizarre and crazy rooms I have ever seen, and definitely solidifies this house as one of the hippest of 1970s. This room was designed to be a Hawaiian Lounge. First, it has a built-in Tiki Hut Bar with shingled roof, small sink and cabinets.

Second, the fireplace is built from rough-hewn black lava rock.

The floor is brownish tile and the walls are covered in straw-like burlap wallpaper.

We immediately called it the Tiki Hut Room on our initial visit but it wasn’t until we saw what was under the burlap wallpaper that we knew for sure that this was a primo Hawaiian Lounge at one time. Under the newer wallpaper was the original wall covering – a Beach mural scene. So, combine Tiki-Hut bar, lava rock and beach mural and you have one fantastic Island Getaway in your own home….oh, my!

In these pictures, you see where the hut roof was covering the original beach scene. The original owners were in love with the island life since this same beach scene is found in one of the bedrooms down the hall.

Chapter 3 - Come on in!

Let's take a walk though the house. I think you'll enjoy a tour of our fabulous fixer-upper. Starting with the entrance, the wrought iron gate opens into a small dark cove, lined with brick pavers and heavily carved Spanish-style doors. Open the door and you step from the the Latino-touch to the swinging 70's.

The tiled foyer has a curved iron staircase with open stairs and a step-down to a sunken living room. The generous front room has a 2-story pitched roof with a corner stone fireplace going all the way to the ceiling. A very large picture window and two sets of French doors lends an air of elegance but the doors lead to a small patio with a huge turquoise jacuzzi tub. Very strange for a formal living room. The walls are covered in 2 kinds of cream wallpaper - one with a brocade design and the other with a stripe design. Both wallpapers are now yellowing and falling down.

Underneath the stairs is a dirt pit with a cement bird bath fountain. The bird-bath has several water hoses attached but not one of them works. I'm sure that this was once a lovely garden area but now, since we knocked the bird's head clean off, we just affectionately call it the "Pit of Despair." Oh, one of the features that should be noted is that the dirt garden is lined with uneven orange rock...and it just looks ticky-tack. But really I should wait to use that word for the family room next to the kitchen.

Moving on to the Kitchen and Family Room, these rooms are by far my favorite time-capsule. The tile on the floor of the kitchen is priceless and I doubt the world will ever see the likes of it again (hopefully). The brown cabinetry is dark and depressing but the drop ceiling with plastic ceiling tiles over fluorescent lighting brings it down to a whole new level of sad. If you look carefully, you can see the outside window that looks like it is stained glass. No, we were not so honored with a lovely piece of beautiful art - it is just plastic, holding together the broken window. The kitchen will be one of our biggest enterprises and I can't wait to see this downtrodden room turned into a beautiful, airy kitchen, fit for a chef.

Stay tune for a continuation of our tour.....

Chapter 2-Home Inspection - A Closer Look

Looking at these pictures, you are probably wondering what we were thinking! And frankly, it's scarier in reality! The Home Inspection did not boost our confidence. Here are the results:

- Water damage in every room
- Entire roof needs to be replaced
- Water well pump is broken
- Heating & Air Conditioning unit is shot

- Septic tank was brimming (about 4 years past due on expunging)
- Septic tank and leach field are under the driveway which is a serious violation
- Most lighting fixtures are either broken or just gone, ripped out of wall
- Stove, microwave and refrigerator are fossils and do not work
- Balconies in front and back have rotted through

And there is just weeds, weeds, weeds and dirt .... in 30 years, the landscaping had never been done.

Still, despite this bad news and regardless of the sad neglect, the house has a certain charm. The layout of the house is actually wonderfully spacious with oversized bedrooms by today's standards. The acre of land is rare and enviable in this area of Vegas and don't forget the second story has fantastic views of the neon Vegas Strip.

We've forgiven this old house of all it's pitfalls and drawbacks and look forward to restoring it to it's former swinging-self.

Chapter 1-The Project

So, here I am with my first blog ever to document this crazy idea that my husband and I had to renovate a run-down, ugly old house sitting on an acre of dirt. We call our investment "The Lisa Lane Project." I decided to do a blog to share with all our family and friends instead of trying to update everyone all the time.

First, let me tell you WHY we decided to take on this dilapidated, disco-era relic. We live in an area of Las Vegas that is primilarly custom homes or well-established neighborhoods. This home on Lisa Lane was at one time a "happening place" in a Wayne Newton kind of way (wait till you see the Master Bedroom pictures) But 32 years of neglect and disregard have taken it's toll. It's glory days are long gone. Steve and I look out our window and see this wreck everyday so when the sale sign went up - we had to bid. This challenge was just calling to us.

Here are the stats:

Built: 1978
4400 square feet
2 story with balcony (with Las Vegas Strip view!)
6 bedrooms
4 full baths
Living room, formal dining room, family room, loft
1 acre of completely undeveloped land
Sits on the corner lot across from an elementary school
Community is located just minutes away from downtown Vegas

This should give you an intro to our project. I am going to try to upload some pictures and will keep you updated as we go! Wish us Good Luck!!
The Backside of the house...now you have an idea of what an eyesore we have to look at everyday and why we are so motivated on this project.