photo by: Mike Yoder

Brindy Fitzpatrick and her son Shea, 12, sit in the living room of their home at 2040 Ohio St. beneath some of Fitzpatrick’s collection of velvet paintings. Fitzpatrick has decorated her home in a vintage style with most of the pieces coming from garage sales and flea markets.

Brindy Fitzpatrick prides herself on finding a house few would want and making it desirable. Before she bought her house at 2040 Ohio St., it was a heap of rotted wood, malformed gutters, trash and scurrying rodents.

Despite the mess, Fitzpatrick made an offer immediately on the 1957 house in central Lawrence.

“The porch was rotten, and a bunch of mice were living under it,” says Fitzpatrick, who works as a nurse. “I had to get the basement put on beams, and redo the plumbing out to the street. Everything was very expensive. … But the house had potential.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

Brindy Fitzpatrick and her son Shea, 12, moved into their house at 2040 Ohio St. in May of 2021. Fitzpatrick cleaned and re-painted the whole house, then set about decorating the interior with her eclectic collection of retro art and furniture.

Capitalizing on that potential took a lot of work: From February to May 2021, Fitzpatrick ripped up the porch, poured a cement foundation in its place and finished the drywall in the basement. Next she hauled abandoned junk and other trash from the premises.

“I was hauling dumpsters and dumpsters of trash out of here,” Fitzpatrick says. “The trash guys got mad at me and left a note saying, ‘You really need to get a dumpster; you’re filling the trash too much.'”

After three months, the house was ready for human inhabitants. For the final stage of renovation, Fitzpatrick, a self-taught artist, painted.

“I did that right away, because I have a lot of stuff, and once you have stuff inside, painting becomes very difficult,” she says.

photo by: Mike Yoder

The kitchen at 2040 Ohio St. has plenty of drawers and cabinet space and incorporates a retro-style refrigerator. In several areas of the house Brindy Fitzpatrick has painted sections of walls with arching shapes of different color for contrast.

photo by: Mike Yoder

The bright and roomy kitchen at 2040 Ohio St. features an original built-in table.

Fitzpatrick used pink, white, and blue-green in the kitchen, and white in the living room. Upstairs she painted a pair of flamingos on the wall next to some built-in bookshelves.

“I don’t want the Realtor gray that every house is painted,” Fitzpatrick says. “I think coming home is something that should make you happy; I don’t necessarily sit in those (upstairs) chairs a lot, but I walk through that room a million times a day, and it makes me happy. I love it.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

A classic 1950s ottoman and chairs fill a cozy, second-floor landing at 2040 Ohio St. that features built-in bookshelves and drawers and Brindy’s own flamingo painting.

Another feature of the home that Fitzpatrick loves is the half-moon table attached to the kitchen counter. She also appreciates the sunroom where she drinks coffee on spring mornings. The sunroom features hanging chairs and a $20 garage-sale mannequin named Claire.

photo by: Mike Yoder

The sunporch at 2040 Ohio St. features two suspension wicker chairs along with a mannequin. Just beyond the sunporch in the backyard, the Fitzpatricks have a chicken coop.

Fitzpatrick decorated her home with antiques and garage-sale finds, including midcentury furniture and a collection of kitschy velvet paintings. She also refurbished items that she found on the roadside and elsewhere, including a colorful dresser that adds a pop of color to her bedroom.

“I don’t want to go to Nebraska Furniture Mart and get the brown couch everyone else has,” she says. “I look until I find something amazing that inspires me, then I look for other things that build around this great thing I found.”

An example of that decorating technique is the chandelier she bought at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store for her bedroom and decorated around.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Brindy Fitzpatrick purchased this chandelier from the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store and says she decorated and designed the rest of her bedroom around the light.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Brindy Fitzpatrick found the bottom portion of this large dresser along the roadside. She finished it off with some bright paint and decorative fabric, then added a cabinet piece on top, to use in her bedroom.

Fitzpatrick lives in the house with her 12-year-old son, Shea Fitzpatrick, who loves cooking in the bright, cheerful kitchen.

He’s also a fan of the large backyard. Come spring, he and Fitzpatrick plan to put in a garden and see what they can coax from the soil.

Fitzpatrick spent a fair amount of time last year painting the garage door. In keeping with her aesthetic, it wasn’t a monochromatic affair but something of a mural. The door features a red heart with an eye in the center on a field of vivid blues and pinks. It certainly caught the attention of neighbors, who she said stopped by to offer compliments. Passersby had noticed that in under a year the unremarkable white house had turned from a deteriorating structure to an art gallery of sorts.

“Personally, I like to find a dirty old house and make it into something amazing,” Fitzpatrick says. “If you get something that’s already trashed, you can just be creative. Especially painting, I’ll paint anything on the wall because you can just paint over it.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

Brindy Fitzpatrick painted a colorful mural on the garage door as well as re-painting most of the interior of the house at 2040 Ohio St..

photo by: Mike Yoder

A painting of Elvis Presley anchors a wall of velvet paintings above a retro couch, table lamp and an old television as an end table at 2040 Ohio St.

photo by: Mike Yoder

A collection of Abraham Lincoln paintings and artwork on the wall and a mannequin Madonna decorate an area of the Fitzpatrick dinning room at 2040 Ohio St.

photo by: Mike Yoder

A cabinet, chairs and paired wall art create a symmetrical display in Fitzpatrick’s kitchen/dinning room at 2040 Ohio St.

photo by: Mike Yoder

A hallway view into Shea Fitzpatrick’s room at 2040 Ohio St.