Retro Renovation» split levels

Dave makes mid century modern wall panels for his living room for $250

pam kueber — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 11:00:29 +0000

David and Kristin have the eye for mid century modern decorating, and, it turns out that Dave is one handy guy. After I declared that orange is the Retro Renovation color of the year, he sent me photos of his living room of his 1959 split level house, with all the gorgeous orange accents. Of course, I also noticed the fantastic mid century modern panelled, or latticed, wall in the room. It turns out that he designed and installed the wall himself — for only $250 — and it’s 24 feet long! Today, he tells us how to make a panelled wall like this one.. and gives us peek inside his and Kristin’s lovely home.
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Of course, I asked Dave to start us out by explaining his “Retro Renovation story.” He writes:

My wife and I searched for a house for about a year, going to open houses every Sunday. My requirements were brick, 2 car garage, a driveway that we didn’t have to move cars around to get in and out. We hadn’t seen anything that met our needs for the right price until we saw this house for sale by owner.

It is a trilevel built in 1959, and has a pink bathroom in perfect condition that we both fell in love with. I am sure most buyers were scared away because the house needed “updating” but we just fell in love with it. We put in a contingency offer, hurriedly got our house on the market, and sold it in less than a month.

We started loading up on design magazines and quickly discovered that mid century design fit our house to a tee! Items have been purchased for the house from 2 great mid century shops and several different antique shops in town.

We have been here for over 4 years now and continue to take on new projects, one room at a time. I found your blog early on in our renovation and read it every day for ideas and inspiration.

I thought you might like to see pictures of our living room. Our accent color is orange and it is my favorite room in our house.

I did the wall myself. It is just strips of MDF. It was a time consuming, low cost project. I have about $250 in the whole project (including renting a paint sprayer). The wall project evolved from a picture in the now defunct Metropolitan Home magazine. My wife brought it to my attention and asked if I could replicate it. I kind of took it on as a personal challenge. I spent two days laying out the lines on the wall. The wall starts in the living room and continues into the dining room approximately 8′ tall by 24′ long. The next step was cutting 1 sheet of 3/4 MDF (medium density fiberboard) into 3/4 x 3/8 strips on the table saw. Yep, only in 4×8 sheet ! I set up a miter saw outside the front door and cut pieces to length, one at a time, using my lines on the wall to mark the strips (not a tape measure) because that was more accurate. I then adhered each piece using powergrab adhesive and pin nails. I only worked on it about 2 hours a day, maybe 3 days a week.

After about 5 weeks, and about 6 hours of caulking, it was ready for paint. I rented a HVLP (high velocity low pressure) sprayer from a local rental store for the weekend, primed first, then added 2 coats of latex paint. It has been done for about 2 years now and it still makes me smile every time I walk in the house! Note: the tone-on-tone curtains are from Penneys and were $30 a panel and fit PERFECTLY with NO alterations. What a lucky break! — Dave and Kris

That is so impressive, Dave — like I like to say, “some therapy.” You now move ahead in our overachiever of the year award, ahead of Uncle Atom, who has not actually finished his tiki totem pole, and TroySF, who is resting on his 2010 laurels (so far.) Thank you so much for sharing, the house is really truly stunning. I love the living room — with its mix of white walls, light gray upholstered furniture, the blonde Heywook Wakefield and the puches of orange. You two really know what you are doing — in your next career, you need to be a decorating team, truly!

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1970s ballroom in Michelle’s Minnesota time capsule house

pam kueber — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 10:00:45 +0000

Our first midcentury house with a ballroom. Yes, a ballroom! I’ll say it again: A ballroom! Minnesota Michelle writes:

Dear Pam,

My husband and I weren’t even looking for a new house. We were quite happy with our 1956 Marvin Anderson Rambler. There was only one problem: My husband’s menagerie of vintage pinball machines and jukeboxes was taking over the 2,300 sq. ft. One day his best friend was browsing the MLS for homes comparable to his own and found this beauty for us. The home was bank owned and had been vacant for a few years. We were sold on it when we found out it had a ballroom as DH and I met ballroom dancing. After speaking with the original neighbors we were told that an Iranian family had custom designed the home to be a “mini palace.” It was certainly an adjustment going from 50s mod to 70s opulence, but we’ve grown to love it!

How did Michelle find RetroRenovation.com, I asked? I’m always curious. She answers:

I’ve been searching for online pictures of retro kitchens and baths to determine if there is any value in keeping these original or not. It seems that there are a lot of people interested in restoring theirs to original 50s glory, but the 70s is still too recent for people to be reminiscent about. Your website is perhaps the only one that features pictures from this era without knocking it or joking about it.

We have actually been in the house a little over a year now. It took us a lot longer to sell our old house than we anticipated so very little has changed. I am redoing the kitchen, but I’m trying to stay true to the style of the home with chocolate cherry cabinets and Carrera marble countertops which will match the existing floors in the dining room and the foyer. We knocked down the cabinets above the island almost right away to make the kitchen more open. If you stand at the island and look out from the kitchen you see the fireplace in the family room.

While having a time capsule kitchen is kind of kitsch, there are a lot of major downfalls. I do a lot of cooking so we want higher end appliances (steam wall ovens, induction cooktop, etc.) which requires a major reconstruction. The existing cabinets may look nice, but they have no bearings in the drawers so you hear a loud crunching noise when they are opened, there aren’t any backs to the cabinets inside so you just see the sheetrock, the hinges are not adjustable, they were stained in place along with the rest of the woodwork and the inside of the cabinets are really sloppy and the soffits are completely unnecessary and take up storage space. We will replace the existing gas grill (old pilot light style) with a new gas grill, but we are totally keeping the hammered brass Thermador hood above it.

Hurray for wallpaper! Just so’s everyone knows, anything with foil or flocked is THE most collectible. NOS rolls of vintage wallpaper like this can go for $200!

I like the wallpaper in the hallway upstairs, but the master bath is a little too much so eventually we will redo that. The toilets weren’t anything special (just plain old white) so we replaced those with tall, elongated bowls. We love the chandeliers, though and I will always keep those. I also don’t want to modify any of the bricks around the fireplaces much to my husband’s chagrin.

We had to rip out all of the carpet in the basement and some of the sheetrock (including the wallpaper) due to major water damage that had occurred. We plan on replacing the ballroom’s old blue carpet with new blue carpet to match the remaining wallpaper and window treatment. When I redo the window treatments off the kitchen and family room, I’m going to stay with pinch pleat curtains on a track to keep with the style of the house. We are also not going to touch any of the woodwork or the Amerock carriage house hardware in antique brass.

One of the biggest pluses to this house was the really large deck off of the kitchen which overlooks about a 1/2 acre lot with mature oak, maple, cottonwood, river birch, and box elder trees which abuts a small park. You just can’t find a new house on such a prime lot.

Oh, and here’s a picture of his 1978 Lincoln Mark V Diamond Jubilee Edition, however. Enjoy!

Sincerely,
Michelle

Woah. I have some very serious lust going on. Suddenly living small doesn’t seem so exciting – not when faced with the possibility of living in a house with a ballroom. Thanks so much for sharing, Michelle — and let us see your kitchen “after”. Your vision of adding modern functionality while still preserving and respecting your home’s original — and absolutely fabulous — design aesthetic, is, in my mind, spot-on.

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EVERYONE tells Guy & Rosanna to update their 1960s time capsule– but they find us, instead!

pam kueber — Tue, 25 May 2010 10:00:40 +0000

Another time capsule saved. More new Retro Renovation friends. Guy writes:

Hi Pam,

Hello -First, let me thank you for your site. I just closed on a 1960s “time capsule” house and I was so glad to find that there are others who like that kind of thing! The 1960s decor is why my wife and I bought the house, then EVERYONE (relatives, inspectors and electricians) mentioned how the house would be great once it was updated. We started wondering if keeping the house “as is” was a good idea. Then we found your site and realized WE WEREN’T ALONE! Thanks!!

The house has vintage wallpaper (including a patriotic themed paper with George Washington and such), a turquoise stove, a built in planter (with fake plants that are at least 30 years old… probably older), an unusal tiki-type plastic small mural, a blue and a pink bathroom.

The house was also in fantastic shape (other than a little peeling on the wallpaper seams and some loose edges on the linoleum floor.) Attached are some of the photos I took yesterday (electricians were updating the aluminum wiring and adding outdoor outlets… some things MUST be updated!)

Click on first thumbnail to launch slide show; look for the arrows below each image to move forward or back.

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I responded right away to Guy’s note, of course, asking for photos and more of the “back story.” I always like to hear what the real estate agent said! Guy responded:

We were searching for a house and in passing my real estate agent mentioned how “crazy” the wallpaper was in a house she had seen earlier that day. As soon as she mentioned the patriotic wallpaper and the turquoise stove we knew that we would buy that house.

We bought the house from an older gentleman who said he had kept everything pretty much the same as when he bought it in 1981. Built in 1964 he said the house had had 6 previous owners and they were mostly short term employees of a nearby company.

I think these two factors kept this house from being updated and looking like every other house in town.

What we like about retro houses is that every room has a different feel. The colors and patterns just bring a house to life.

The house is located in Central NJ.

I look forward to reading anything you post! And thanks again for all your hard work on retrorenovation.com.

Thank you, Guy, and Rosanna, for saving some of these wonderful features. Sounds like your house found the right owners and that you two are all set to have fun.

see my links in the sidebar ----->>>>>

On a serious note: Your vintage floor tiles may not be “linoleum” — I’m guessing they are some form of vinyl — and old vinyl flooring can contain asbestos. Be sure to consult with a pro so you know what you are dealing with and can make informed decisions about how to handle it. And while I’m in Precautionary Pam mode, this is a good time to remind all owners of vintage homes to study up on things like asbestos, lead paint, electrical wiring, even safety glass in windows and shower doors, etc. There are some links on my sidebar — from the EPA and like — to get you started with some online research. That said: Connect with some professionals who can help keep you on the right track.

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