Chris and Angela wrote to me a few months ago, excited because they were about to close on a beautiful 1964 mid-century modern home in Wisconsin. Well, the deal went through successfully, and now this cute-overload couple is happily playing house in their stunning, designer-built house — a time capsule with mint-condition original lighting, Nutone, basement bar and heavens to betsy: two flocked wallpapers. (Can you live with that? tee hee.)

Before I launch Chris, let me explain that when he originally wrote, the couple was concerned about the sunset tan bathroom — didn’t quite know what to do with it even though they are “designer types.” I pointed them to a photo of one of my bathrooms, in which I used Home Depot “rose beige” tiles, and suggested something akin to the mint green, aqua and brown combination I used for wallpaper, linens and accessories. You can see how they picked up and ran with the suggestion in their bathroom design experiment to date.

So here’s the story and all the awesome 1964 time capsule eye candy. Chris writes:

Hi Pam,

My wife and I were lucky enough to just purchase this beautiful 1964 home. Our house is an original one of a kind. The original owners we bought the house from designed the floor plan and many of the details were constructed by the owner himself.  Beautiful features, fixtures, stonework.

We are not finished decorating any of this yet, but had to share now since it will be a while until it’s finished. These are all just items we already had that we’re using until we find better suited ones, along with nice drapes.

The chocolate & mint accessories in the bathroom will work once we find ones we like, thanks for the color tip!

As you can see, right now we’re experimenting with chocolate, green and cyan.

The bathroom is nearly as-new with hardly any wear (they used the similar but smaller blue bathroom which will be undergoing restoration shortly). About the only non-original item is the faucet.

Note long sliding medicine cabinet under the mirror with an electrical outlet inside. Slanted cabinets. Also we have the NuTone 3-in-1 heater, light and fan.

Needless to say, this room will stay as-is forever. We need to find a chair appropriate for the dressing area,

and I need to clean that floor grout. Pretty easy restoration, I’d say!

Next up is our main hall with what we call

our “UFO” light fixture

And our cozy fireplace room that we’ve accessorized temporarily with some Danish Modern influences.

We love our dotted light fixtures here, too. NuTone built-in doorbell here, too. This room’s flooring is an interesting laminate that is clear with laminate chips in it that looks like pebbles in water. Unfortunately there is a lot of damage, so will need to be replaced eventually.

Entry tile. Pink/green, though camera flash brings out the
color. It’s more subdued. [Pam adds: I like the look of that wallpaper, too.]

Last up is our basement 1960′s paneled family room. We are starting to furnish and accessorize this room now in all oranges and greens. Need to find some orange barstools!

Oh, and can’t forget a couple samples of our flocked bedroom wallpaper, one orange… [Pam adds: I couldn't resist putting these images in super-size. Blow your mind, mon!]

…one blue.

Great site, it’s our favorite… keep up the good work!

Chris & Angela, near Milwaukee, WI

Thank you, Chris and Angela, for doing this great archiving of your home and for sharing it with us. Fantastic house — and you two sound like you are the perfect caretakers. I can’t wait to see what else you do with it, over time. xoxo

Bonus quiz:

No related posts.

Steven, Michael and the pup is Bobby.

Rochester Steven has completed some drop dead gorgeous updates to his 1957 Alcoa Aluminum house, and shares the details and images. This is the third story on these late-1950s “demonstration” houses. We first featured a time capsule for sale in Wisconsin. I think that’s how Steven found this blog, and we featured his house in New York state, along with the home’s original brochure, just a few weeks later. There were only 23 of these houses built — and Steven, Michael and Bobby are amazing caretakers. This house will knock you off your chair — it’s worthy of Architectural Digest.

Pam, There are three areas that we have addressed in the past several months:

1. Restored the house back to the original color of purple(the front anyway, have to work on the back next spring). It was painted brown some years ago, most likely due to the unsightly fading over the years of the purple that we have seen on a couple other Alcoa houses. We removed one of the aluminum panel pieces from the garage and retrieved the color from the un-weathered side of it.

2. Partially restored the kitchen. When the kitchen was gutted and remodeled years ago the upper metal cabinets were installed in the storage area of the garage. We had them painted the light blue that you see now at an auto shop and reinstalled them. I think that the Auto Body painting worked out great. Especially when it is metal. It was a bit of a pain to cart them all over there!!! Since we only had the original upper cabinets we went with some simple black faced cabinets to complete the lower ones with white Corian for for the counter.  We also reconfigured the layout of the kitchen to more reflect the original kitchen in the brochure. The bottom cabinets are made out of wood with black lacquer paint and aluminum pulls… they were purchased at IKEA and are quite inexpensive. The tiles are new tiles with a vintage feel and were purchased locally. We selected the color of both the back splash tiles and the cabinets so that they relate nicely to the multi-colored ["Mondrian"-style] cabinets [shown just below] that face the family room

(The “Mondrian” cabinets are original to the house. I believe that all of the Aloca houses that were built had these unless another option was specified. They are wood with Formica facing.)

3. Family Room/lounge area has been furnished with many great finds from local shops and online. Still somewhat of a work in progress……….

Related posts:

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2. Steven & Michael create the Mondrian bathroom originally intended for their Alcoa Aluminum house – stunning! Steven and Michael have wowwed me beyond belief by recreating...
3. Updating the second bathroom in a 1957 Alcoa Aluminum House It has been great fun to watch the continuing transformation...

John writes:

I recently had 2 sides of my home painted. Here are a few pics to share with your readers per your request for renovation pics and stories. I included a before pic so you can see what it looked like when I bought it in Oct 2007.

Above and left: Original look when I bought home in Oct 2007. Not bad but I personally don’t like shutters especially on either side of the front door!! Neighbors couldn’t remember last time it had been painted. Needless to say they LOVE me!!!! I love the original door. Hope to paint that as well.The inside of door is natural wood but the exterior has already been painted.

Above: West side primed and ready for paint.

Above: South side needed lots of primer!!!

Above and left: Front before trim painted and awnings put back up. Looks much cleaner and MCM without the shutters!! I … removed one of the exterior lights by the door as it originally only had one.

Above and left: South side. The awnings make SUCH a difference in the summer. I rarely use air conditioning and only in my bedroom at night. I love the natural breezes that flow thru the house.

Above: Front(west side)

Pam, I used Behr paint. Body is called Spiceberry and trim is Mojave Sunset. I tried to play the trim off the brick fireplace under carport. Its a terra cotta color rather than red brick. I tried looking into Eichler colors since I love the Eichler homes but I didn’t find one I liked. I have a Benjamin Moore store where I live so they had all the color cards for Eichler.

John

John, thank you so much for recording all this and for sharing. Have I ever mentioned that I love shingled ranches? The house looks great!

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