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.
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:
Rebecca says
Chris, that sounds great. I am heading out the door right now but will look at your site and reach out to you.
Pam, glad to her you might be up for it.
Chris says
Rebecca, I’m sure we’d be up for that if anything starts up, or if you want to discuss starting something. You can click on my name in this post to contact me via our (very) fledgling retro site that pales in comparison to this site, but will likely offer a somewhat male perspective on all this 😉
Rebecca says
Chris,
Thanks so much for the kind words.
I would love to start up a WI MCM group. Pam has a link to a blog for Atomic Indy and they always look like they are having so much fun. There are so many cool houses and folks in WI I am hoping we can do something. Maybe if we do something we can get Pam to make a visit our way. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink Pam. =-)
pam kueber says
Hey, Rebecca — I’m all for “Retro Renovation Meet-Ups”. Go for it! And I’ll for sure try to come!
Chris says
At my wife’s urging (her photography is better than mine), and if Pam approves of me doing this, here is a link to some different photos, including some of the current state of the kitchen. Comments, thoughts, ideas are welcome:
http://s664.photobucket.com/albums/vv8/Mirage1972/1964House-Dec/1964House-Angie/
You can’t really see it in these photos, but the light coming from the slots in the sides of the kitchen light fixture look like mini-sunshine rays. We’ve seen this whimsical subtlety on lots of MCM homes.
Rebecca, it was definitely worth it to have a house that we don’t just like, but truly love. Your camping trailer is a gem! And your fantastic Christmas collection… amazing!
pam kueber says
Chris, are you insane? (no offense intended haha.) Your kitchen is AWESOME! The wood matches the rest of the house… the wallpaper is fantabulous…I adore the floor (check for asbestos content so you know what you are dealing with)…Maybe figure out how to refresh some of the aging finish and then, revert to vintage appliances and you are rockin’! Hey, yes, Angie did catch the light well. I might swap out some of the pics on the blog at some point, for the record.
Rebecca says
Chris,
We understand the journey you were on to find your house. We moved back to WI in 2003 and have been looking for just the right house since then. We finally found one almost 6 years to the date of moving back. We became expert at combing the MLS and could tell you a lot about a house just from the outside picture. We have seen remuddles, bad updates, houses that were probably very cool in their time and the owners stripped every bit of mcm out of them. We’ve look as far as OKC, Indy, most of WI and even into IL. We do love looking at 50/60’s houses so I have to say it was alot of fun along the way. There are so many great houses out there but usually only one or two that are “it”. I am glad you found your dream house. Hopefully it was worth the journey.
Chris says
By the way, we spent no less than 19 months looking for a house. Literally 100’s if not 1000’s of houses we went through and rejected. We stepped into this house quite randomly (not in the area we were looking in), and didn’t say a word to each other when we left aside from “call the Realtor”. Accepted offer 4 days after listing!
Chris says
Hello, this is Chris, co-owner of this house. Thanks for all the kind comments so far, glad you like. Yes, the house was very well cared-for and is in mostly extremely nice condition. We are preserving everything that can be preserved, and the few areas that have water or time damage we are either outright restoring, or tastefully blending in our own style (not “updating” per se). Our goal with either is to preserve the character and charm of the house and certainly not have that jarring hodgepodge of eras that so many end up with when they “update” a house.
The living room and adjacent dining room also have hardwood floors (to match all the bedrooms and hall) which we will be exposing next. The dining room has one wall of good-condition woven wallpaper. The living room has one wall that matches, but is too time-damaged to save.
All the light fixtures in the house (save three) are original and are keepers.
The kitchen has some nice original features including the salt-and-pepper countertops, but is one of the few areas that has been somewhat updated here and there over the years. It’s probably the least noteworthy room in the house, and we have set it aside until last to better decide how to proceed.
We are just as in love with our large yard, which is very mature and cared-for with many perennial gardens, well-planned tree placement, and grille built-in to the chimney mirroring the fireplace. The exterior is off-white brick. We’re looking forward to adding our personal touch outside in the spring.
Pam, the wallpaper in the entryway was unfortunately one of the few damaged areas and is our current project being reconstructed.
After we finish more of the house, we will certainly send in photos of the progress for another possible feature when there is enough done to share.
Thanks again to Pam for the best and most inspirational & motivational blog/site on the internet, and for taking the time to share our story and photos with you all. And thanks again for the accessory color suggestions on that main bath… it was quite perplexing to us at first! 🙂
– Chris & Angie
Cathy says
I am so jealous! Thank you both for saving this gem.
Rebecca says
Wow, what a great house. We live in Madison, WI and have found that you can find some great condition 50’s homes in Milwaukee and Madison. They were very well built and many well taken care of. Chris and Angela what a great find and I love how you are decorating it. If you want connect with me on my blog http://vintagelivin.blogspot.com and let me know what you are looking for. We are all around WI, Madison, and northern IL looking for things. Congrats on a beautiful home.
Jen says
I love the slanted cabinets in the bathroom, along with that ultra-cool UFO light! Congrats on your beautiful home! What fun!