Dear Home Remodelers,
Buying a home is exciting. Dreaming about what you will do with the home is all part of the fun. It’s now even more fun with Pinterest. You will notice I have several home decor and DIY boards on my account.
However, I have a request for those looking to buy a home, if you don’t love mid-century homes please don’t buy one. I understand not everyone loves the mid-century design style but many of us do and they are becoming very hard to find.
The 1940’s home I grew up in. This beautiful home has been totally remodeled and looks like a typical 2000’s home. Click for more photos.
The other day I went to an estate sale with my mom, dad, and cousin, it was in a beautiful mid-century home. It needed a bit of work but overall it was in amazing shape. In the kitchen they had the most amazing pale pink metal cabinets. I’ve heard the new owners are going to remodel, including take out the beautiful cabinets.
1950’s home with original pale pink metal cabinets, soon to be remodeled.
This remodel will take a lot of work and will destroy this beautiful piece of art. There are many homes in the same price range in my town that already look more modern or need to be remodeled and no one will mourn their loss.
So I ask those looking to buy new homes, please don’t buy a mid-century home that is still in good shape only to make it look like a modern home. There are a lot of 80’s and 90’s homes that need remodeled, or newer homes already in the style you like, leave the mid-century homes for those of us that will love them.
Sincerely,
Mid-Century Modern Enthusiasts
Update: I’m not talking about people that need to remodel the home due to issues with it or that remodel it and keep the charm. I’m talking about gutting a mid-century home that is in good shape only to make it look like a very typical modern home.
What are your thoughts about mid-century homes being turned into modern homes?
Deanna Piercy
I couldn’t agree more.
brooke
Somehow, I left a reply to this on your mom’s blog. How I don’t know! Anyway, if you like those cabinets, call the home owners and ask if you can have them. You will have to take them down yourself, dry cloth, bubble wrap, and duct tape them, and store them at your mom’s. Then when you are ready to purchase a home you will have the cabinets of your dreams. Just an idea.
Lisa Sharp
Guessing they already sold them but also I have no where to store them. Plus we don’t plan on building and there are a ton of cabinets and the kitchen would have to be built around them. And we already own a home and the kitchen is TINY and the cabinets would not work in it. I wish!
But really there was so much more to that house than just the cabinets. These homes are a dying breed that I wish we could hold on to.
Green Bean
I have to agree with you, Lisa. I am always so sad when someone buys an older home and guts it, removing all the charm!
Vicky
I totally agree! I strongly believe in keeping the integrity of the house when remodeling. I think it’s fine to remodel, but if you have a mid-century house (or a craftsman style, or whatever), keep your updates in line with that style! Otherwise, I think it just looks weird after a remodel- almost like the house has an identify crisis, lol.
Lisa Sharp
So true! The home pictured above that I grew up in, they ripped out the cabinets and put in cheap Home Depot cabinets, cheap white countertops and made it all look very small and dark. I don’t get it. The kitchen just needed the floors redone and the cabinets needed repainted and it would have been in perfect shape.
Katie
This is such a great post! Thanks for writing it – my grandparents home is very midcentury and I will always associate it with childhood.
xo katie // a touch of teal (link removed to prevent SEO problems)
Charlotte Issyvoo
You’ve hit a real nerve for me. A year ago, my partner, two step-sons, and I moved into a wonderful home, built by its original owner in 1949. Some remodelling has been done but most of the upstairs is as it was when it was built. We have been bringing the kitchen back to a 1950s colours, with yellow cupboards with boomerang handles, a yellow, formica table, green and white, gingham curtains, etc. (We’re doing the other rooms more 30s and 40s style.)
However, we rent. We live in a city with extremely expensive real estate and we know that our place could easily sell for $1,000,000! But not for the house. For the land. Our home is on a 1.5 size lot. So is the house next to ours. Developers are flocking round our two places like vultures, waiting for the old lady next door to die (her husband died last summer). Their plan is to buy both places, knock them down, turn them into three lots, and build three, “multi-family” behemoths in their place. I’m so afraid our landlords (a company) will sell the place out from under us. I dream of buying it… but there’s no way we can do that yet.
So! That’s my raw nerve on the subject. Houses like ours and older are getting knocked down on a daily basis here now and it’s a crying shame.
Lisa Sharp
It’s so sad. I’m glad this spoke to you.
Scarlett
Our house was originally a mid century home but was remolded in the 70s. It now needs a ton of work as many of the cosmetic work done during the original remodel is falling apart. We plan on upgrading the house with a nice combination of farmhouse meets retro/vintage charm. I’ve always loved all things 30s-70s (the more hippie style of the 70s. Not the ugly puke green floors that are starting to peel in my home lol)
Miranda
This post made me think of a variation of a classic saying:
If it ain’t broke, don’t remodel it.
Well, actually after I finally get a house I’ll make an exception to that: whether a modern-looking room needs remodeling or not I’m still going to consider making changes to it so it looks more vintage (with certain 1980s and 1990s details included, since I also love those decades).