Our home is a Cliff May Rancho that was built in 1952. It is a mid-century pre-fab built for the urban sprawl going on in the 1950s. May's homes were designed to maximize the indoor/outdoor living that we are so lucky to enjoy in SoCal. Our neighborhood has around 600 homes built by Cliff May in 3 (I think) different models, more info here. I don't have as many before photos as I would like - so most of these are of our home in its' current state. We did a bit of remodeling to the kitchen and took out the fourth bedroom to create a "great room" - although ours is not that big! After moving from the loft we needed to open up the space once we moved in. The kitchen was a narrow galley kitchen with zero counter space - it had been updated in the 70s or 80s, so it didn't have any of the cool 50s original appliances. We haven't stuck as much to the "original" styling as many mid-century modern enthusiasts who live in the neighborhood try to do. We've more adapted it too meet our more modern needs. I hope you enjoy the tour!
Our living area - this is what you see when you enter our home. One of my challenges and something I would like to create is more of an entry to the house.
Here is the kitchen before
Kitchen now. We used Henrybuilt cabinets - and changed the location of the sink to under the window - added the huge island to compensate for the lack of counter space before. We widened the kitchen by closing off the original entrance to the hallway which is where the fridge is now.
Before back of kitchen and the pink wall on the right was the fourth bedroom we removed - now where our dining area is.
The dining area now, you can also see we moved the entrance to the hall to the right.
The owner before us did plaster work and practiced around the home plastering random walls and the fireplace - it was so awful - a light brown suede type texture. It had to go so we found gypsum board tiles from modular arts to cover up the ugly.
Mason lounging in part of the remaining lounge from the loft. As you can tell we are not afraid of color! Our house has a TON of windows and the white pitched ceiling allows for us to use lots of color. We have used Flor tiles throughout since we haven't been ready to invest in flooring. These tiles have been great - they hold up to the kids as you can literally pick one square up take it outside and hose it down then let it dry and bring it back in. After some get really grimy we just replace those ones and at $13/each it is cheap. Eventually we may go with the re-surfaced concrete with sisal rugs (I love those!) or potentially a grey wood - random blog post about my flooring obsessions here.
And now for a few detail shots - always my fav!
My father-in-law, yes the owner of this fabulous Naples home, brought us this juicer home from Europe a few years ago - our style without a doubt!
Note to self - move one of favorite items away from electrical outlet for pictures next time!
Did you know you can cut a little off your succulent - put it in a vase in your home, let it grow some roots and then re-plant it somewhere? I love to do this!
Jonathan Adler fruit bowl
A nod to the mid-century roots we have used some mid-century mod fabric - this Alexander Girard Quatrefoil, you can see a George Nelson fabric wall hanging peeking out from the hall as well.
Thanks for taking part 1 of the tour, I'll post the rest of the house later in the week. I've recently become addicted to 9 by Design which has me really wanting to do some fun decorating - I LOVE their style! I'll keep you posted on any re-decorating as well.