R E M O D E L E D M A RV E L S

Contents
Foreword

Chapter 1: Your Mod Home in the Making

Get to Know Your Home

Chapter 2: This Mod’s for You

What’s Your Mod Style?

Chapter 3: Developing & Managing Your Budget

Renovation Operations

Chapter 4: Modern Impressions

Outside In

Chapter 5: Kitchens
Heart of the Home

Chapter 6: Bathrooms
Soak in Your Senses

Chapter 7: Stylish Living

Mod Interiors

Chapter 8: Bedrooms
Sleeping Beauties

Chapter 9: Outdoor Spaces

The Great Outdoors

Credits
 Your Mod Home
in the Making

Your Mod Home in the Making l 11

Get to Know
Your Home
Excitement. Relief. Disbelief. There are a lot of

century home. You’re grateful for the opportunity to

into the nooks and crannies, and get started on all

the ways you know you can make the home sing.

to begin? Where to start on that long laundry list

of awesome features and elements you’ve always
envisioned for your mid century dream. Or perhaps
it’s more impatience. There are original cabinets
to refurbish, awful Tuscan pendant lights that
need to be torn out and replaced with something
appropriate so the house can breathe. This poor
house, oppressed by the weight of 1990s remuddles

it’s your honor to make that so.

OPPOSITE Over the course of three years, Scott and Summer Gieser
scouted for the perfect furnishings and tackled projects both big and
small so as to preserve and personalize their 1959 Al O’Rourke-built
home in Riverside, California.

PREVIOUS PAGE Holly and Ken Schoolmeester spent nearly two years
renovating the abandoned Mid Century Modern home they purchased
in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2013, restoring it to its former glory.

Your Mod Home in the Making l 12

Your Mod Home in the Making l 13
Waiting a bit to
renovate your house
goes hand in hand
with taking your
time to find the
right pieces for you.
The centerpiece
of Page and DJ
Sigband’s 1960
Eichler living room
is the bright-or-
ange Ligne Roset
“Togo” sectional,
a beloved piece DJ
has had for years.
“This piece was a
non-negotiable,”
Page says. The rest
of her accents that
bedeck the original
fireplace tie that
color throughout
the space.
It often takes time to suss out your storage situation and how to
use the space so it truly addresses your needs. Page and DJ took
their time making updates and determined that they’d rather
use one of their extra bedrooms as a walk-in closet. Therefore,
in this spare room, dubbed the Tiki Room, they installed a
Murphy bed (behind the two orange chairs) to make up for any
potential guest room space they lost with that conversion.

The best thing you can do? Wait.

Yep. Sit on your hands. Pause on your
Pinterest board. Fight the urge to dive in
with a sledgehammer and start smashing
your way to a better period home. Take a
beat.
There’s no one formula for perfecting
your ideal Mid Century Modern home,
and that’s because there’s not a one-size-

mid century dream. And so, your best

move is to not move at all. Quite yet.
Let the house speak to you. Live
in it and see how you use each room,
each space. What well-worn paths does

plan? Where does your arm instinctively

reach to set down your keys after you
walk through the door? What areas are
underutilized? How can you change that?
Like any home, mid century or not,
the best changes you can make are those
that rise up to meet you where you are.
Updates that help solve your problems
or make life easier, smoother or more
comfortable for your particular family will
always be the best investments, and for
that, you need time.

Your Mod Home in the Making l 15

 There’s not a one-size-fits-all
solution to making your home a more
livable, efficient, stylish and restored mid
century dream. And so, your best move is to
not move at all. Quite yet.

When Page Sigband, a mid century

vintage seller and garage designer, along
with her husband, DJ, bought their 1960
Eichler in Orange, California, the house was

small projects that would make the home

more livable for them. Doing so helped them
realize one major priority that drove a lot of
their design plans: creating more storage.
“Because the rooms and closets are
very small in Eichler homes, you have to
get creative when it comes to maximizing
your storage space,” Page says. “Between
my husband and me, there was no way
the master closet could come close to
accommodating all our stuff.” After much
deliberation, they decided to turn a second
bedroom into a walk-in closet. “The
downside was that we would have to walk
down the hall to get dressed, but it was an
economical solution (we installed an Easy
Track closet system), and at the same time we
were able to keep the architectural integrity
of the home.”

16 l Atomic Ranch
 Creating a seamless connection between indoor and outdoor spaces is a hallmark of
mid century home design. Holly and Ken did this by removing interior walls separating
the living and dining areas and installing new framing around the windows, which
Your
achieved this goal andMod Home
created in the
an open Making
area l 17
for entertaining.
 Not only did Chad
Baker and Tina Clem-
ent seek to preserve
the original materials
of their 1963 James
Nelson Sherrill-de-
signed mid mod gem
in Hickory, North
Carolina, but they
also sought out orig-
inals to fill the gaps
of original things
that had been lost.
Case in point: The
couple got in touch
with some owners of
other James Nelson
Sherrill-built homes
to purchase their
discarded original
features and to fur-
ther vet the accuracy
of their renovations.

18 l Atomic Ranch
 Let the house
speak to you. Live in it
and see how you use each room, each
space. What well-worn paths does your
family tread through the floor plan?
Where does your arm instinctively
reach to set down your keys after you
walk through the door? What areas are
underutilized? How can you change that?

If they had jumped into renovating that room like
any other, for example, buying furniture for a guest
budget on something that didn’t really address their
reality.
Dave and Tracy Folks’ story reminds me of another
reason you should slow your roll. As they added
Dave, it was the vintage JVC/Yamaha system he
was the custom-made Adrian Pearsall-style couch
and the four original Overman Globus swivel chairs,
which they had reupholstered. In the end, their
golden rule with all the decisions they’ve made for
their home is “if you don’t both agree on something,

gem by S. Charles Lee that they’d remodeled over on.” While this approach is perhaps a little more
time, the couple had different ideas about the thing time-consuming, the end result is a home that feels
they were most eager to bring into their home. For authentically their own.

Your Mod Home in the Making l 19

20 l Atomic Ranch
Michael DeJong made all the printed throw pillows on the bed
(and the numerous others scattered throughout the 1959 Hugh
Kaptur in Palm Springs he shares with his partner, Richard
Haymes). He designed many of the vibrant prints himself on
Spoonflower, a website where you can upload your own patterns
to be printed on fabric for décor and crafts.

GOOD HOME WORK

While waiting is most certainly about feeling it out,
there are other things you can do while you get a
sense for how to best update the home for you.
Research.
Are there any historical records of your home you
can get your hands on? Many homeowners we’ve
visited over the years have been proud to share
documents they’ve unearthed in researching their
homes. From original blueprints and design plans
from the architects to marketing brochures and sales

features at the time they were built, these treasures

can show original features, colors or furnishings. They

you understand how to restore it or perhaps how you

might be comfortable altering it. And above all, they
are the kind of artifacts that keep you inspired and
motivated about your purpose.
Your local library is another great resource to help

information about original builders, previous owners,

former street names, tracts and community plans.
Newspaper clippings about your neighborhood or
street might yield interesting info. They could help
you track down missing parts, reveal original design
features and guide you in your stylistic decision-
making.
If your intention with your home is to restore it to
the best of your ability, these documents can unlock
answers or inspire solutions. At the very least, they are
wonderful peeks into your home’s mid century history.

Your Mod Home in the Making l 21

 Get this great book here
About the Book
From the authority in Mid Century Modern home renovation, restoration and interior design comes Atomic Ranch: Remodeled Marvels,
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century wishlist into one cohesive design plan, sure to deliver perfect results. Discover helpful resources, historic homeowner support
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