Riverbrand Design: Mid-Century Not So Modern

I happened upon this estate house that had been on the market for awhile. The house was built in 1947 and the original owner had passed away a few months earlier. The house was on a busier road but had a quiet back yard and a nice floor plan and was located in a desirable part of town with a great school system. The style of the house was not one I typically would gravitate toward, and I was not happy with the color of the siding, but it had just been put on a few months ago by the family, and it had a new roof, so I decided to focus my energies on the inside.

The eat in kitchen was nice although small. The peninsula idea was good, but it really cut the view of the kitchen and it felt like it squeezed you in to a small work environment.

Upstairs family room. The paneling was really heavy, and I knew right away that I would paint it rather than remove it to give the room a casual, almost lodge look.

The fireplace really broke up the flow of the kitchen to the family room and it was not a nice brick, so I needed to figure something out with that.

Upstairs bath. This too had been renovated recently, but I knew that if I was going to target a family, a tub/shower combo would be the better choice. So I would end up gutting it and getting rid of the large window to give more room.

Copper range hood. Really cool and my scrap metal guys were thrilled to get it.

all three bedrooms had a central nook with closets on either side. The wallpaper was put right over the plaster, so it was really tricky to remove and alot of patching had to be done.

Basement family room. Even though it was "finished" off I still had to gut it to updated the wiring and put up a vapor barrier for moisture. Another fun fact: some carpet suppliers don't like to install over brown tile in the chance that it has asbestos in it. They will glue down the tack strips instead of nail so as not to disturb the tiles.

Very sorry looking basement bath.

I tired to save the original cabinets by painting them, but it really didn't have the look that I was going for so I kept the boxes and instead had new doors made that we could paint.

The cabinet door maker is scratching his head wondering what I got him into.

This dude here needs some help. Painting it would not look right, so I went with a dry stack stone that could go right over the top of the existing brick.

Dry stack in process. There is still some grout that needed to be added to get rid of a few gaps.

The dry stack and painted paneling worked well in the overall scheme to keep it casual and warm without breaking the bank. The floor is wood, but it is engineered version that was less expensive than solid but had a 25 year warranty.