Yep, even mid-century loving architects like me. And some of my personal regrets helped shape the Mid-Century Masterplan method I now use to help homeowners like you. But it can feel lonely when you’ve made a choice you don’t love.
So this week I decided to get personal and share some of my biggest mistakes in my own home, hoping you’ll feel some solace if you’ve made a mistake. And if you haven’t, you can learn from mine and avoid making the same ones!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The common types of remodeling regrets
I break my regrets into three categories: things I didn’t do soon enough, things I didn’t finish, and decisions I made too quickly without fully understanding my own style or the character of my home.
Not Acting Quickly Enough in Important Areas
- I waited years to tear out the ugly green carpet that covered my beautiful hardwood floors. Once I finally ripped it up, the relief was immediate. I should have done it on day one!
- I also waited too long to properly claim my home office. For years, I worked from my dining room table while a perfectly good room sat unused, full of boxes. Now that it’s my office, complete with a “snack door” to the kitchen, I can’t imagine why I didn’t make the change sooner.
Unfinished Projects
- Like many DIYers, I’ve started projects and then gotten too busy to finish them. My basement renovation and mudroom flooring are still incomplete because life and work got in the way. It’s a constant reminder of how important it is to plan projects you can actually finish.
Style Choices I Made Too Soon ... and got wrong
- Some of my early design decisions, like painting trim white and choosing a gray wall color in my basement, were influenced by cottage trends I now regret. These choices don’t fit with the mid-century aesthetic I’ve grown to love. While paint is an easy fix, it’s frustrating to look back and wish I had taken more time to figure out my true style before diving in.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned is this: take action, but take it wisely. You don’t need to wait years to make improvements, but make sure the changes you’re making are aligned with your long-term vision for the house. That’s why I’m such a fan of creating a Master Plan. It helps you avoid rash decisions and keeps you focused on what really matters to you and your home’s character.
Start small with “level one” changes—things like new house numbers or a fresh coat of paint that won’t interfere with your bigger plans later on. But for larger remodels or style-defining choices, take the time to really understand your home’s mid-century charm before you dive in.
I’m sharing these stories to encourage you to avoid remodel regret by taking a thoughtful approach to your home updates. If you’re planning a remodel or even just thinking about making a few changes, my best advice is to create a Masterplan before you make any big moves.
In Today's Episode You'll Hear:
- Where your biggest quick "remodeling wins" might be hiding.
- Why waiting isn’t always the best choice.
- How to get moving on a stalled project.
Quick Design tip for your … mid-century style
Setting the style for your mid-century house means choosing material palettes that are going to give you a creative, cohesive look. The very first thing you'll do is take stock of what you have with a thorough survey of the materials in your house, at least those that you want to keep and plan around.
Collect photos and (ideally) samples of everything you like that that exists. Samples you can carry around with you when you're visiting a showroom or store are very helpful. For example, a small piece of wood in the existing stain and grain. Or a doorknob stolen from a closet door. In a pinch a close matching daylight photo works.
Once you've gathered that sense of what are all the existing pieces in the house you have, then you can start to create organized lists of materials you want to choose and use over and over again in your house, what kinds of woodwork, what type of metal for your light fixtures, faucets and appliances, your go to, tile options, your flooring choices. You can keep it all organized in my free styel guide work book!
Mid Mod House Feature of the Week
Knotty pine paneling
Most mid-century basements were finished by the homeowner after the fact, by their handiest cousin or a local handyman. Home Improvement magazines from that era had detailed how to guides to finish the walls with things like pegboard or with knotty pine paneling, which could be cut to length and that was the only thing you needed to do. Just assemble it, notch the tongue and grooves together and cut a few holes out for electrical wiring. Your den would look finished, polished and professional with medium skill.
This concept of a wood panel basement is something that my clients often ask for. A cozy, warm TV watching or hang out space. Do you love knotty pine paneling?
Check out my pinterest board of great mid mod features right here!
Listen Now On
Resources to avoid Remodeling Regrets
- Snag my Style Guide workbook!
- Saturday October 26th is going to be a LIVE one - my free Masterclass that is! I’m going live with “How to Plan an MCM Remodel to Fit Your Life(…and Budget)”. Sign up today!
- Get the essential elements of my master plan process in my new mini-course, Master Plan in a Month.
- Want us to master plan for you? Find out all the details with my mini-class, Three Secrets of a Regret-Proof Mid Mod Remodel.
And you can always…
- Join us in the Facebook Community for Mid Mod Remodel
- Find me on Instagram:@midmodmidwest
- Find the podcast on Instagram: @midmodremodelpodcast
Read the Full Episode Transcript
Della Hansmann
Have you ever made a choice for your mid-century house that you regret? If so, you're not alone, or maybe you're hung up, unable to get started on your remodel plans because you don't know where to start and you're afraid of making a mistake you might regret. If so, I have some words of hopefully comfort for you.
Della Hansmann
I have regrets about some of the choices I've made for my home, things I've done, things I took too long to do, things I haven't done yet. In fact, the lessons I learned along my own early remodeling adventures were the foundation stone for the mid-century master plan, method that I created and have now used to help hundreds of mid-century homeowners of the last five years.
Della Hansmann
So today I'm going to share some personal stories that we can take in the spirit of what not to do. Hopefully you'll find this helpful, and perhaps you'll even recognize a little of your own experience in mine. Hey there. Welcome back to mid modern model. This is the show about updating MCM homes, helping you match a mid-century home to your modern life. I'm your host, Della Hansmann, architect and mid-century ranch enthusiast. You're listening to Episode 1902.
Della Hansmann
Now the big news this week is that there is a free live masterclass planning a mid-century remodel to fit your life and budget, happening one week from Saturday. That is going to be October 26 at 11am Central time, I will be walking you through the exact steps you need to take to plan a mid-century remodel to fit your life and budget. I'll have a little more of the background of what that workshop is, why it's a great idea, why I hope you'll attend.
Della Hansmann
But for now, let's move on to our tip of the episode. Let's talk about setting the style for your mid-century house, choosing material palettes that are going to give you a creative, cohesive look. The very first thing you'll do is take stock of what you have you want to do a thorough survey of the materials that in your existing house, at least those ones that you want to keep and plan around.
Della Hansmann
So it might be that you're taking a survey of what is original in your house versus what has been overlaid by past remodels. Or even if your house is a time capsule, there might be a few materials that you don't like, a tile on the floor that's not your style, or maybe a wood panel in the basement that you don't like, compared to a different wood panel somewhere else that you do.
Della Hansmann
I had two different kinds in my basement, for example, but everything about the house that exists that you do like you want to collect photos and ideally samples something you can carry around with you as you're building out your material palette when you're visiting a kitchen store. It'd be great to have a small piece of wood in the stain and grain of your existing house.
Della Hansmann
It might be nice to have some other small feature that's either an actual object from your house, like a doorknob stolen from a closet door or just a close matching daylight photo of one. Once you've gathered that sense of what are all the existing pieces in the house you have, then you can start to create organized lists of materials you want to choose and use over and over again in your house, what kinds of woodwork, what type of metal for your light fixtures, faucets and appliances, your go to, tile options, your flooring choices.
Della Hansmann
Now, none of it needs to be set in stone, but making these decisions at the start of the process and building them from what already exists in your house will save you stress and mismatches throughout your remodel process. Plus, it's a fun building block. It's fun exercise to go through. If you are the type of person whose home has already been effectively stripped of its original character entirely, then you're going to do the same process in the world of your imagination.
Della Hansmann
Look at a house in a magazine, a house on Pinterest, a neighbor's house, and create the same sense of what kind of wood grain and stain would have originally been in your house, or that you prefer, what kinds of metals, what types of door handles, hardware, etc., and build that same style starting point from what you wish it were rather than what it actually is.
Della Hansmann
So if you want more guidance on choosing materials for a mid-century house remodel. Sign up for my free remodel style guide workbook. It will walk you through some of these details and help you jot down your choices in one easy spot. Grab it at mid mod midwest.com/style guide. Find the complete show notes with resources, links, images, although I won't be showing you too much of my regret and a transcript of everything I'm going to talk about on the website at midmod midwest.com/ 1902
Della Hansmann
so I'm going to break this into three categories, three types of regrets. The first is things I didn't do soon enough. The second is a list of several projects I didn't carry far enough once I did get started on them because I didn't see this project through to fruition at the time. T
Della Hansmann
hey are as yet still unfinished, and it has been years now to be clear, they are all approved and permitted and even finished inspected, but they aren't finished because that last little bit of trim detail or whatnot is not quite done, and I don't use the spaces properly or maintain them properly, or tied to them properly it's very frustrating.
Della Hansmann
And the third category of regrets are things that I did actually too soon, because in this case, I regret some of the first choices I made before I fully internalized my style and before I made a style guide, before I had learned to love the mid-century qualities of my house, and therefore, I made some choices that are incredibly cottage that now drive me personally up the wall, and I feel like I can't make them example for anyone who might see them. Now there are no photos of some of these projects online.
Della Hansmann
Because, one, they're not quite done and pretty and they would photograph badly. But two, because I would never show off the things I did for my own home, because, for example, it's a gray room with white trim, and not at all mid-century. So not a good way for me to show people who are curious about, say, my basement upgrade. I will not show photos of the space.
Della Hansmann
I will show drawings of what I plan to do, what I did do, but not a picture, because I don't want to give the implication that I think it's a good idea to paint your walls gray with white trim. It's not and you shouldn't. So let's get into the why.
Della Hansmann
Why am I telling these stories today? Why did I decide to record a podcast episode about my own errors and mistakes? It's not because I wanted to embarrass myself or make myself seem like a person who does not make good choices for mid-century houses. It's because I want you to be able to avoid them.
Della Hansmann
The best way to avoid all of these mistakes is the system that I created on behalf of the hundreds of mid-century homeowners that I've assisted over the last five years that was also based on my own experience and some of these mistakes I created the process of getting to know yourself, getting to know your house, setting your style, and helping you easily avoid the errors that I'm about to spend the rest of the episode talking about.
Della Hansmann
This process can help you incredibly powerfully, even with just a little bit of investment of time, even spending just a few hours asking yourself the right questions, or if you want to dive deeper, it will provide a framework for you to invest your time efficiently to really explore yourself your house the right way, in order to transform your home, night and day, from the way you feel about the remodel process, getting more calmness and confidence from start to finish, and also the satisfaction you'll get out of it.
Della Hansmann
And using these steps can even save you money by allowing you to put your dollars, your time, your energy, into the parts of the house that are going to matter to you most, where you can make the biggest differences and avoid costly or regrettable mistakes. I believe in this so much that I regularly give the outline of this process in a live masterclass, and I'm going to be doing it again a week from Saturday.
Della Hansmann
I would love for you to check it out. By the way, if you're listening to this episode later, long after I've done the live masterclass, when I'm not about to give it live, I have a recording of the masterclass How to Plan a mid-century remodel to fit your life and budget available. Because I always want people to be able to get the advice that I'm going to offer. It will be around for you, but I am doing it live a week from Saturday.
Della Hansmann
I would love for you to show up for that masterclass, because I will be talking you through exactly what to do and how to do it, and then afterwards, I will be answering questions. So I will answer your questions about your home, your process, your spouse's doubts, your uncertainty about what the first step, the next step, the last step should be. I'll be there to talk you through how you can avoid the kind of errors you make in your remodel. So let's talk about my own personal remodeling regrets.
Della Hansmann
And you might say, Della, you're an expert. Shouldn't you be trying to sound like a calm, all knowing expert who never makes mistakes? Well, yeah, ideally, ideally, I'd love to be a perfect person who has never made a mistake in my life. But let's be real, I am a person just like you, and part of the reason I have chosen to devote the last five years of my life to Mid Mod Midwest, my vocation and my avocation is that I want to help other people like me.
Della Hansmann
Other people buying their first home, finding a mid-century house and falling hard for it, navigating the modern trend based remodeling space, all of the conflicting, irritating wrong for us, advice we get from HGTV and from television and magazines and our friends and our well-meaning family and contractors and help you make good choices and to make them more easily and confidently than I even did myself.
Della Hansmann
Also, I just don't want to pick on anybody else when I can pick on myself about the dangers of jumping in too fast or making choices before you've really settled into loving the mid-century quality of your house. Now I am pretty lucky. Fortunately for me, the most permanent of my personal remodeling regrets are mostly paint, and an incorrect application of the colors gray and white.
Della Hansmann
Having paint based regrets is not a huge problem to have, because paint can be repainted, especially because I did not make the mistake of painting over anything that had never been painted before. So yay for me. A lot of my regrets Center. On just waiting too long to do something that was good for me, or on not waiting long enough to settle into my own ideas.
Della Hansmann
So I want to talk to you about that process of how to figure out what to do first, how to take action right away, without making it something you will regret when I do say, make a plan before you take major action. I don't want that to mean you feel frozen, locked into an inability to start, afraid to begin to make changes to your house.
Della Hansmann
This conundrum how to make choices to go in right away, before you have previsualized, envisioned the entirety of your house, is actually the inception point where I came up with the concept of remodeling levels, level one, level two and level three. I believe that it is possible to jump in and take some actions right away, to make a house your home, to put your personal stamp on it without having to regret it later, as long as you focus on level one changes.
Della Hansmann
And I actually talked about these three levels in the very first season of the mid modern model podcast back in 2019 and it's a concept I still use today. Here it is in microcosm, although you could go check out, I think it's episode 106, if you want to hear what I had to say about it in 2019.
Della Hansmann
A level one change is something you can do right away. It requires relatively little skill, relatively few tools. It's probably something you buy and apply to your house, like new house numbers, a new mailbox, a piece of furniture, it might be a little day long or weekend long project like painting something, painting the walls in a room, painting your front door, your favorite color, ideally, it's something that will not impact your ability to make future choices.
Della Hansmann
Levels two and level three are sort of a divergent. You pick one of those two options, or you pick one of those two options for a different part of your house. A Level Two remodel is an intense DIY project, so it might be building on a small addition, if you're that type of handy person. It might be Remodeling in your basement. It might be removing and replacing a vanity plumbing project, rewiring lights, and it can add up to an entire home transformation. If you keep applying level two energy to your whole house, you can remodel it from start to finish.
Della Hansmann
Level three is what you get into when you're going to hire someone to just take on your plan, show them your vision, give them money, and then turn them loose and they will go ahead and transform the house for you. And it often is most directly applied to when people want to do a much bigger scale of project. If you're going to completely gut and reconfigure your kitchen, it's probably a level three project. Depending on your skill set and your energy.
Della Hansmann
You could do that as a level two, but I'd recommend it as a level three if you're going to put on a major addition, probably a level three project if you're going to affect most of the parts of the house, if there's major structural work, it's probably a level three, but you do want to start right away.
Della Hansmann
You don't want to wait until you've saved and planned and envisioned perfectly before you jump into level two or level three and not have done anything to your house while it won't make a long term negative impact on the house, it will make your life less good.
Della Hansmann
And so one of the things I really want to encourage you to do, you to do is to make some changes right away. I waited way too long on, really just settling into my house at all, feeling permanent about it. And, I failed to probably furnish my main rooms, even with hand me downs. I just placed things where they were, where I had them. Painting my kitchen a color I liked took me way too long. But I'm actually super glad I didn't jump in harder on the kitchen right away, because I would have made choices in there that today I would regret if I had gone too far again.
Della Hansmann
Any choice, any action you make before you have a real master plan in hand, should be a level one choice. And if I didn't say it already a level, one choice that's good is both easy to do and easy to change your mind about, or easy to carry forward, like you chose great new house hormone numbers for the project. You put them on the house, then you change the siding, you take the house numbers off, you put them back on again. You're not you haven't wasted them.
Della Hansmann
Or you paint a wall a pop color. It's fun for a while. It makes you feel bright. It makes you feel cheerful. Later, you redo that whole room, and that wall becomes an accent wall and a real material. The paint you put on that wall does not lock you into anything you've done. Let's all right, let's focus on the waiting too long, because this, I don't wait to do this.
Della Hansmann
I waited way too long in my home to get rid of the ridiculous, ugly, boring, green wall to wall carpet that was covering up the floor in my living room, hallway and back bedroom. I knew from day one that there was hardwood floor underneath that carpet, but partly due to my dog, Roxy, loving it so much, partly due to being afraid it would take more work than it actually turned out to be to clean up the wood that was underneath it.
Della Hansmann
I waited way too long. I lived with that ugly constantly needed me vacuumed, always collecting my hair in Roxy's fur, gross carpet. Who knows how much detritus of generations past was in it for literal years, and practically speaking, I should have had it out on day one and then had the floors refinished. Before I moved in. That would have been convenient, but instead, it took me several years to finally get it all up, and when I did, the relief, the joy, the satisfaction, was instant and complete.
Della Hansmann
So there are some things that are just like if there's a thing attached to the house that is bad for it, a previous an inter-period remodel, a 1990s choice, a 2000s choice, get out the screwdriver, get out the box cutter, remove it from the house right away. Live with an empty space, live with a blank live with a lack of cabinet doors for a while, rather than just living with something that is actively wrong, that actively bugs you, which that carpet certainly did in terms of just using space.
Della Hansmann
I waited way too long to claim the disaster bedroom as my office. The fact that I even named it the disaster bedroom, or sometimes the box room, tells you pretty much all you need to know about how long it languished in limbo while I worked at my dining room table. Part of that is due to the fact that I didn't yet know, when I moved into this house, I thought I was going to work on the house as a project for about a year and then go back to having a real job working for another architect in an office outside of my home.
Della Hansmann
It was way before the pandemic, so people didn't really think about home offices the same way, and I just it just didn't occur to me. So I just stored empty moving boxes and Amazon boxes in this nice bedroom with the best view of the backyard, the Best Western light, and didn't use it for anything. It also has, by the way, it's a nursery bedroom original to a mid-century house.
Della Hansmann
And you might have a house that lays out like this too, where the third, the smallest bedroom, has a door to the bedroom hallway, but also has a door going directly into the kitchen. That, again, was something I thought I was going to need to get rid of. I thought that would be in my remodeling plan when I first moved into the house. Now that this is my office, that's my snack door. I go through that door multiple times a day to refresh my tea, to check on something that is stirring on the pot while I'm recording a podcast, for example, stirring on the oven.
Della Hansmann
So yeah, I'm never gonna get rid of the snack door now in my office, but when it was a bedroom, when it was a disaster bedroom, I kept that door closed all the time. It didn't share light from the backyard into the living room. There were just so many things that were less good in my life, until I moved into the space and then reclaimed my dining area. Well, I don't, I don't really dine in my dining table, but it's now my puzzle table, so it has a purpose that is not trying to relax in my living room knowing that my computer is like haunting me over my left shoulder.
Della Hansmann
What else did I wait too long for anything? Let me think about it. Oh, painting the kitchen. I mentioned this already, but I when I moved into this house, many, many parts of the house were toothpaste green. The outside of the house was kind of a mint green. One of the bedrooms was mint green. I did change that right away, thank God. But the kitchen also had dirty, grungy mint green walls, and I didn't paint it when I moved in, fool that I was, and I didn't paint it the next year, and I didn't paint it the next year.
Della Hansmann
Originally, my thought was that I was that I was going to be reconfiguring the kitchen. I had ideas about how the layout could be better, and I still do. But I am now Truly, Madly, Deeply in love with my kitchen cabinets, and even though I might add to the layout, I will never change what's there, because I adore them so much. But I figured, oh, I don't need to paint it, because everything might change in a while.
Della Hansmann
Even if I was going to live in that kitchen for six months, I should still have painted the kitchen, having taken a few steps now in the last couple of years to make the kitchen more my home, painting it a clean, crisp white where it had been dirty, grungy green, and improving the lighting by wiring in some instead of a fluorescent light over my sink and range that I hated so much, I literally just worked in the dark rather than use them.
Della Hansmann
I put in a modern, warm, toned LED light that's on a dimmer. Those two things alone, remarkable transition. So okay, that's a that's a fourth regret, not changing out some of the light fixtures earlier than I can. One thing I did right away was go through the house, and anywhere there was an incandescent bulb, I switched it out for a dimmable LED, but I did not think about switching out some of the fluorescent features. And many mid-century houses are going to come in the basement and in the kitchen and mostly the garage with fluorescent tube lighting, because it was considered to be sort of utility lighting, efficient, bright, powerful, and it's awful.
Della Hansmann
So anywhere you have a fluorescent light, please just take it out immediately. Do this yourself if you feel you can do it safely or hire an electrician to come out and switch it for an LED light tomorrow, next week, instantly. So that's kind of the category of things I waited too long for.
Della Hansmann
Now, none of those waiting too long on the house. Things damaged the house in any way, but they did make me enjoy living in the house less, and I don't want you to feel that way. I want you to jump in and take level one action, right sized action, ASAP.
Della Hansmann
The flip side of that is things that I did not finish. So there are a couple of projects in the house that because I was DIYing, which. Which I'm not going to call that a mistake. I love DIY projects, but I put my energy into them in a particular way, but then I didn't time the projects properly to finish them completely, and now they've gone back into the category of waiting because they're not done yet.
Della Hansmann
Part of this is circumstantial. I was in a situation where I was working on some of these projects right before, right at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 and I remember the day very clearly. I was working in the basement. At that time, my dad was coming into town. He was retired about a day a week, and we were sort of co working on the basement project, either doing two person projects together, or just teaming up and doubling the work we could get done.
Della Hansmann
My mom was in town running some errands. My sister was at that point in her residency for family medicine, and she and my mom would go out for coffee after her public health lecture every Wednesday, and mom came back to the house and said, Your sister's public health professor just told everyone to send their boomer parents home and tell them to stay home if they don't want them to get swept up in this entire chaos. So we just set our tools down and hugged and they went to the grocery store and got groceries and then went home.
Della Hansmann
My tools sat on the floor where I had put them for the rest of the year. Now, part of this has to do with good fortune. We had a global pandemic that was terrible, and for me, my business really took off. I had thought at the time that I'd be needing to shut down. I had a couple of master plans about to kick off.
Della Hansmann
It was still very much in the early days of my running business in this way, and I reached out to those clients and basically said, Do you Do you want your money back? Because I can't come to your house and field measure it for you. I can't document it, so I can't do your design work. And actually, both of them were very interested in dealing with this situation by doing some of the work themselves.
Della Hansmann
So we worked out a system, the very first remote measuring system, where I walked them through how to take measurements, how to use a plan properly. This was before I knew how to suggest magic plan to people, but how to take photographs and the dimensions that I needed so that I could remotely understand the layout of their house.
Della Hansmann
Fortunately, I had visited both of those houses in person before the stay home orders, and we went forward, and that turned into the beginning of one master plan, and then another and another, and I got incredibly busy in my business. Hooray, yay. I left my basement still not completed.
Della Hansmann
And similarly, I had been working back and forth between the basement and the mudroom attachment that I set into the footprint of my former breezeway to connect the kitchen and garage. It also does not have a finished flooring material. This is a real confessional. I'm embarrassed to tell you. This the flooring surface of my mudroom that I have walked through, entered and left the house via twice a day or more every day for the last four years, is tar paper, because I am, by turns, too lazy to just take on a quick solution and too persnickety to accept a half assed one. But I'm but I'm not gonna do it right yet.
Della Hansmann
So what can I say the shoemaker’s children are not only barefoot, their bare feet are extremely calloused at this point. And those children are me and my dog anyway, the things that I didn't push all the way through to so this is a regret. How can you avoid this? Plan and Schedule your life? Don't have a global pandemic. Don't get really busy into your business. Try to take on things at a scale.
Della Hansmann
I guess more realistically, try to take then things at a scale you can actually see through to the conclusion and finish all the way up. Because Hello, my DIY ers, if you set a project aside before you have completed it, the number of years it will take you to pick up the last details and finish them will astonish and frighten your friends and neighbors. The third category, though, of my regrets are some style mistakes that I made on my house, and these fall entirely under the heading of I did not yet know enough about what was great about mid-century houses to identify what I was going to lean into for this house.
Della Hansmann
I was absolutely swayed by the same trends that are in play today. Actually, I did an Instagram story earlier this late summer about one of my favorite neighborhood houses and how it's being I guess, flipped right now. I thought it was being remodeled by new owners, but I realize the work has been done and it's back on the market. And I love that they've generally made some okay choices. They did not paint the beautiful cream brick. Hooray.
Della Hansmann
They did paint the siding. They painted it dark gray. That's fine. It was a beautiful, dusty teal before, but it was a little beat up. It needed new paint. They chose gray. That's okay. That's not a problem. But they painted the siding gray and the trim bright white. By painting the trim around the doors and windows white. It looks terrible because it makes the cream brick look dirty and dingy, and conversely, the cream brick, which is warm and beautiful, if you just look at it, makes the trim around the windows look like white out.
Della Hansmann
And I've said before, I will say so many times again, mid-century houses do not need contrasting trim on their windows and doors. You don't need to emphasize the shape and square of your window and doors. The most important design feature on a mid-century house is its overall shape, possibly texture. If there's a contrasting material, like stone or that pretty cream brick on that house that should stand out, even if it's a simple house.
Della Hansmann
There might just be a change in the siding from horizontal in one place to vertical another that can be eye catching and appreciated. If it's all one color, if you haven't done a high contrast trim on the windows and doors. You do not need that. So why am I talking about somebody else's house when this is an episode about my regret, modeling regrets. Because the trim around the windows and doors on my house, which I painted, the sighting of gray, is white. I know the shame I have my reasons.
Della Hansmann
You see, the previous owner of the house had put in replacement windows, and they're decent. They're good quality in the main room, they have an interior finish that's well stained to match the existing trim around the doors and windows in the bedrooms. It's white. I don't love that as much, but it's fine on the outside.
Della Hansmann
They did what people often do when they install replacement windows, which is they just cut out the old window and leave the original wooden window trim very slim in profile, and then they bridge over the gap with a piece of bent sheet metal that bends out to make a simple rectangular U shape.
Della Hansmann
It's wider than the beautiful, slim profile of the original exterior trim, but it just covers everything up. If they're re siding the house, sometimes they'll match the siding to the they'll match the new replacement window trim to the new siding. But in this case, the siding is original, thank God. So they just put this trim around the windows and they caulked it into place with a clear caulk that makes the life easier on them. T
Della Hansmann
hey were able to just sort of smear it on the siding a little bit a little more carelessly. But it's a it's a paint resistant material, so I didn't want to deal with painting up to and over the edge. And the metal finish on the window trim casing is actually, you know, a final finish material. It doesn't necessarily need to be painted. Therefore, it's not intended to accept a paint. When I was back painting my whole house, it was a huge project. It was remediating lead. It took a lot of sanding and scraping.
Della Hansmann
I had a great time doing it, and the house looks so sharp, but I just decided to stop at the point of painting the trim and not deal with that worry of, could I, could I properly prime it? Could I get that to go?
Della Hansmann
Well, I regret this so much, so much. At the time, I thought I was making a good choice. I was still swimming around in a sea of the incredibly popular cottage style. At that moment, I had just moved from Chicago, where mid-century homes were much less common and the most prominent premodern building style was a cottage, and the cottages all had contrast trims. And I thought it looked pretty sharp the dark gray house, medium gray and white trim around all the windows and doors.
Della Hansmann
But the more I went into mid-century, the more I observed other houses in the area, the more than I thought about my style and modernism and the way that I like it, I regretted it more and more and more.
Della Hansmann
But this then falls back into the category of things that are not done, that things that aren't in the middle of being done, get, get just left off. This remains, perhaps my biggest style choice regret on the whole house, that that exterior metal trim is still white, and it remains totally fixable. I just have to get around to fixing it. But you know, when am I going to get to that? It's been on my list for years going back, and I just have not come around. I thought I might do it this fall, but it's October now. The days are getting shorter. I've got a friend coming into town for a week soon. I don't think it's gonna happen this year.
Della Hansmann
I have a similar regret in the basement, because I took it on. First thing I did on the house was paint the outside. The second thing I did was clear and refinish and relay out the basement. In the basement, same thing, I was still swimming in the sea of modern cottage. So when I finished up the basement, to the extent that it's finished, it's not quite done, I painted the walls down there a medium gray.
Della Hansmann
Now that gray is the same one I chose for upstairs. It's very light, very dove, and I chose it because it's almost the exact shade of the grout between the stones of my fireplace. It sets off a sandstone on my little fireplace so beautifully, and it looks gorgeous next to the amber Shellac wood trim that's original to my upstairs spaces. One of my best pieces of advice in choosing colors is to match a new paint color to the existing choices in your house, like wood stain and grain.
Della Hansmann
So I was correct to choose that choice for upstairs, but then I decided, for simplicity, I would choose the same for downstairs, one fewer gallon of paint to keep around for touch up. But downstairs, there's no original wood trim to coordinate with, and the lighting conditions are different down there, so it's darker, it reads as a little muddier. It actually reads a little more yellow, oddly in the artificial light downstairs.
Della Hansmann
And I had made the choice to invest in amber Shellac on new birch doors to match the same grain and stain of what's happening upstairs in the basement doors, but to have the trim be an easier choice. Prefinished. So it was primed White and I painted it white. This was a mistake, unless I was also going to paint the walls white. So downstairs, I have a space that has gray walls and white trim, and it looks incredibly cottagey, which is not what I wanted at all. It's not the result I was looking for. I thought it would look clean and modern.
Della Hansmann
It doesn't. It looks cottagey, and I do not like it again, I'm lucky. The solution is to paint the walls white to match the trim, which is always the right answer if your trim has already been painted, or if you're going new and you don't want to deal with finding a perfect stain and grain, you can do white trim and white walls or gray trim and gray walls. You know, whatever it is, match the two of them together.
Della Hansmann
But it means that I've got to go back downstairs and get the roller pans out and cut new corners and buy more paint just do the whole job again, and I don't feel like it, even though it's on my to do list. So this is what I want you to be able to do, do a project once, and like it not, put in all the work to either pay someone to do a project or to do it yourself and look back on it with regret.
Della Hansmann
The way to avoid it is master plan, thinking you should take action on your house right away, when you move in, or at any moment that you feel I've been here in this house for 15 years, and I am done. I'm ready to make a change. You can make a change right away before you create a whole master plan, but make sure that the change you make is a level one change, removing a bad object, adding a new fun object, or a paint choice that is going to solve a temporary problem for you.
Della Hansmann
But before you go bigger, before you go into changing the entire color theme of your house, or remodeling your entire basement, or any other scale of bigger project, make sure you've got your master plan thinking in place, so that you don't look back on any parts of your house with remodelers regret. I think that's enough of focusing on the negative. Let's talk about a fun mid-century house feature you might have in your house that I'm going to encourage you to love.
Della Hansmann
Our mid-century house feature this week is the knotty pine den as always. Let's talk about what this feature is, why it is, why it's great if you have it in your house. And could you perhaps add it? Might you want to? So knotty pine siding is a classic feature of mid-century cozy spaces, if, by the way, you're curious to research it more, beyond what I'm going to say here, you can also use the search term Pickwick pine paneling.
Della Hansmann
And that Pickwick refers to the common profile that is the board shape that the boards were milled into, which had a wide flat panel and then a little fluted detail at one edge, which was meant to come up against the next edge of a wide flat panel, and often cut with a tongue and groove system. So two panels would slot together with good quality old growth pine that tongue and groove system, plus good attachment to the wall, you'd have a warp proof solid surface that would basically reinforce whatever wall you were attaching it to.
Della Hansmann
Now, the aesthetic choice behind knotty pine paneling is all about connecting backwards with a sort of traditional American past of rustic, rough and readiness, cabin esthetic that gave people a sense of history, but also felt warm and casual and fun.
Della Hansmann
Slightly less dressy than big, smooth panels of mahogany that you might find in a slightly higher end home of the same era, or in a living room rather than at a den or the same dressier treatment might be a grass paper wallpaper or a wallpaper with a pattern, or something like that.
Della Hansmann
So you're often going to find knotty pine in a basement. There are practical reasons beyond the esthetic for why this material was chosen, and to explain that I have to sidestep into the history of modern drywall. Now, if you've ever paid any attention whatsoever to the construction of a current contemporary home, or if you've ever done any DIY home renovation, you're probably familiar with drywall, or sheetrock.
Della Hansmann
It comes from the lumberyard or hardware store in four foot by eight foot by five eighths inch thick sheets. Back in the early 1950s it did not exist. Instead, the home technology industry was still kind of rooted in this idea of plaster as the final interior wall feature. So even when they did begin to introduce early sheet plaster materials to cover walls, they came in smaller units, so they were two foot by eight feet or 16 inches by eight feet. And rather than just mudding and taping them, they basically got another layer of plaster put over top of them, and that plaster needed to have a beautiful, skilled finish.
Della Hansmann
For anyone who has hung and mud and taped drywall for yourself, you can be the judge of whether or not it's an easy job. Personally, I've done it and I will never do it again. I found it to be incredibly tedious and hard to get perfect, but it is easier to perfect than plaster.
Della Hansmann
That brings us back to knotty pine, because most mid-century house basements are the place where you'll find knotty pine paneling, and they were generally not finished by the house's original builder. That again ties into history. It was the middle of a house. In crunch, people didn't want to spend too much or take too much time getting their starter home ready, but they figured they could add on to it, put on a new wing, more bedrooms, or finish the basement at a later date.
Della Hansmann
So most mid-century basements were finished by the homeowner after the fact, by their handiest cousin or a local handyman. Home Improvement magazines from that era had detailed how to guides to make your own basement built ins with plywood, or to finish the walls with things like pegboard or with knotty pine paneling, which could be cut to length and then that was the only thing you needed to do, just assemble it, notch the tongue and grooves together and cut a few holes out for electrical wiring, it would look pretty finished and polished and professional with relatively little let's call it medium skill.
Della Hansmann
As drywall became more common and more user friendly. It was much more of a common choice to finish basements, and it was nice to finish a basement in the same style as the space above, so that it could feel like it was of the same quality as the rest of the house. But back in the day, knotty pine was the go to finish for a basement.
Della Hansmann
Now we're left with this concept of a wood panel basement that becomes something that my clients often come to me asking for a cozy, cozy, rather a basement bar den, a TV watching space. It's an absolute classic of Western culture to go downstairs and have a drink or watch the game go pack in a darker surrounded comfortable area with wood on the walls, turn the lights down low and just focus on the screen, maybe a movie. It's also a wonderfully comfortable esthetic to just sit around and chat.
Della Hansmann
It feels a little removed from the daily activities upstairs. And that wood panel esthetic, whether it's either plywood or knotty pine, contributes to that sense. So here's the question, have you got any knotty pine left in your house? Maybe this has changed your perspective on it a little bit. If you don't have it, would you ever consider adding a pine panel section, an accent wall, wrapping around a corner, perhaps to make a cozy surround? It's actually a really nice place to put a TV up against because it doesn't stand out as much from a white wall. Beyond doesn't bounce the light around as much.
Della Hansmann
Is knotty pine something you like? And if you want to learn more about it, I'll have a couple of links in the show notes page. Specifically, I'll probably reference retro renovation, or you can go straight there and Google their take on knotty pine. They've got some interesting history of the Pickwick pine profile and why it became so popular.
Della Hansmann
Find the transcript to this episode and links to images and the resources I've mentioned at the show notes page. I'm sorry I'm not going to show you pictures of my regrets on my house. That is not the point, although maybe the outside, maybe the white trim around the windows, and I will show you the one step I've taken in the direction of repairing that regret is that I painted my garage door and the trim around the garage door to the siding mainstream color was, gosh, was it last fall, or was it two falls ago? What is time? I'll show you some pictures of that.
Della Hansmann
I will put, I will link to some photos of that on the website. That's something I would like to use as a positive, as an aspirational image, rather than a what not to do? Here's the most important thing I want you to take away from today. You should take action ASAP to remediate anything that really bugs you about the house.
Della Hansmann
Pull off bad materials from the 1990s remodels. Change a paint color that really makes you sad or glum or squeaks you out. Give yourself some satisfaction with an early level one project, but do not take too much action until you have a master plan in mind.
Della Hansmann
And if you need some help pulling together a master plan, I will be talking about both the why of a master plan and the how of a great master plan thinking process. One week from Saturday, I hope I'm going to see you there. Please make a plan to show up live. You can get your seat registered, and I'll send you some reminder emails if you go to midmod-midwest.com/masterclass, and if you don't happen to be free on that Saturday at that time, sign up anyway, because I'll also send you a recording of the video.
Della Hansmann
And if you've got questions about your house, about your process, about what's going to be important to you as you master plan, send them to me in advance. Send them in an email, or, even better, DM me in my Instagram DMS at Mid Mod Midwest, and let me know before I give the class what your most pressing Master Plan question is, your mid-century house question.
Della Hansmann
And I'll answer it in the Q and A after the live workshop, and you'll see that in the recording of the replay. So get your questions answered, basically, get yourself moving, get yourself a plan so that you can get started and have a wonderful time. And speaking of getting started, next week's episode is going to be answering our core request. I've had a number of times of sort of, what you do first, if you're in the process of nailing down a purchase of a mid-century home and you want to move really quickly, but wisely. What's the quick start guide the Master Plan approach to moving as fast as possible on a brand new mid-century house?
Della Hansmann
So I'll be walking you through the Quick Start steps of a master plan process next week, and then a few days after that, on Saturday, I will be giving you the entire rundown of the master plan method. I really hope I'll see you there.