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Ask Me Anything (Mid-Century)

23 min readHow can you make sure the choices you make for your mid-century home RIGHT NOW will be ones you don’t regret in the future? Ask the right questions!

On today’s Ask Me Anything podcast, we are diving into questions from the Mid Mod Remodel listener community. 

I received a wide range of listener questions, but they also represent the kind of inquiries I get all the time. Like what to do if you regret the choices you (or a former owner) made on your mid-century house, how to choose replacement and update elements that you won’t end up regretting, and whether it’s better to repair an existing house (even one that has suffered from some neglect over the year) or to scrap it and start over with new construction.

***Spoiler Alert***

Most of these answers include some element of “it depends”. 

Your remodeling decisions are often dependent on your person style, your remodeling goals, and the kind of life you want to live in your home.

But I am always here with great resources and insight into the kinds of questions you need to answer along your remodeling journey. I’ll ask a few follow up questions, drop a range of examples, and then we’ll focus on what works best for … you!

So, you asked the questions and here are the answers! 

Give today’s episode a listen and feel free to send along a question of your own for a future episode!  We’ll start gathering them in and when there are enough juicy questions … I’ll do another AMA episode!

The form is still live right here. 

In Today’s Episode You’ll Hear:

  • How to roll back remodeling choices you made in the past to get a home you’ll love for decades to come. 
  • Plus, can a mid-century door that’s been languishing in a shed for 16 years be salvaged?
  • How to make sure replacement windows (or more) fit in well with the character of your mid-century house.
  • If SolaTube lights are an appropriate way to add light in an MCM home. 

Listen Now On 

Apple | Google |  Spotify | Stitcher

Resources from the Ask Me Anything

And you can always…

Read the Full Episode Transcript

You asked the questions and here are the answers. At today’s Ask Me Anything podcast I’m going to be replying to listener questions about what to do when you regret the choices you made on your own mid-century house a decade and a half ago before you like to mid-century, how to choose replacement and update elements for your house that you won’t end up regretting.

And whether it’s better to spend your energy tuning up and repairing an existing house, even one that has suffered from some neglect over the years or scrap it and turn it over to new construction. This is going to be a good one. Let’s get straight to it.

Hey there, welcome back to mid mom remodel. This is a show about updating MCM homes helping you match mid-century home to your modern life. I’m your host Della Hansmann architect and mid-century ranch enthusiast, you’re listening to Episode 1208.

I can already tell Today’s episode is going to run long. So I’ll keep the announcements and resources etc. to a minimum. Now we won’t be closing the form for the Ask Me Anything that I listed in the last two episodes, but I probably won’t be coming back to it and answering questions like this on the podcast until we’ve accumulated some more of them enough to make it worth our while.

If you’re listening to this episode right now and thinking “Damn, I wish I’d asked Della question. I really need some help making important choices from a mid-century Home Upgrade right now!” then I’ve got a couple of ways I can still help you. Let me talk you through them quickly before we get started. As always, the most immediate way you can get design help from me and through Mid Mod Midwest is to set up a design SOS consultation call. You can go right ahead and schedule one into any available time slot in my calendar using the link on the website. Just go to midmod-midwest.com/call and pick the time in the next couple of weeks when you want to get feedback on your most pressing design questions.

The most affordable way for me to help you answer every question that could come up during a remodel is just to join the ready to remodel program. Not only will you get to ask me a question every month during our office hours call, you will get immediate access to every question I’ve ever answered on those office hours calls in the replay library. Plus, you will get access to the design ideas library, the step by step lessons of the master plan method that you can follow to plan a perfect remodel for your own home.

Quick aside. I’ll talk more about this over the next few weeks. But now is a great time to make a decision about joining ready to remodel because due to the number of great features we’ve been adding to the program over the last year, we’re about to raise the price of the program from a little over $1,200 to 2000. So if you joined before June 1, you’ll be getting an absolute steel on all the new benefits of a program going forward at the price based on the past more on that later.

But anytime you want to know more about ready to remodel, you can write us a message or watch my free masterclass planning a mid-century remodel to fit your life and budget at mid mod. Dash midwest.com/ready-two-remodel.

The most comprehensive way to get our help with your mid-century home is to sign up for a mid-century master plan. Let us do the design thinking for you. We’ll interview you about what’s going on in your house, determine what are its current qualities and challenges, tease out what you personally need in your dream home and then design multiple options for you to choose from. In order to make that happen. You’ll end up with a schematic master plan that guides you step by step through your entire remodel process. And then keep in mind Midwest on your speed dial metaphorically to get supportive answers to your ongoing questions over time as you make your remodel plans a reality.

If you’re curious about how we can help you prepare a mid-century master plan for your home, fill in the form on our website at Med montage midwest.com/services. And you can tell us a little bit about your house then I’ll schedule a time when you and I can chat about what your home needs and how Midwest can help you. As always, you’ll find those links plus a show notes page with the transcript and any other references I make to other episodes at our website at midmod- midwest.com/1208.

We’ve got four questions I’m going to answer today. I’ll try to keep my details down. But I also want to get really deeply into each one of these questions. So let’s see how I can split the difference. The first question comes from Laura. She told us a little about her home. Laura has a 1957 traditional ranch house in California with a number of 2007 remodel tragedies. As she puts it by me i roll emoji correcting them little by little now her question is this Can an original door be put back and if so, how?

Here’s some more follow up information she shared. I would really like new redid glass sidelights combined with the original door here’s the story. The original door was a standard with multi paneled wood door with a sidelight on each side made of redid glass. This was replaced. Yes, I know it makes me cry with a craftsman style door six light at the top with side lights that are only at the top to match the door lights and size it’s a whole unit put together. Though I myself did this awful deed I did save the original door only the door all else was scrapped including the hardware. Would it be less expensive to buy another whole unit correct and style and not try to use the original door. Also, I painted it on one side, I would need to refinish at least on one side. And it’s been in our shed for 16 years. I suppose it might not even be usable. Are there other issues to consider? What should I do? Try to use the door start new. Thank you.

Okay, Laura, thank you for asking this question because you are not alone in having made these choices. And it will really help other people to hear that you can make choices you don’t love for your Mid-century home and then you can make choices again to bring it back into the direction you want to go. I’m going to answer quickly first, and then talk of the details a little bit. In this case, it may simply be easier and cheaper to replace the door again entirely with a new unit rather than to return to the original door. That’s because you’ll have an installation challenge. And since you removed all the original frame and trim from the original door, it will be so much simpler to just get a new pre framed door and then to start from scratch.

It’s totally possible to recraft a door jamb and Source Hardware and frame out new sidelight windows. But it is a complicated project, which would require either a pretty expert level of DIY skill and time, or a very invested handyman. Most general contractors and installers would prefer to work with a new door.

Okay, so let’s talk about this mid-century New Door. Absolutely have a look at the original door and see if you can borrow its exact design details as you search out your new replacement. And this goes for everyone else who has a house that has an original door replaced by something that feels 90s or craftsman or farmhouse or otherwise out of period for mid-century house, you’re not completely out of luck.

And if you yourself made the choice to replace that original mid-century door with one that doesn’t match the style of the house, please don’t beat yourself up. These things can easily happen. There’s been a lot of advice out there guiding you to do just that. And this advice has been floating around in the ether and given by salespeople and remodeling. I hesitate to say experts but people who would specialize in types of remodels that are not mid-century for literally decades. So please again, don’t beat yourself up.

However, also don’t despair, you can put back a door that’s very similar to the one that was originally in the house or one that suits a mid-mod home even more than the original style. So you might be able to choose a style that fits the general tenor of the house. But it’s a better alignment with your personal mid mod style than the one you have saved in the shed. So how do you choose that perfect replacement door for a mid-century house? So it’s funny, I just answered a question somewhat similar to this in my office hours call episode two weeks ago. But I’m going to give you slightly different information that I gave to Dana, the ready to remodel member who’s replacing all of her exterior doors because they were original, but they were hollow core doors in Michigan.

If you want to know a little more about this whole topic, and you missed the episode two weeks ago, please go back and check out episode 1206. But let’s talk about what you need to know when you’re taking out a non-mid-century style door and putting in a new mid-century friendly door. First thing to do is to know more about your personal mid-century style. So if you haven’t yet taken my mid-century style quiz, do that now go to mid montage midwest.com/quiz and take it right away. Because knowing a little more about your style, whether you’re looking at a preservation Time Capsule style approach to your house, or you’re looking for more of a contemporary update, that still aligns with the mid-century era, this is going to help you lock in your choices.

So for a super time capsule door, you might try to find and source a door that’s exactly like that one that’s in your shed. That’s the most preservationist response. And the odds are that you can track it down. So I’ll give you the same advice to do that that I gave to Dana which is to go to the most currently up to date and comprehensive source I know of on the internet for mid-century front doors, that is retro renovation.com You’ll find their article 14 places to buy or DIY mid-century front doors. It was updated just last fall, and it’s got a bunch of great sources, it will continue to be updated on their own schedule.

So you can just go to that site and track down all the places across America that are still sourcing and supplying mid-century friendly doors both in wood, which will be the most original in fiberglass, which will be the lowest most low maintenance and in steel, which might be the simplest. You’re looking for something slightly more custom than you’re going to find in I mean Home Depot supplies a mid-century style door, but you want something slightly more complicated than that because you’re looking for a set that’s built in with Sidelights, and you’ve got two options for how to make that happen.

You can either buy a door that comes pre framed and preset with sidelights. That might be the best way to get the match with a glass. You can choose reeded glass from a number of these midcentury appropriate door supply companies. So you’ll end up being really satisfied with that result. That’s the easiest and fastest way to make it happen. It may or may not be the most cost effective.

You could also think about getting a custom pre framed door for the original door opening and then sourcing your sidelights not from a door or window company but from a group a glazing company a glass company to help you source those pieces of redid glass and then handyman who can frame in that glass neck To the original, rather to the new door, as to separate projects, this would only be more cost effective for you if you have a really good relationship with a competent handyman style contractor who takes this job on and doesn’t charge a particularly high hourly rate. Or if you would like to DIY that project yourself.

If not, then I would say it’s probably easiest and fastest to get a new replacement door and have the entire unit set in sidenote, for everyone out there who has made choices for their mid-century home that they now don’t feel great about, take a deep breath, you’re going to be okay, you made choices, that does not make you a bad person, it does not mean you’ve ruined your home, because for many of my clients who’ve been looking for and then purchasing mid-century homes, they also have a lot of regrets about what the previous owner may have done to update the house or to flip it to get ready for purchase. And this is another side now we’re about to I do these lovely design chat, video live calls with Sarah year out of mid-century homes in Boise. And we’re about to do a couple of weeks in a row on the topic of what you should and should not do to ready a mid-century house for resale.

But here’s the short version, don’t do much, do less. Whatever you do, has the potential to be regrettable to the next owner. So leave it as is and the next person can make their choice to update or upgrade as they desire. But for you, Laura just take comfort and what I tell my clients who bought a house and had changes made to it in the early 2000s by someone else, which is that we can do a lot to rollback those changes and to bring the house back to its original style and or to infuse elements of the midcentury era style into the house that might not have been there in the first place.

So if your house was really mid-century traditional to begin with, and you’d like a more mid modern approach, you can tune it to meet your moment and not turn it to 2007. But to say 1963 rather than 1957 Tune into another subcategory of the mid-century pantheon. So best of luck to you and getting back to having a front door that makes you proud and I would love to see pictures of your replacement project when it is done.

All right. Our next question comes from Janet. Janet has a 1948 ranch in the California Bay Area. The common area is open concept with a dramatic shed roof ceiling three skylights over the kitchen and dining area that is in turn open to a cozy living room with an eight foot ceiling. The living room is in line with the entry which also has eight foot ceilings and the only natural light in that area comes from the open kitchen dining area. It has no windows on its two walls, we’re planning to put a skylight into the entry to open up and light it up. We’d love to do the same in the living room. But given the constraints with the existing roof structure, it’s impossible.

So here’s the question. Is it okay to use solar tubes in the eight foot ceiling living room in order to bring in natural light to just that area? It’s so dark there and I hate turning on lights when it’s bright outside? But I’m not sure if we can get away with solar tubes? Are they too modern or weird? For what it’s worth, we’re thinking of using three square shaped diffusers down the center of the room. Our style is mid mod fusion. Thank you.

Thank you for telling me that you know what your style is going on! And for asking this question. And Janet, your answer is going to be short and sweet because I’m happy to tell you that it’s an easy and competent 100% Yes, it is okay. In fact, I highly recommend that you do use solar tubes to bring light into this lower darker area of the house. So for anyone who is curious solar tubes are a style of skylight which has a bubble shaped window in your roof that connects to a long interiorly reflective tube down to what looks like a flat flush mount ceiling or can light in the ceiling.

And it’s very much easier to install in complicated like in a hip roof or in a different shape of roof or it’s easier to install and insulate around. It does not give you a view of the sky, but it actually often does a better job of reflecting light from the exterior sky into the house than a straight skylight does. And because of the bubble nature of the window on the roof. It captures light from all directions of the sky rather than needing to have direct light sort of shine into the house to get the maximum benefit. Now, solar tubes are not a mid-century original choice, but it’s a highly appropriate one for a mid-century house and it’s absolutely in the spirit of your high ceiling open concept. Other areas to bring skylights into the living area. It’s bringing the outside into your home in a beautiful way.

And solar tubes are a workman like device. They’re very practical. They’re not the most aesthetically pleasing but they are minimalist so please don’t hesitate to go ahead and have them installed. I think they’re a lovely addition to the light options in your house. If you already have any ceiling lights in that area, you have two options. You can either replace those ceiling lights with solar tubes in the same location. Or you can try to create a pattern of lighting on the ceiling that maintains the original ceiling lights and brings in new solar tubes.

I also just a quick note, sola tubes is the premier product in the US to do this tubular skylight effect. The only one I consider as a viable alternative is Velux, the E L u x, they have a tubular skylight which can also work very pleasantly, and it has a few alternates in its design. But the sort of flagship product of solar tube lights is sola tube, and they do a wonderful job. Even though this company this design has only been around for the last few decades. I feel like this is one of those products that would have been beloved by mid-century house designers if it was available at the time. So please go right ahead and have tube lights installed to bring daylight into the dark parts of your house. There’s no reason to live without them if you are already excited about the product.

Let’s carry on talking about bringing light into your home. By answering Valerie’s question. Valerie described her house as a 1955 Pacific Northwest ranch and asks, how can I determine the best windows – floor to ceiling – without muntins or horizontal muntins? Casement awning double hung single bay etc. glass door sliding pocket French style for my ranch? I have a south facing wall of windows and sliding glass doors and several original bedroom windows that need updating. Not a lot of legitimate information available online to help me decide.

Valerie, I hear you. Funnily enough. This is also a topic that came up last week in my podcast episode, but you’d submitted your question before that happened last week when I was discussing the ways that our masterplan clients sometimes follow up to ask for additional support. I mentioned that I just sent a couple of detailed emails to a client who’s planning to do a replacement window product project for their mid-century home.

I’m not surprised this came up again for you. And they asked me anything questions because choosing appropriate replacement windows for a mid-century house is a big deal. It’s a comprehensive, expensive project that has huge power to make your house feel right or not. And so it comes up a lot. Valerie, I really want to get you on an office hours call so that I can share pictures. You can show me pictures of your house, I can share links and do some sketching on it and really dive deeply into this topic. This is such an important question to get right as you go through the process of planning and preference for your mid-century home.

But here’s what I can tell you in the format of an Ask Me Anything podcast episode. I love that you’re looking into this. And you’re absolutely correct to be wary of some of the information you find online at standard wood window replacement companies across the internet. Generally, with a 1955 mid-century house, you’re going to want to think carefully about your replacement windows because the wrong replacement can substantially alter the style of your house both inside and out.

Now, replacing or repairing or updating Windows is never an inexpensive proposition. It’s always going to be a big element of the house important to the aesthetic and to the envelope, the temperature protection privacy thermal container of your house. So you’re talking about a wall of south facing windows that need to be updated and several bedroom original windows. I have a couple of questions that I would love to hear your answers for it before I dig more deeply into this, but I can’t get your answer. So I’ll ask them rhetorically and then address what I think you might bring up.

The first question I always have when people bring up replacement windows is, is it absolutely necessary to replace these windows? What’s going wrong with them right now if they are cracked, fogged, air leaking? Noticeably poorly insulated? Yes, you may very well need to get into removing them and replacing them with an entirely new product. But original windows don’t necessarily need to be replaced just because they’re old.

This is where I always like to nod to fellow vintage home lover and Instagram content creator extraordinaire Scott Sadler of Austin historical restoration and preservation. You can find him on Instagram at the Craftsman blog. Now as you might guess from that Instagram handle, he is not a mid-century guy. He loves craftsman homes and his whole business is built around, repairing and restoring and caring for vintage windows. But he and I agree 100% on the potential value in caring for and preserving and restoring your original windows in a craftsman house or in a mid-century house.

Because in while it can be expensive and labor intensive to properly repair and update original windows, it often costs less than the cost of even the most poor quality or cheap vinyl replacement windows. So if you’re thinking just about pricing, you may be worth it to put a little more love into the Windows you have. If the windows are single pane or steel frame or have other insulation challenges, then my architectural recommendation would be to think about other solutions first before a full replacement.

I like to suggest that you could seal in the entire area of an existing fixed window with a custom built in wooden or aluminum frame, supporting a fixed pane of insulated glass or even acrylic over the entire window. You could have independent custom storm windows made with insulated acrylic or glass on these could be added or removed seasonally, the product in DOS Windows without the W fits into this category. Or you could remove and replace the existing glazing the glass of the window with thermal glass.

And this would be done by a glazing company, not a window replacement company and it would preserve all of the original framing elements and therefore the shape of your windows. In any of those cases, then you can supplement the insulation value of the window with a better grade of insulated curtain or blind or you could have custom insulated blinds and then custom pinch pleat curtains that over them. Even custom fabricated insulated blinds will be less expensive than fully replacing all your windows.

By the way, if I’ve convinced you to think about repairing or preserving your existing windows, you are not going to call a window company to help you do that. They won’t know anything about that and they won’t be prepared to talk to you about it. They want to sell you a new window unit made by their company to go into the holes in your house not talk to you about the windows that you have right now. So to get help or advice or a quote on repairing the windows you have, you’re going to talk to glaziers, you’ll call glazing companies or glass companies, not window companies. But you asked what would be the best windows to replace what you have right now.

So in this case, you’ve got a wall of windows and sliding glass doors and several original vendor windows, I’m going to recommend that you try to source replacement windows that are as similar as possible in design to the ones you have right now. That is if you’ve got sliding glass doors, try to replace those sliding glass doors with sliding glass or with a full floor to ceiling fixed glass window if you don’t need to go in and out for example, sometimes an entire wall of sliding glass doors is lovely but expensive.

And you could choose to have just one area of that glass wall be your traffic zone and have the recipe just fixed floor to ceiling glass that would be less expensive than having operable glass along that entire wall. In the case of your bedroom windows, you I will recommend that you try to replace awning windows with awning Hopper with Hopper casement with casement you might have double hung windows in a mid-century house depending on the region, or you might not.

Now the quick caveat on bedroom windows is that when you replace a window or door in your house, you take on the burden of responsibility to bring that window up to modern building code or that door. So for example, if you replace a door between your kitchen in your garage, you have no responsibility to make sure that your previous original door is a fire rated door but the new door that goes into that spot must be a fire rated door. And for a bedroom window. When you replace a window in a bedroom, you may take on the burden of you have to have an egress safe window which will have a certain size and a certain open, clear area. This will vary slightly depending on your area. So consult with someone about the local building code.

Now in some cases, the actual hole in your house isn’t appropriately sized for a proper legal egress window. And in that case, I would recommend checking in with your local code enforcement agency, your local municipal government to figure out what they recommend you do in that case. If you’re going to replace the windows, though, ideally, you’re looking for a similar shape slenderness detail level of what was in the original windows, you’re not looking for any of the excessive things, you will want to be going probably a step or two above the baseline replacement window lines that are available from standard companies or big box stores.

But you’re going to look for the simplest possible construction without any of the so called Design upgrades that they offer. So you don’t want anything with divided lights real or fake. You want the most simple minimal of hardware, the most lightweight edge and anytime you have an opportunity to choose a trim profile around the window you’ll choose the most simple squared off trim profile. It is worth it though to invest in the level of replacement window that allow you to make choices like having a wood finish on the inside stage to match your existing wood and a proper low maintenance exterior finish like fiberglass or metal clad on the outside.

I never remember recommended final for any purpose on a mid-century house. But you’ll be generally looking for the slightly more high end lines Marvin ultimate or Marvin modern window lines. Anderson’s E series or for any other window supply company will be looking for their architectural line of Windows, it is possible to replace an original mid-century operable window wall with a new one that looks just as good just exactly the same as the old one and performs infinitely better in terms of insulation and air seal quality. But you do have to jump up to like a Marvin ultimate line to make that happen to make it look truly original.

Again, please let me know what your follow up questions are and when you make your choice, please please please share your successful after photos with the class as it were.

Last question comes from Emily a little of the house. My home is a ranch style home built in the 1920s. And added on to in the 70s. It’s the house my grandpa and mom were raised in. So there’s a lot of sentimental value to it. However, it did see some years of neglect after my grandfather passed and my grandma let some things go unattended. Now I’m faced with the decision to invest over $100,000 in just foundation repair, it has a dirt basement with more work to follow or build new.

The issue with building new is I don’t like new construction, and I love the character of my current home. I’ve spoken with a local draftsman to design draw up a new home, but he just doesn’t get what I’m looking for vintage 50s 60s ranch built in a modern day way. He keeps making it look like a cookie cutter Morton building or shop home. So the question is, as an architect, do you design new construction plans or prefer to work only on remodels and renovations?

This is such a great question Emily and I have two answers. The one is to the issue of your home and what to do about it. And the other is how I personally work. I have done new construction in my life. And it can be very satisfying. In fact, there’s a little I’m prouder of than the last new build I managed, which was my parents straw bale eco cottage built on their property in rural Wisconsin. 

I finished that project for them over a decade ago. And I haven’t done a new build since. It’s not that I don’t like new construction. It’s not that we don’t need any new homes built in America, we have a housing shortage. But we also have a stock of existing homes that are located in livable, beautiful places that have sentimental associations, and that need time and attention. And that’s where I’ve chosen to focus my life as a designer.

Now to your specific question. While I can’t know exactly what will be involved in upgrading and updating your family’s historic ranch style home homes built in the 1920s, without a proper foundation may indeed be too challenging to update. But I urge you to keep doing research, get a couple more quotes on what would be necessary to bring the house up to your living standard.

And before you rule that possibility out entirely. Keep trying to find a sympathetic or like-minded contractor, you might be able to find a quote for under 100,000 For foundation repair or find out if there’s an alternative to the types of foundation improvement that you’ve been looking into maybe there is a simpler option. Is the house suffering? Is it suffering differential settlement is it having other problems having been built with a dirt basement?

That’s not necessarily a deal breaker many historic homes continue to exist in that state. So only know what problems you’re having with it right now and how those problems can be best addressed without getting more into this. But the other thing that I want to address though, is that I think I agree with you that new construction often doesn’t measure up to the design standards. And you yourself have said that a lot of new construction leaves you cold.

So it can be challenging and even expensive to work with existing building. Because you’re dealing with the foibles and the maintenance challenges of decades even generations of previous use. You are starting from something rather than starting from nothing when you build new, you’re starting from scratch, there are no walls, no risk, no windows, no poorly repaired foundations to begin from, and everything has to be sourced and supplied from places all over the globe at this point. And a lot of the qualities of new materials are simply not as good as the historic pieces you might find in older homes like yours, one element alone, construction lumber.

Now I know that sounds deeply unsexy, but we’d simply don’t have access to the type of old growth timber that was used in every home built before and during the mid-century era. One of the reasons I love on mid-century home so much is the sturdiness of their construction. If they were built today, they couldn’t be built with the same materials we’ve cut down and used all the old growth forest that was used for basic structural lumber, the quality of a two by four in 1920 and then in 1970, and today are absolutely recognized at a glance different from each other.

There are also some design differences that can be copied but are sharply marked between the mid-century era homes that you love and the homes built today. It’s just hard to find a new designer who’s willing to create the kind of modestly sized but appropriately, the kind of right size spaces that you find in an older home. 

So you will continue unfortunately to find yourself swimming upstream against a flood of information advising you to go bigger, go fancier or simply to go with less quality over more quantity as you do new construction. I don’t recommend it to anyone. Honestly. If I had my druthers all the new construction that we would do right now would be infill construction in existing areas to promote density. We need more multifamily homes in this country not more ranch houses. We have lots of ranch houses and we should just love them.

There’s my little soapbox speech. Unfortunately, I can’t take on a new construction in the mid-century style through myself. I have chosen to dedicate my practice architecture to renovation, repair and upgrading of existing mid-century homes. And it is my mission to protect Every ranch house in America from bad remodels. It’s a big one I know.

But that’s what I do. I’m obsessed with the quality and detail I find in mid-century homes. And even when I’m dealing with a house that has had a lot of its character removed, like we were talking about in one of the earlier questions, I’m always happy to look for new ways to breathe new life into an older home and to bring back or even put in more character than it had to begin with. I hope that you will be able to find a way to do the same.

All right, thank you again, Laura, Jeanette, Valerie and Emily for sharing your questions with us, I had to limit us to four because this is already a really long episode. But remember, if you need help with your pressing mid-century design questions right now, there are three easy ways that mid mod Midwest can help schedule an SOS design consultation for an hour on Zoom. And I will go deep with you on whatever is on your mind with your home right now.

For the most long running and cost effective support available, join ready to remodel and you’ll have the opportunity to ask me regularly, whatever is on your mind at our monthly Office Hours calls or within our Facebook group and get support as you figure out the best choices for your mid-century home. 

Just do that before June 1 for the best price or let us plan the remodel for you. We will walk you through our step by step Master Plan process where we figure out exactly what you need from your mid-century home determine what the house itself needs right now, focus your mid-century style and brainstorm multiple design options for you to choose from, so that you can do as little of your own homework in the planning of the remodel as possible.

This is the work we love to do at Mid Mod Midwest, and we’d love to do it with you. So reach out today, you can find access points for each of those types of service on the show notes page at mid mad dash midwest.com/ 1208.

That’s all for today. But stay tuned for next week when I’m going to be taking a metaphorical journey with you and talk to you about how to use the upcoming summer vacation plans you might have in mind to plan your remodel.

Now if you have questions like How much will it cost to do this? Or what’s the best source for this and you’re still in the early stages of planning remodel. I know you’re fixating beyond where you should be. I’m going to talk to you about how to use the metaphor of planning a great vacation to walk you through an easy, focused planning process that will get you to each question you need to answer about your home in the order you need to answer it.

And I’m really looking forward to this. So I’ll see you next week mid mod remodelers, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you need more support right now. We’d love to hear from you.

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