Your ReMod Squad is the team you rely on to give you advice specific to your love of mid century style. There is just TOO much bad advice out there for people who want to update a mid-century home. It takes a village (a squad) of people on your side to help you push back and make regret-proof choices for your home!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Yes! You NEED a ReMod Squad
You need a team of people around you to give you advice not just for general remodeling but specific to your love of your mid century home your mid mod ReMod Squad.
Where to find your Squad
You can build this team of people out of people you know people in your neighborhood or community contractors, realtors, suppliers and more. You can find people online and join mid century oriented online communities, you can join the mid modern model Facebook group.
But on top of all of that, I strongly recommend that if you want to start making changes to your home now and do it the right way you join us inside of the ready to remodel program in time to join the next ReMod Squad for the group.
What to do once you’ve got one!
Once you’re in the squad, once you’ve got your squad, lean on them, share your wins your frustrations, your questions and whatever is holding you back they’ll share with you to within that community you’ll find the motivation to keep going through whatever is holding you back.
And if you’re looking for a readymade mid mod ReMod Squad, you’ve come to the right place. We’re gearing up to kick-off a new ReMod Squad inside Ready to Remodel on February 6th!
In Today’s Episode You’ll Hear:
- Why it’s so important to find you mid mod folks.
- How big a difference finding the right experts can make for your mid century home and remodeling experience.
- How a mid mod ReMod Squad can support your remodel planning.
Listen Now On
Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher
Resources for finding your ReMod Squad
- Relisten to Season 9 Episode 7 – Am I Wrong to Love Mid Century?
- Read the NY Times Article The New Soldiers in Propane’s Fight Against Climate Action: Television Stars.
- Learn how to find your mid mod ReMod Squad and get ready to remodel in 2023 by watching my FREE Masterclass, “How to Plan an MCM Remodel to Fit Your Life(…and Budget)”, ON DEMAND.
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
SPEAKER – Della Hansmann
00:00
What is a mid mod ReMod Squad? And what can it do for you? If you have plans to do any work on your mid century home this year, then it can do a lot. So today I’m going to share with you the pep talk I give to every new member of my ready to remodel program. I want you to find and then lean into your mid mod re Mod Squad. This is right at the top of my mind because we’re about to kick off another cohort inside of ready to remodel. So I’ll be giving this pep talk within the group really soon.
00:27
Hey there, welcome back to mid mob remodel. This is the 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 season 11 Episode Five. So like I said, this is timely to share this pep talk with you because I’m about to share it with my next cohort of ready to remodel students. My next Mid Mod ReMod Squad. That’s actually what we call the cohorts within the program because that’s exactly what they are. When a new group of homeowners all start at the same time. Or refresh their commitment to the program at the same time. They form a ReMod squad, a group of likeminded mid century homeowners who are committed to taking action together.
01:10
We use their collective energy of people going through the steps of the master plan method, asking the questions, encouraging each other picking up problems, solutions, ideas, advice, and using that power to supercharge their remodels for them. It’s a wonderful feeling. If you’re curious about what it’s like inside of ready to remodel check out my free masterclass. Planning a Mid Century Remodel to Fit Your Life (and budget) which you can watch on your own time at midmod-midwest.com/ready-to-remodel. Or just go to the link in the show notes for this whole pep talk and transcript form. And some other useful resources. As always, you’ll find the show notes on my website at midmod-midwest.com/ 1105.
01:50
Right now, I want to talk to you about what is a ReMod Squad? Have you got one in your life already? In other words, where might you have been getting some remodel support. At the moment, you’re listening to the mid mod remodel podcast. Well, that’s part of your squad. That’s my voice in your ear once a week encouraging them to keep making good choices. To tell you that you’re right to go in this direction that your midcentury passion is wonderful. That’s a wonderful thing.
If you’re a member of the mid mod remodel Facebook group, that’s another place where you can find support encouragement. You can see other people doing the same things you are following the same pathway and also see examples and advice and inspiration. You might follow other midcentury accounts on social media. This is a wonderful place to focus your downtime, your stare at your phone time. Rather than just letting Facebook and Instagram show you anything. Follow or unfollow choose the hashtags tune your experience. So that what you see on social media is the faces of people you love, maybe a cute puppy or cat video or 100 whatever floats your boat, and mid century houses.
02:54
You can also choose what not to see if you start to see too many accounts that are showing you home improvement projects that are explicitly not midcentury, unfollow them. Don’t like them, block them, et cetera, set yourself up so you get encouragement to go in the right direction. Where else might you find support your partner?
Well, I certainly hope so. But possibly not possibly some friends or family. Although again, maybe not. Not everyone’s parents, neighbors, kids or partner get their love for mid century. And if they don’t, you’ve got two options. One, you can convert them, bring them into the midcentury fold so that they love it too. And they see what’s great about it. Or two, you can love them back and discount their incorrect opinion for you and your house. Because you’re here because you think mid century is great. And if they don’t think it’s great, then they can decorate their house and make improvements to their home in any way they want. But your home is for you.
03:44
You can also look for local preservation groups. These are a great resource, especially if you’re trying to keep what’s intact about your mid century home. If you’re planning to make more mid century mid mod fusion type changes, there’ll be less encouraging of your choices. But it’s a great place to find out how to deal with some of the mid century qualities of your home. You might find a resource in the realtor who sold you your home. I hope you did.
Although we sometimes by mid century homes from people who don’t really see their value. And in some cases that helps us to get them at a discount. In other cases, well. I just heard from someone who felt they might have missed out on the mid century home of their dreams. Because their realtor who was also a personal friend didn’t see what was cool about the house. Their realtor friend was talking a lot to them about how much work it would be and how rundown, It seemed they felt it needed to be changed from floor to ceiling. Now that realtor may or may not have tanked the offer. But certainly, they didn’t push for it with their whole chest, and they didn’t get the house. That’s a pretty concrete example of the problem in not having the right people on your squad.
04:47
You really want to build around you the team of people who see what is valuable about what you see in mid century homes because anyone can use a remod squad for any type of remodeling. It’s helpful because remodeling is overwhelming, confusing, expensive, stressful personal. But as mid century home lovers or mid century homeowners, we need this more. We need a mid mod remarqued squad. Because a mid mod ReMod Squad will help guide you through the wilderness pass the chatter, the noise of random advice about making home improvements, it’s out of step with what we like, which does not key into what makes your mid century home powerful, valuable, charming.
05:26
And also, it’ll help us push away the actively incorrect advice coming for us very loudly out of HGTV. Now, say what you like about the entire channel, I think that in general, it’s not terrible advice for anyone who has purchased a sort of soulless, 80s or 90s new builds. You can put some interesting decoration onto it. Or if you happen to live in a 1930s cottage and love that a lot of the choices, they’re recommending constantly on HGTV, the subway tile, the beadboard. Those are appropriate choices for a house of that era.
05:54
But not for us. So much of the home improvement industry is keyed into the HGTV style. So many contractors are doing only one thing for their clients unless they’re actively directed to something else. It doesn’t take into account what’s the original style of the house. What’s the style goal of the new homeowner, that’s you. So I want you to have a bunch of people a squad helping you to push back to create a wall of no. To the HGTV advice we’re getting because some of its misguided, and some of its mis applied to a mid century home.
06:24
And honestly, some of it is just marketing for industries that are selling us things. For example, we’ve been hearing a lot in the news lately about gas ranges. There was this whole little fracas in Congress. I have a gas range, I kind of like it. You may have a gas range and love it, that’s fine. But part of the reason we like it is that it works a particular way we’re familiar with. And part of the reason we like our gas ranges is that we’ve been consistently marketed to about gas ranges and their benefits since the 1930s. When the gas industry was like, you need to get this and everyone’s home.
06:56
And they did. By the way, a lot of high end manufacturers make perfectly excellent electric and induction ranges. They wouldn’t be selling those if they didn’t think they were high quality. People wouldn’t be buying them if they didn’t work. But they’ll also sell us gas if that’s what we’re looking for. The gas industry is pushing us to keep buying gas. There was an article just a couple of weeks ago in the New York Times . The new soldiers in the propane fight against climate change television stars,. An industry group is spending millions of dollars on HGTV to push back against efforts to move away from heating from oil and gas.
07:30
So basically, the natural gas industry is pushing the idea that you should have gas. And everything on HGTV specific influencers are being paid to promote gas – gas fireplaces, gas heat, gas stoves across the board. In an era when really, we should be thinking about alternatives. We should be thinking about electric heat, we should be thinking about passive solar, things like that. So anyway, the point is, ask yourself the journalists’ constant question who was telling me this? And why do they want me to believe it. You can trust what people are saying to you a lot more when they like you share a passion for midcentury design. Your squad. So you want to build that cocoon of people who support you and help you.
08:09
And for us, look, I know I’m preaching to the choir. You’re here listening to me now because you agree with me. But I just want you to remember, it helps to have the reinforcement. Because so much of the world out there does not agree with you and I about this. They don’t see what’s cool about mid century. So we need to build our squad.
Once you’ve got your squad, I encourage you to make use of it. Tell us everything and tell us everything because here’s the thing, planning a home update is engrossing. It’s fascinating. And it’s exciting. It’s fun, it’s stressful. To us. It’s much less interesting to everyone else in our lives – Even the people who love us the most unless they happen to be your best friend, your mom, your favorite sibling who is also planning right now or remodeled or mid century home.
08:54
If they’re not, no one else is going to be as invested in your home improvement projects as you are except other people right in the middle of planning a mid century home update, and me. But those other people, they are going to be going through the same exact struggles experiencing the same wins. They’re not just generically remodeling their mid century remodeling. So no one is going to be more excited when you solve a problem for a mid century home has been bugging you, when you get the paint off that brick, no one is going to be more sympathetic when you run into a roadblock.
When you realize the original building has been damaged beyond repair in some way or that you just are not going to find those blueprints. And what you can do about that. No one is going to be more curious about how you solved the problems the way you did. And when you tell other people we’re updating midcentury homes right now they’re going to echo and reflect your excitement back to you and they’re going to give you useful advice. That’s the benefit of having a mid mod ReMod Squad. They are your Echo Chamber; your enforcement and they are a font of great ideas and enthusiasm that will keep you going.
09:56
So if you’re starting to make changes to your home this year or frankly, if you’re not starting to make the changes, but you want them to begin, find a group of people who are doing just that, and pinball off their energy. Make use of that energy as much as possible. Let your squad know how you’re doing, whether you’re succeeding, and you’ve had five brilliant breakthroughs in a week, you’ve made calls to contractors, you found out pricing, you’re feeling on fire, and you’ve really got it going on.
Also come to the group, if you’ve done nothing, if you’re stuck, if you’re frustrated, and you don’t know how to find that piece of information, because someone else in your squad will feel the same way or will remember feeling that way and will join you in that emotion, which is so validating and then help you break through those roadblocks.
10:39
Here’s the thing. It’s so helpful to watch other people go through the process of a remodel in parallel with you. And what I’ve seen inside of cohorts of ready to remodel is that when we go through this, we start off with a series of weekly calls.
At first, everyone submits their questions to me. Basically, my office hours calls are a form of remodeling group coaching, mid century homeowners shown up on the zoom with their questions. I answer them. Things like, here’s my struggle with the entry sequence, the built in we don’t know how to fix the flooring has been damaged, we need to replace it, what’s a good choice, and I’ll give them the weight of my experience working on dozens, hundreds of midcentury homes, show them examples of previous design projects. But by the end of the series of weekly calls, I’m still giving advice.
11:21
But we also get feedback from the other homeowners on the call at the same time. And I love to watch this happen. It goes on both in the chat of the zoom, people just weighing in saying they understand that that’s happened to them to piling on saying oh my gosh, that’s my question and I didn’t even think to ask it. But also, we’ll have people just pop on I’ll say turn your audio on let’s share this experience.
Basically, people are able to workshop in real time, how they’ve dealt with storage solutions, how they’ve gotten the paint off brick or original paneling, things they’ve tried that turned out to be unwieldy. Someone asks a question of is it worth it to use a heat gun paint stripper, and I’ll tell them what I know. But then we’ll get to other homeowners on the call who have tried it and had success or dramatic failures. And that helps you make an informed decision for yourself about whether that’s something you want to try.
12:10
There’s such a power in watching other people go through the same steps with the same process you are. Either a little ahead of you or a little behind you. And either way, I think watching that advice, watching that progress is empowering. I find this in my own life running a small business, I’m really confident about being an architect who advises people about how to make updates to their mid century homes.
Being the leader of a company is something that’s much more new to me. So I have a business coaching program that I belong to. And meeting and watching my other fellow small business owners go through the exact same struggles I am in their own industries, marketing management, time management, it’s incredibly validating. And every time I see that it’s happened to someone else, I relax when I see the same things happen inside the ready to remodel group, I smile because it feels so familiar.
12:53
So I want you wherever you’re going to find it. I want you to find and build around yourself a squad of mid century home improvers who care about your project as much as you do. Now, if you’re less interested in building a squad for yourself, and you just like to look into one, well that’s where I’ve got some great news for you. Because like I said at the top, we’re just about to launch another cohort inside of ready to remodel. So on February 6, the first Monday of February, we’ll begin our office call sequence. We’ll be doing weekly calls all the way through February and March. And we’ll be creating a group of people who are going through the Master Plan method together.
13:28
So let’s recap what did we cover today? One, you need a team of people around you to give you advice not just for general remodeling but specific to your love of your mid century home your mid mod ReMod Squad. Two, you can build this team of people out of people you know people in your neighborhood or community contractors, realtors, suppliers and more.
You can find people online and join mid century oriented online communities, you can join the mid modern model Facebook group. But on top of all of that, I strongly recommend that if you want to start making changes to your home now and do it the right way you join us inside of the ready to remodel program in time to join the next ReMod Squad for the group. Once you’re in the squad, once you’ve got your squad, lean on them, share your wins your frustrations, your questions and whatever is holding you back they’ll share with you to within that community you’ll find the motivation to keep going through whatever is holding you back.
14:21
So to get started right away check out my free on demand masterclass How to Plan a mid century remodel to fit your life and budget. It’s just hanging out there containing pretty much everything I believe in and waiting for you to feel ready to get started. Now is a great time to get started. You’ll find it and the show notes at midmod-midwest.com/ 1105.
I hope I’ll see you on the call next Monday joining the next mid mod ReMod Squad. But if you’re listening to this episode later, know that you haven’t missed out you can get planning at any time and join the next ReMod Squad when it starts.
Still start this week.
Okay next week on the podcast we’ll be talking about why you do not want to paint mid century brick. I sing this song to the internet all the time, but I recently realized I’ve never put it into podcast form, so you’ll get the long answer to why not next week. See you then.