bathroom update Archives - MidMod Midwest

The Bathroom Saga with Aletha VanderMaas

49 min readJudging previous owner’s questionable renovation choices is great fun! It’s so satisfying to rip into those trendy, out-of-period “upgrades” that feel so wrong for your charming mid-century home. Less fun? When you realize that the person who made those decisions is YOU, ten years ago.

Even those of us who are now professional mid-century designers have skeletons in our closets (and in my case, basements). My fellow designer, Aletha Van der Mass of True Home Restorations, and I have both walked that path. And now we both spend our time helping others avoid making the same mistakes.

So today, in the interest of community (and laughter through tears) we are both sharing our shameful home renovation stories.

Mid-Century Tile Tutorial

Let’s talk about tile for a mid-century update. You’ve got options. You can go with bold custom color in your favorite shade or recreate a bathroom in powder blue or Mamie pink.

You can get playful with shapes and even textures.

Not to make this scary but … tile choice also runs the risk of tipping into a trend that will ultimately put a timestamp on your whole remodel.

When I’m walking through a remuddled house with a client – one that has one or several very dated remodels layering over it’s original mid-century charm – tile is one of the first things I check to assess what year that remodel went down!