One bedroom in our house—the kids room—has wood paneling. Thankfully, it was already painted when we moved in. I wouldn’t choose it for my new house but I have thoroughly enjoyed the texture it creates on the walls, the striped effect. Also, it’s solid wood which makes hanging art and shelving super easy—hooray for no hollow wall anchors!
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Art, Art: kids room, Art: mid-century design, Art: Old House Favorites | Tagged: bedroom, kids room, mid-century modern, nursery, wood paneling | 
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Posted by mahlbrandt
When we bought our house it had a shameful, navy blue, contemporary door with an oval stained glass window. It was brand new and perfectly good but not right at all on this house. Thankfully, Jason found a good old 1950s door at a local salvage yard. He was able to clean up and stain the inside and we repainted the outside. We added the new industrial door handle and deadbolt.
2 Comments | Art, Art: mid-century design, Art: Old House Favorites | Tagged: front door, mcm, mid-century modern | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
When Jason and I went to Costa Rica for my sister and brother-in-law’s wedding a couple years ago, we stayed at a beauty house in Manuel Antonio. Somehow Jason and I ended up with the bedroom with the biggest bathroom. It had a huge walk in shower with two shower heads. We were sold. We decided when we renovated our master bathroom, it absolutely had to have duel shower heads. We made this shower 4’x5′, probably less than half of the size of the one in Costa Rice, but still plenty big. We did all the tile work by hand and it took a ridiculously long time. A true labor of love for us and our house.
1 Comment | Art, Art: mid-century design, Art: Old House Favorites | Tagged: bathroom, mcm, mid-century modern, shower | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Once we start building our new MCM house, I’ll have lots of home things to blog about. In the meantime, to keep me from only talking about Precious and baby related stuff, I’m challenging myself to post a photo of one thing I love about our current house every week. I’m going to miss this old house a lot so it’s also a fun way to document my favorite elements of it. Here’s the first one:
There were a couple features that made a big impression on us the first time we walked through this house. One of them was the downward angled vanity in the original bathroom. This room has been updated a lot but the sturdy, original vanity has never been replaced. Before we moved in the concrete countertop was installed. We added the paint, new drawer pulls and the white vessel sink. A quirky 1950s design that you just don’t see in new houses.
1 Comment | Art, Art: mid-century design, Art: Old House Favorites | Tagged: bathroom, mcm, mid-century modern, vanity | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Have you heard of Eichler (pronounced ike-ler) homes? Jason and I have long admired the style and I decided to do a little more homework on the history and philosophy of Joseph Eichler and the “California Modern” homes he built.
Eichler was not an architect; he was a developer. Between 1950-1974, he built over 11,000 homes in California. He used architects who were students of Frank Lloyd Wright, like Robert Anshen. As I understand it, his philosophy was much like Wright’s: blurring the lines between inside and outside. One thing that set Eichler apart from his peers is that he wanted to keep his homes affordable to the middle class. His strict non-discrimination policy to sell homes to anyone regardless of race or religion led to his resignation from the National Association of Home Builders in 1958.
These paragraphs from Wikipedia (where I’m getting most of this info) really sums up the flavor of Eichler homes:
Eichler homes are from a branch of Modernist architecture that has come to be known as “California Modern,” and typically feature glass walls, post-and-beam construction, and open floor plans in a style indebted to Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe. Eichler Homes exteriors featured flat and/or low-sloping A-Framed roofs, vertical 2-inch pattern wood siding, and spartan facades with clean geometric lines. One of Eichler’s signature concepts was to “Bring the Outside In,” achieved via skylights and floor-to-ceiling glass windows with glass transoms looking out on protected and private outdoor rooms, patios, atriums, gardens, and swimming pools.
The interiors had numerous unorthodox and innovative features including: exposed post-and-beam construction; tongue and groove decking for the ceilings following the roofline; concrete slab floors with integral radiant heating; luan paneling; sliding doors for rooms, closets, and cabinets; and a standard second bathroom located in the master bedroom. Later models introduced the famous Eichler entry atriums, an open-air enclosed entrance foyer designed to further advance the Eichler concept of integrating outdoor and indoor spaces.
Here are some visual examples (sources in • below image):
2 Comments | Art, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design | Tagged: architecture, california modern, eichler, home, homework, mid-century modern | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
I took these pictures for our real estate agent over the weekend. I really do love this house. I hope the person/people who buy it love it as much as we did.
4 Comments | Art, Art: gardening, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design | Tagged: landscape lighting, mid-century modern, night, our house, ranch | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
As if we don’t have enough going on with Precious and her pending adoption, Jason and I have also been working on another big project. We’re building a house! Well, we will be once we sell our little mid-century modern ranch. But, we have purchased a piece of land. It’s really rare for land to become available in our 1950s-70s developed neighborhood, but the house that originally sat here was removed after a fire. This lovely, treed, flat, half-acre lot is less than a mile from our current home and just 6 houses down from my parents house. That probably sounds too close to most people but we have a great relationship and I love that Precious and our other future kids will be able to walk to over to Grandma and Grandpa’s.
We found a local architect, Ryan Thewes, that we’re really excited to work with. He’s studied with students of Frank Lloyd Wright and he does a lot of modern design. We think he’s the perfect architect to bring the mix of mid-century and modern that we’re hoping for. Building a house is something we’ve been dreaming of for a long time but assumed it would be in our distant future. When the perfect lot opened up, we decide to take a leap of faith. God has blessed us with great friends and family who helped us work everything out.
Our biggest motivation for moving out of the home we absolutely love: more space and bedrooms for more kids. We tossed around the idea of building on but ultimately decided to move on. Our home is three bedroom but one of the rooms is Jason’s studio which leaves just one room for kids. That worked great for the past 5 years but we’ve moved into a new season. Now that we have Precious for good, with DCS regulations for foster homes we would only be able to take one more child and she’d have to be a girl close to Precious’ age. We have it in our hearts to continue fostering more kids so more bedrooms are a must.
Here are some pictures I took on the property back in October the day we met Ryan there with our friend and real estate agent Jeremy (and his dog Maggie.):
You can bet I’ll be blogging about our experience all along the way. We’re super excited!
8 Comments | Art: new home build | Tagged: architecture, land, mid-century modern, Nashville, new construction, new home, property | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
First of all, Happy Birthday to my beautiful, smart, sweet big sister! I’m thankful we’ll be together next week. 🙂
Anyone want to buy this house? It’s in East Nashville (37206) and it’ll be on the market soon: 2 full bathrooms, 3 bedrooms (or 2 bedrooms and an office/studio), kitchen, living room, dining room, storage/mudroom, laundry room, cloffice. Still has the original 1955 hardwood floors through most of the house. Beautiful landscaping done by Jason. It’s 1420 sq ft and it’ll be listed somewhere around $220k. I know I’m pretty biased but I think it’s a rare gem. There is even a whole blog based around it!
I’m gonna leave you hanging on this one…details about WHY we’re selling coming soon.
Serious inquiries, please contact our agent at hundleyhouse@gmail.com.
5 Comments | Art, Art: Phone Photo Friday | Tagged: cell phone photography, house for sale, mid-century modern, Nashville, our house, Phone Photo Friday, real estate | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Happy 11-11-11! We’re selling three of these chairs. $15 a pop. Let me know if you want ’em. (Email me at martina [at] lighthanddesign [dot] com.) The legs are metal and the seat bases are off-white plastic. They’re Eames-ish but not the real deal. Pretty good shape. They’ll get up on craigslist as soon as I get around to it.
1 Comment | Art, Art: mcm thrift store find, Art: mid-century design, Art: Phone Photo Friday | Tagged: cell phone photography, chair, eames, mid-century modern, Phone Photo Friday | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Let’s pretend for a day that my thoughts are not completely consumed with thoughts about Precious’ situation…
On our most recent thrifting excursion Jason fell in love with 2 mid-century chairs. I like them, I just don’t love them… After a bit of haggling, Jason was toting them down the street to the silver bullet while Precious and I were following along. We ended up paying $40 for the pair. One of them has 2 small rips but sometimes it’s still worth it. We may reupholster them eventually. They’re now crowning the heads of our dining table.
What do you think? I do have to admit they’re more comfortable than our IKEA Gilbert chairs.
2 Comments | Art, Art: mcm thrift store find, Art: mid-century design | Tagged: chairs, mid-century modern, thrift store | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Graphic designer, MCM interior design enthusiast, wife to amazing guitarist and hard working realtor, mama—by way of foster care, adoption and biology—and follower of Jesus Christ.
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