Our Mid-Century Breakfast Nook Updates

Most of the breakfast nook changes happened during our mid-century modern kitchen remodel, including new flooring to match the original hardwoods and a new mid-century door, one that looks pretty similar to this one. We had Moe Light Honeycomb lights on the ceiling, but they were too small for the room. We swapped them out with a set of Bahar Glass Flush Mount ceiling lights. The match the ceiling lights in the living room and help create a nice flow from one room to the other.

Our Mid-Century Living Room Updates

On top of the new authentic mid-century paint job, we wanted to refresh the lighting in the living room. We had the ceiling fan we installed when we moved in, and it was fine, but we wanted blades that matched our hardwood flooring better. We installed a Davrick ceiling fan, which isn't available anymore, but this ceiling fan is a pretty close match.

We also put in a new ceiling light by the front door. Again, the old one we installed was fine, but it was time for an upgrade. We went with the Bahar Glass Flush Mount ceiling light. The smallest size still allowed the door to swing open without hitting it and matched the ceiling fan look really well.

We like the Bahar Glass Flush Mount ceiling lights a lot. So much so that they became the mid-century modern ceiling lights that we installed in most other rooms. It's nice to have one look across the whole house, instead of a mishmash of lighting fixtures.

Our Mid-Century Interior Paint Colors

We repainted everywhere in our mid-century home. In the original sales listing photos, everything was a nice light gray. But they didn't do a professional job painting and the old colors were peaking through in a lot of places. Everything needed a fresh coat and it was painting all the walls that pushed us to do the other renovations.

Trying to stick to authentic mid-century interior paint colors, we decided to stay with gray for the walls, specifically Silver Cloud (30YY 63/024). 

Silver Cloud gray

It's light enough that rooms still feel big, but it has a warmth to it so the space feels cozy. Almost every wall in every room is this color now and we enjoy our whole house more because of it.

The trim was a bit tricky because we wanted to color match the original trim. We looked at a million shades of white. The one that ended up being the right color for our trim was Stone White (30YY 76/017).

Finally, our original mid-century ceiling needed a fresh coat too. We went with a standard flat white ceiling paint. It makes it look fresh and new even though the tiles have been here since the '40s. I was also able to remove the glow stars that were in one room. A hair dryer to melt the glue and a pair of tweezers to pull them off was the key to not damaging the ceiling.

Our Mid-Century Home Renovations

It's been years since I've posted, but in that time we've done some pretty big renovations and remodels to our mid-century home and I wanted to come back and check them off our to-do list. I love checking things off a list.

I'm not going to share pictures of the final product. This blog was pre-social media and frankly my picture-taking skills are not up to modern standards. All of the work looks great, but it wouldn't come across that way with me as the photographer. 

I am going to share all of the products we used because they keep with the mid-century design and look that we're trying to keep, while adding the modern conveniences. And I went on a pretty deep dive to find all of these, so you don't have to. I'm going to split these into a series of posts so you can go room by room if you're in the middle of a mid-century renovation yourself.

The State of Mid-Century Blogs

Someone on the Austin Reddit board asked which were the best thrift stores for mid-century furniture. Oh, how the Austin mid-century fans laughed knowing that every thrift store is picked over well before a reasonable person can expect to get there. It did however start a good list of vintage stores in Austin. So good that I updated my list, mainly by moving multiple stores to the “closed” section.

Doing so made me wonder about all the wonderful mid-century blogs I used to read. They don’t really show up in my RSS feed reader anymore. That’s because literally everyone is shut down or stopped posting years ago, even Retro Renovation. 

I have a sad feeling about it all. It feels like it was a Mad Men-inspired moment in time that’s probably passed. It also seems like a lot of it has shifted to social media. However, what I tend to find there is professional photography and vintage stores selling their wares. It’s a bit different.

I never considered Mad for Mid-Century finished, just on extended hiatus, but maybe it’s best to end it.

If you’re someone who used to read this blog and came back for a visit, thank you. I’m not sure if there will ever be additional content but I hope you enjoyed.

If you stumbled upon this mid-century blog for the first time through a Google search or some other means, please look around and give a read. I still check my MadforMidcentury email and comments are monitored.

And if you’re someone who’s still interested in reading a mid-century blog, let me know. I always wrote Mad for Mid-Century for myself but the community that was once around mid-century style and design was nice.