Our Mid-Century Bedroom Updates

All of the bedrooms got the same updates, a full paint job and new ceiling fans.

We wanted all of the bedroom ceiling fans to be the same and to be an upgrade from our contractor-grade fans. We went with the Hampton Bay Nevali fan in each room. The blades are a good match to the original hardwood floors and it has a modern style that fits in with the rest of the ceiling lights in the house.

The updates did mean painting over the world map mural in our travel-themed nursery, but it's a teenager's room now, not a nursery. I also spent days removing glow-in-the-dark stars from ceiling of the guest bedroom with a hair dryer and tweezers, but it was worth it to save our mid-century ceilings.

Our Mid-Century Bathroom Remodel

One of the first posts on this site was to complain about the tile in the hallway bathroom. I hated it from day one till the moment we tore it all out. And we tore it all out when we did a full remodel of the hallway bathroom.

Before

After

Shower before

Shower after

We literally raised the roof over the shower. It had a drop ceiling for some reason, but now it's taller and brighter. 

We used the original hexagon floor tile as inspiration for the entire bathroom. We liked the original floor, but it was too dingy and chipped to keep so we replaced it with a classic black and white hexagon mosaic floor tile. We continued the pattern up the shower and in the nooks with 2" black hexagon tiles and finished out the rest of the shower with classic white subway tiles and a new sliding glass door.

I wanted to match the original cross handles on all the fixtures, but in metal. The only metal cross bath fixtures with a mid-century modern look that I could find where the Kohler Purist line.

We used the Purist line for the bath faucet, shower head, bath spout, sink faucet, and all the other fixtures.

We finished the bathroom out with a Modway Render mid-century bathroom vanity, a stainless steel  mirror, and a high-efficiency toilet. For the light, we matched the hallway to create a connection between the two rooms.

Our Mid-Century Hallway Updates

The smallest part of our house had the highest percentage of things updated. We started by swapping out the light switches. They were the only switches in the house that were the old-school standard switches and not pole rocker switches. We also swapped the location of attic light and the hallway light. Now the hall light is closer to the door, where it should be. It's something that bugged me since the day we moved in.

I wasn't going to take photos for any of these updates, but this one requires it because we used a lot of dead stock items to update the hallway.

For the light we used this mid-century sconce bought from Rejuvenation. They don't sell it anymore, but you can get the same vibe with these sconces. The original hall light looked like a sea shell and was in desperate need of an update.

We kept the original wood doors and had them repainted. They're mid-century quality and there was no reason to replace them. We did replace all of the door knobs, backplates, and latches. We had just enough of the original, and literally irreplaceable (I looked everywhere), mid-century backplates that we could put one on the front of each door.

The knobs used to be a mix of glass knobs, silver knobs, and black knobs. We swapped them all out with this vintage brass knob set, this black rosette on the back, and this latch set. It was a perfect match and now all the handles look the same.

Another thing that will go (visually) unnoticed is replacing the intake vent. We replaced all vents instead of painting them. If you still have vintage vents, I recommend updating, not painting. The airflow in our house is a lot better.

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.