I have big news. I sold my mid century ranch, and it was a bittersweet thing. But one thing I’m really happy with is that I commissioned a house portrait of it before we moved. Here’s the backstory:
Finding the Next Door to Forever Home
My husband Mark and I purchased our 1951 ranch in 2017. It was our first house, and we had big plans for it. We searched for more than 6 months looking for the mid century home of our first-time-homebuyer dreams. We flitted between two counties and three neighborhoods before we settled on this tract in Fullerton, one of Orange County, California’s oldest towns. Actually, we wanted a home just two blocks over, in the city’s famed Forever Homes subdivision. These were a small tract of homes that were built using Eichler floor plans—yes, the same ones designed by Anshen & Allen and A. Quincy Jones. But they were built by Pardee Homes, a local builder that, as the story goes, won a raffle held by Joseph Eichler himself that aimed to get more mid-century style homes built in neighborhoods across the country. The marketing master knew this stunt would draw more attention to his builds and further solidify him as a pioneer of Modernism. So here, less than 15 miles away from Orange County’s famous Fairhaven, Fairhills and Fairmeadow neighborhoods, tracts actually built by Eichler, was Fullerton’s slice of modernist heaven.
But none of the Forever Homes were on the market when we were buying. However, our little house was just two streets over. So my husband and I decided we’d buy there, and wait it out until one of the Forevers hit the market. But in the meantime we absolutely fell in love with ours.
It was fixer upper through and through, and Mark and I rolled up our sleeves to revive it. From remodeling the kitchen to creating a new laundry closet and pantry to landscaping the front and backyard with our own two hands, we became the triumphant weekend warriors for the first three years we lived there. I write about it at length in Atomic Ranch: Remodeled Marvels. We took a break from project life when our first child was born in 2020, but our to-do list beckoned with fun projects like a primary bath expansion, outdoor shower and soaking tub still on the horizon. But then life took an unexpected turn. My mother got diagnosed with two medical conditions that affected her strength and mobility. My dad passed away in 2018 and my two younger brothers had subsequently flown the coop, so she was already lamenting living in a big house all by herself. She was ready to retire—but she was remiss to sell the beloved family house that my father was so proud of. She asked if Mark and I might be interested in buying in. “Oh no,” I answered emphatically. “That house is too big for us too. Besides, we love this house and we’re not done with it.”
So forlornly, she began the process of getting the big house ready for sale. But then a year later in 2021, with the housing market going bonkers and the value of our little fixer upper reaching soaring heights, I found out I was pregnant with #2. My husband and I gave each other that knowing look, and after many nights of deliberation, decisions, rethinking our decisions then deciding again, it was undeniable: we needed the room for our growing brood, we stood to make a healthy profit and we had the opportunity to keep my dad’s beloved house in the family. Moreover, my mom could live with us. She’d help with the kids, and we’d help her with absolutely everything else. So with a mixture of heartbreak and hope, we sold our beloved MCM and bought my family home instead. And here’s the kicker: It is not MCM.
Enter Christian Musselman, House Portrait Illustrator
As I grappled with the existential crises that was being the editor of Atomic Ranch and living in a home that was decidedly no longer atomic nor a ranch, I was determined to do one more thing. Years ago, when I was visiting Denver, Colorado to connect with the Denver Modernism crew to learn more about the area’s fantastic modernist history and finally see the fabulous Mid Century neighborhoods myself, I had a chance to visit with artist Christian Musselman. He had been and still is a longtime advertiser and collaborator with us at Atomic Ranch, even designing a few exclusive prints for us in 2016. I’ve always adored his custom home portraits, and it was such fun getting to finally meet him in person. Our conversation was delightful, and just before we parted ways he offered, “Hey, if you ever want to see what the experience is like getting a home portrait done, let me know. I’d love to do one for you.”
My eyes lit up at the prospect, and it was so so kind of him to offer. But we had only been at the house a couple years—the front yard was still a jungle of mulch and weeds. We weren’t ready.
Now here I was a couple years later packing boxes while my newborn son napped, still in disbelief that we were actually leaving our little rancher. I knew we needed a memento of our special home of firsts. So I emailed Chris, a long lost hello and a question. Can I still take you up on that offer?
The offer still stood, and so our custom home portrait process began.
Chris is an illustrator who has worked for Mattel designing backgrounds for Barbie play sets (yes, now that I think of it her home, school and café toy kits always did have a mid century flair to them). He stumbled into home portraits a little by accident. “I had been experimenting with creating architectural renderings just for fun,” he says. “I illustrated the home of good friends in Santa Fe, NM. They own a classic mid-century home, and it inspired me to create an illustration for them as a gift. My venture into creating illustrations of mid-century home portraits started with that illustration.”
How it Worked
Chris gave me an assignment to take photos of my home—it was a very specific list of angles, distances and compositions so that he had all the details he needed to capture the true likeness of the home. “Don’t mind the overgrown shrubs in the front,” I mentioned when I emailed them to him. “And, ugh, we always wanted to paint that gate on the side of the house but ever got around to it.” “Don’t worry,” he chuckled, “people always feel nervous about the imperfections, but you’ll see.”
Within a couple short weeks, just as Mark and I bid thanks to our movers, and I collapsed on our couch amid a mountain of boxes and packing paper, Chris had the first draft ready, what he called a “block in.” At this stage, he explained, everything was still just working colors, they’d shift and become more accurate as the portrait moved on to the next stage. It didn’t have any landscaping elements or details like shadows or highlights. He just wanted to make sure the structure was correct. If anything was wrong with the proportions or configurations, we’d go through revisions until they were just right, then he’d add those particulars.
I opened the email with baited breath. Then I gasped at the first scroll of it, then instantly got weepy. “I loved this house so much. Yes, it’s so spot on,” I replied. “I can’t find anything that feels off. Gosh, I feel so lucky all over again.”
“Homes can do that to us, can’t they?” he responded. “So many memories created in our homes… I’m glad the illustration prompted an emotional response of your time spent in the home! Glad to hear you are happy with how the illustration is looking at this point…wait until you see the next round! ;)”
It only took a few days more till his second email came.
“I worked on your home portrait over the weekend…and I think it’s ready to show, to get your thoughts,” it read.
“I worked from the photo (below) that has the white chairs in place…I thought they made for a nice front porch feel. I took a few minor liberties, you can let me know if they are acceptable…like the decorative fence on the right side of the house (I thought that fencing was so cool and wanted to use it somewhere if possible).”
As if I wasn’t already so bowled over by the block in version, I was floored by this one. Mark and I stared at my phone screen in disbelief. Chris had captured our home so impeccably well, the spirit of it, the soul. Mark ran to get his laptop so that we could pore over the details. They were all delightful: The number of steps that led up to the porch deck (that my husband built himself). The size, shape and color of the shrubs and plants that I planted myself. Even the removable panel that my husband had to build into the wooden planter boxes in front of his office window to be able to access the hose bib and spigot! The cement pavers that my husband and I poured ourselves that bisected the lawn leading to the front walkway. It was all there.
“See anything you’d like altered?” Chris asked in the email. “The base title bar can be any color…I thought this was a nice fit, but it can be anything you’d like. Possibly you have a room you’ll be hanging this in and would like to work with that color instead.”
Chris is a man of detail, and he thinks of everything.
“When you have a size determined (go by paper width…I add a 3” paper border, so a 24” wide paper size would have an 18” image size), let me know.”
I wanted to print this as large as a mural, the only size befitting its space in my heart.
It was perfect. No notes. Just a whole lot of gratitude and joy. Thanks to Christian Musselman.
“Ha! It’s always great to get the first response,” Chris admitted. “I can tell how excited my clients are by the number of exclamation points after their responses. It gives me a good chuckle to know that I’ve made them so happy.”
“This has got to be so fun,” I said to him. “My favorite part of the process is working with the homeowners,” he admitted. “It’s a lot of fun for me to ‘meet’ the people who own the home. Their excitement is contagious. You can feel their love for their home—and their desire to record its image. It’s fun to learn what things are important to them…their pets, cars, specific flowers and trees…it’s all meaningful. I feel I get to know them personally. I certainly get to know their home exterior very well by the end of the process.”
“What’s something most people would be surprised to know about the process?” I asked him later, still basking in the glow of my beautiful home portrait.
“I think what might surprise them, prior to seeing the final artwork, is how exacting I am… sometimes to the point of counting bricks to get the correct scale of the home’s architecture,” he said. “It’s important to me that I create a great representation of their home. By the end of the process, when they see the level of detail in their home portrait, they are very happy with the final result.”
So there—I’ve admitted it at long last. I am not in a Mid Century Modern homeowner at the moment. I will be again someday. Right now, life is such that we get to enjoy having room to spread out and grow. I enjoy seeing my kids grow up with their grandma—I did too, and it was one of the most special parts of my childhood. I feel good knowing my mom has us to help with the heavy lifting, she can enjoy retirement being taken care of and not alone. Soon my kids will start school, and life will change again. I really look forward to the next phase when we do get to house hunt for the second MCM of our dreams. And I really, really treasure the special memento I have of our first home with the entire process of commissioning it bringing us as much joy as owning it.
For more on Christian Mussleman, visit his website. Read on for more about Fullerton Forever Homes. And of course, don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube for more Atomic Ranch articles, house tours, and ideas!
