Renovating a Pacific Northwest Treasure

A live-in renovation of this early Mid Century Modern home resulted in the perfect blend of period charm and functional updates for a young family.

When it comes to renovating a Mid Century Modern home, homeowners and designers take care in deciding what to update and what to restore. Design duo Sally Julien and Halie Venema of the interior design firm Modernous specialize in all things modern, working together to bring a harmony of style and function in every project.

painted ceiling beams brick fireplace, Brown Saltman teak and leather chairs, beige Womb chair in living room of renovated Edmonds WA home — The house’s beams were already painted, likely original to the home, Sally and Halie believe. They opted to repaint them instead of sandblasting due to the family living amid the renovation as well as concern over what may be under the paint. “We worked to unify the color from inside to outside, ensuring that the color of the beams worked with both the indoor and outdoor design,” Sally says. A Sonneman Lollipop lamp stands to the left of the couch. Sally and Halie had the Brown Saltman teak and leather chairs reupholstered in black to reflect the palette.

“I fell in love with mid-century design back in the early ’90s,” Sally says. “I spent the past 30 years learning about and loving the designs of the era. I find that the simplicity and clean lines make me feel calm in my own spaces, and I like to bring that feeling to my clients.”

view of kitchen to living room in Pacific Northwest treasure of a home — Functional updates in the kitchen included additional casual seating, especially for the homeowners’ youngest child. Other considerations involved maximizing the storage capacity in the space, as the original cabinetry did not allow for much. “Using the same amount of space, we were able to add a lot of functional storage by adding drawers for all the lower cabinets, ensuring that all the corners could be well-used,” Sally says. The lighting is a mix of old and new. “The sconce over the kitchen sink is an original lighting fixture; we replaced the matching ones with the white balls, much like the music room,” Sally says.

When the owners of this Edmonds, Washington, home, built in 1959, approached Sally and Halie, they wanted to find a way to create a functional design for their young, blended family without sacrificing the original elements that made their home special. They wanted to preserve the character and original features and needed some guidance on what should stay, what could go and how to get the comfort of today’s technology into the home without losing any of its period charm, Sally says. “This project was a renovation, but the goal was to feel more like a restoration.”

Living + Designing a Pacific Northwest Treasure

Because the family had to live in the house during the project, Sally and Halie had to be very careful and strategic when it came to orchestrating the renovation so as not to cause too much disruption to their lives. “We also had to be responsive to changing priorities as they came up—which happened a couple of times—since their family needed to be comfortable living there and sometimes what they thought would be most important was superseded by other things in reality.”

Inside the home, the designers started by changing out the old linoleum flooring in the music room and kitchen. “We recommended a terrazzo tile floor that would give a nod to the period of the house, brightening and lightening the rooms overall,” Sally explains. (Read more for MCM-friendly flooring choices here.) They also sourced both new and vintage furniture for the living room and music room to foster the MCM vibe the homeowners were hoping to achieve.

orange sliding cabinet fronts and round vent hood in Pacific Northwest home's renovated kitchen — While the cabinetry is all new, these orange sliding uppers are a nod to MCM design. “These were the perfect scale for the space, as they are on the back of the living room feature wall, which has a gap at the top,” Sally says. “They provide some extra storage while also giving a beautiful pop of orange.”

Next, they moved to the master bedroom, then the basement and ended with the small galley kitchen. The latter received a complete renovation, including the addition of a new window to bring in more natural light. “The client really trusted us on this, and the final product is almost exactly what we pitched to them,” Sally says. “I love that they weren’t afraid of the custom orange sliding cabinets that we had built for them and they went for the round vent hood.”

Balancing Act

The choices that need to be made to either renovate or restore existing elements are often the hardest aspects of redesigning mid-century homes. Thankfully, the homeowners collaborated with Sally and Halie in making it a priority to preserve key features of the original design and architecture in their Pacific Northwest treasure of a home. You can see this clearly in the living room and kitchen, where they retained the original paneled dividing wall. “It is such a ‘trend’ to have an open plan, and many homeowners would have wanted to tear that down,” Sally says. “We thought it would be a shame—and fortunately, so did they!”

dining room with kid-friendly MCM reproduction furnishings — In the dining room, Sally and Halie made minimal changes; they kept the original flooring and painted the beams to match the rest of the home. “We changed the lighting fixture in this room because what was there could only be classified as mid-century grandma,” Sally says. The furniture in the room is a mix of old and new, with the vintage teak buffet from the owners’ collection and a vintage table base they had powder-coated and commissioned a new tabletop. “The dining chairs are Modernize reproductions that will tolerate a growing toddler,” Sally says.

While they kept the wall and did not design an open concept for these two living spaces, Sally and Halie used certain elements to ensure the design felt light and bright. “By adding a window and opting for white paint, floors and countertops, the kitchen reflects a lot more light than it did, while not looking like a trendy, all-white kitchen,” Sally says.

Perfecting the Palette for the Pacific Northwest Treasure

One of the most recognizable aspects of Mid Century Modern design is the unique color palette. However, for those wanting to blend in a more updated iteration of this style, the challenge is to balance the bright and bold colors of the era with a more modern palette. Often a home’s palette is inspired by a key piece or feature and expanded outwards. In this case, it began with the exterior of the home. “Because the house is a specific type of Pacific Northwest brick, we were limited in what would work with the exterior and make it look intentional and modern,” Sally says. “That drove the color of the beams inside, as those penetrate the envelope and flow throughout.”

view of kitchen and terrazzo floors into dining room with George Nelson Bubble Lamp — The kitchen was completely renovated from the ground up, though the original beams were left in place but painted to match the rest of the home. “We added a new window for extra light and to create a view for the counter-height bar area we added,” Sally says.

Orange is one color that threads throughout the home, inspired by the husband’s desire to have an orange front door. When the wife expressed that she did not want to have too much orange in the home, they used other, more subtle accent colors throughout the home. “They all flow together without clashing, and we worked to include each tone in other places to create continuity: the gold in the living room, the green and blue in the bedroom, orange and other colors in the music room,” Sally says.