Sad "renovation" of a lovely mid-century home

[Lynners]

They both used to work in advertising, but now blog full time.

[shazapple]

They took all the "before" photos in the middle of the night and tried to make it look as dark and depressing as possible.However, all the "after" photos are taken at just the right time of day, with properly placed lamps, and where the most natural light is entering the windows.I think if they took equivalent photos, we would find that the original details had much more potential than it seems.

The opposite usually happens for me. I take the before photos during the day, and then after late at night (which is usually when I am finished)

[mross_pitt]

They both used to work in advertising, but now blog full time.

I see. So the house was "flawsome", but would now feature "artisan styling".

[melissakd]

I liked the divider (in a midcentury mod way). Maybe it would have been inconvenient where it was, but they could have used it elsewhere. How much white shelving did they invest in?

Dunno. Maybe it's being religious AND poor that makes me allergic to fixing things that aren't broken. It sets me off when people use the word "need" (a favorite on HGTV). And DO NOT brag to me about how cheaply you renovated something that was fine. Leaving the heck alone is free. Newness does not make something better.

I also wince when people do things like paint the brick that can't be unpainted.

Maybe most of all I hate that people don't know what their houses were meant to look like, and I am absolutely convinced that if they did know, they would like it, but they don't, so they destroy it.

All of that said, or perhaps I ought to say ranted, they can do whatever. Beyond my personal gut reaction, which doesn't really make any difference outside my own head, I'm sad that there are people who would have LOVED the things they disliked.

[Lauren674]

I do like their blogging. They did a great wedding at home inexpensively. I like what they did to the kitchen and laundry room as well. Lots and lots of energy, makes me realize how old I've gotten as there was a time when I had that much. This young couple sold that house and made a good price by making it what the majority of people want to buy. True I'd be weeping if it was an older house, but in my defense, there are entire neighborhoods of those houses around here from the 50's so plenty of knotty pine and plastic tile remain to be saved.

Most people don't care about the original features of a house like we do. Even my construction/contractor friends only care about ease of installation. I've been told over and over to "just tear it out and get new" with regards to restoring original. To have them recreate my hex tile floor I had to buy it, lay it out, place the black daises and number each segment, and then hope that their innate talent of doing things well for decades would assist them...because it wouldn't be from experience in installing hex or subway tile.

Interestingly, the downturn in the real estate market has pretty much stalled all the 'flip' activity that was destroying so many of the old features.

[kbaird4939]

While I'm not a frequent or avid reader of the blog, I do check in once in a while because I like some of their ideas. I wanted to clarify some things though:

The kitchen in that house wasn't original. The PO's had done extensive remodeling on it in the early '80s, completely reconfiguring the house, adding on, and changing the kitchen. I can't remember for sure, but I don't believe the fireplace was original. The living room, with the beams, was also added at that time, as was the master bedroom and bathroom.

Soo, while maybe some old house afficionados would prefer it brought back to it's new-built look, the current owners didn't destroy as much as previously thought.

[mross_pitt]

The kitchen in that house wasn't original.

From the link....sounds original to me.

This before shot of our kitchen reveals the 50-year-old knotty pine cabinets

The living room fireplace is surely original as well.

I think the general consensus is that they could have worked with more of the orignal details and produced a great end product instead of photography trickery making their "flip this house" work look more impressive than it actually was.

[kbaird4939]

The kitchen in that house wasn't original.

From the link....sounds original to me.

This before shot of our kitchen reveals the 50-year-old knotty pine cabinets

The living room fireplace is surely original as well.

I think the general consensus is that they could have worked with more of the orignal details and produced a great end product instead of photography trickery making their "flip this house" work look more impressive than it actually was.

Oops--I totally apologize. I thought you all were talking about the blog's current house, not their first house (I didn't check the link). So sorry.

[eclecticcottage]

I don't know which house I looked at on their blog...I was more interested in figuring out how the heck they get so many views compared to my pitiful little blog, lol.

However, the kitchen I looked at definately didn't have the same cabinets, which IMO was a huge loss. Plus if it was all about pinching pennies, painting and putting on new doors is much more inexpensive than gutting it. I also thought painting the brick on the fireplace was useless, as it now blends completely into the wall and lost all it's focal point/character. If you HAD to paint it, it should have been a contrasting color (a quick look at their other projects suggests a soft chocolate brown would have fit their style).

The Cottage is MCM, in a way so I do have a soft spot for that era. I would have worked with more features than they did, but sadly, it's thier (was?) house.

As to the knotty pine...check our blog. We have lots and I love it! We also have a wood toilet seat I will admit to white washing some of the pine, but only because we felt we had no choice. We had to rip out the floors (see the last post for more info and pics), which meant removing two closets, which left us with most of a wall that had no original pine paneling. I *THINK* we found someone via CL that is renoing and removing a room full of it this weekend, so we may finally have enough to finish (YAY)-but the chances of the amount of fade and stain color matching is really slim-so we white washed so you couldn't easily decern what was original and what wasn't. OTHERWISE we would have kept it. We put a lot of it into the Old House (our 1920's nightmare-don't worry, we didn't remove anything 1920's, the POs had done that for us in the 70's then neglect made even the orange cabbage roses pining for replacement).

[eclecticcottage]

Ok, I was looking at their first house. I also liked the dining room before much better than after, but it wasn't much that couldn't be changed if someone wanted to.

Looking at the second one...WTH is with the trend of BRIGHT front doors?! OMG. And that kitchen is worse that the first house. But I can lol at them removing the FP insert. I wonder where they are located? Brrrr

It looks to me like they are trying to reno and resell, reno and resell to make a profit each time. It looks like a HGTV or magazine house that people buy, move into, then realize the fluff is unsustainable and change it to functional. Like the kitchen-a lot of people like the LOOK of open shelving or glass doors but then want cabinets with solid doors back after a bit once they realize you have to keep everything very neat and tidy that way!