Atomic Ranch Renovation Guide 2024

Mid Century Modern homeowners are busy bees. We never stop working away at perfecting our homes. We ideate, then muse, then plan, then commit, then rethink, then resettle, then create a game plan, and then move on it. Work, work, work, and finally crawl to the finish line—broke and exhausted, but happy. And then we do it all over again. But it’s during those blissfully rewarding and inspired in-between-project moments that we get to bask in the glory of our ideas coming to life. This issue highlights those brave ones among us who have gone through this cycle again and again and have, dare we say, achieved perfection. There’s a unique and stunning 1957-built Alcoa house in the famed Hollin Hills neighborhood near Alexandria, Virginia, (we are the proud sponsors…

LIGHTING TILE WALLPAPER HARDWARE…

WHEN HOMEOWNERS RACHAEL AND ED EIBLE purchased this originally 1,700-square-foot home in the lovely South Gate neighborhood of Sarasota, Florida, it was the answer to a several-year search. They spent many years living in the home before embarking on a project to breathe new life into it. “Our goal was to create a home outside the status quo,” Ed says. Ed and Rachael own two separate home design and construction companies: Architura Space Planning & Design, where Ed is the co-founder and president and Rachael is project manager, and construction company ARC Development & Project Management, where Rachael is president. They utilized both of their companies to bring their vision to life to create the home of their dreams. Rethinking Retro Part of the post-World War II housing boom, the…

WALNUT, PHILIPPINE MAHOGANY. Luan (also spelled Lauan) or board and batten. Most of us would light up with glee to find original Mid Century Modern wood paneling in a home. And if you’re lucky enough to have this feature now, here’s how to care for and maintain it. Most mid-century era wood wall paneling is made from Luan, which is a general term for thin plywood sheets made from a variety of Shorea species of hardwood found in Southeast Asia—most commonly The Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. Philippine mahogany was the most popular and it was the Luan of choice for Joseph Eichler’s homes. Over time, the term “Luan” was used to reference any type of tropical hardwood. You might be surprised to know that this material is also often used…

Have you ever noticed a “combed” or “striated” accent wood panel in a Mid Century home and wondered what exactly creates the texture? It may look like wallpaper at first glance, but “Weldtex” is actually a decorative form of mid-century paneling developed by Donald Deskey in 1940. Produced throughout the mid-century, it was especially popular in the 1950s. Jeff Nichols, owner of Vintage Plywood Millworks and Eichler Siding, began recreating this unique plywood about 10 years ago in his Novato, California, workshop —the same way it was done in the 1950s. “It was almost always 3/8-inch-thick plywood with a pine face,” Jeff saya. Split into three sections (1/8-inch back, 1/8-inch center core and 1/8-inch face), the striations are milled onto the top face layer to create a decorative appearance in…

THERE ARE A LOT OF MOTIVATIONS for keeping the overall footprint of a house intact: preservation, budget and ease, to name a few. When the design and build team at Fort Collins, Colorado-based Forge & Bow Dwellings took on this 1957 ranch project in Midtown, it was about working within the existing space and it was also about efficiency. “The homeowners raised their now-adult children in the home. They love the area and now that life has slowed down a bit they are ready to transform their home for their second phase of life,” says Annie Obermann, co-principal and co-founder of Forge & Bow. “[The house had] won the hearts of the homeowners; however, it needed to better accommodate just the two of them.” For this project, that meant trading…