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MCM Beds and Baths: Chats with Della and Sarah

Do you ever wish you could just sit down and chat with an experienced friend about how to make the right choices for your mcm beds and baths? 

Well, that’s what Sarah Yearout, a realtor with Mid-Century Homes in Boise, and I do every week over on Instagram. 

I love trading stories and tips from my perspective as a mid-century architect with her and getting her tales from the realtor trenches. Our two areas of experience overlap and stand apart from each other in such fun ways! We each have unique insight into what people who love mid-century homes are looking for and are finding in the world right now.

And we’re just bubbling over with good advice to share! Sarah and I have weekly chats on Instagram about mid-century home updates and answer common (and less common) questions about how to make the most of your mid-century home. 

Today, you get to listen in on our best recent and not so recent chats about mid-century bedrooms and bathrooms. We touch on house history, quick fixes and fun finishes, so settle in with a sharp pencil or flex your fingers for some good notes app typing because we are about to give a lot of very good advice.

In Today’s Episode You’ll Hear:

  • Why Della encourages caution if you’re considering wallpaper in a bathroom. 
  • How Sarah made a barn door work in her mcm bedroom.
  • One of the best tile resources around for vintage mid-century lovers…as well as a few for you folks who lean more mod. 

Listen Now On 

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Mid-Century Bath Design Resources 

And you can always…

Read the Full Episode Transcript

Della Hansmann 

Do you ever wish you could just sit down and chat with an experienced friend about what the right choices would be for your home? Well, that’s what Sarah Yearout, realtor specializing in mid-century homes in Boise, and I do every week over on Instagram.

Della Hansmann 

I love trading stories and tips from my perspective as a mid-century architect with her and getting hers from the tails from the realtor trenches because our two areas of experience overlap and stand apart from each other in such fun ways. We each have unique insight into what people who love mid-century homes are looking for, and are finding in the world right now.

Della Hansmann 

And we’re just bubbling over with good advice to share. Sarah and I have weekly live or pre recorded chats on Instagram, about mid-century home updates answering common and less common questions about how to make the most of your mid-century home. 

So today, I’m sharing some of our best recent and not so recent chats that touch on what to do for your mid-century bedroom or bath, settle in with a sharp pencil or flex your fingers for some good notes app typing because we are about to give a lot of very good advice.

Della Hansmann 

Hey there, welcome back to mid mod remodel. This is a show about updating MCM homes helping you match a mid-century home to your modern life. I’m your host Della Hansmann architect and mid-century ranch enthusiast, you’re listening to Episode 1307.

Della Hansmann 

Now before we get started, I just have to ask, Are you registered for the August mid-century design clinic? At the mid-century owners’ suite clinic, I’m going to be running you through everything you need to know about how to update a great mid-century owner suite or build one from scratch.

Della Hansmann 

And if you don’t have or don’t want to separate it owner suite but you do have baths in mind, you should still check out this clinic because many of the same principles apply to any bathroom owner occupied or for general use. These mid-century design clinics are free to all my ready to remodel students. And if that’s you, you’re pre registered, you’ll get an invite email with all the details before it goes down.

Della Hansmann 

But if you’ve never attended a mid-century design clinic before, then you’re in for a treat, sign up quickly grab your ticket to the clinic before the end of this weekend in order to get the early bird price. I’ll see you there. 

Oh, and if you haven’t grabbed it yet, much of what Sarah and I are going to talk about does get covered in my free mid-century Bath Design Guide grab that at mid mod dash midwest.com/bath. Without further ado, here are Sarah and I talking about how to refresh a tired mid-century bathroom.

Sarah Yearout 

How to make an older bathroom field new again without a major remodel. Hi, I’m Sarah you’re out with Boise mid-century homes and I’m here with Della Hansmann from bed mod Midwest. And today we’re talking about little things that you can do to your bathroom to make it feel new without going into a full on remodel.

Sarah Yearout 

So I know this is probably a pretty good topic that everybody wants to talk to talk about.

Sarah Yearout 

Because what’s more fun than just changing a little thing and having a whole a whole new vibe in your bathroom.

Della Hansmann 

It’s so satisfying and some of these little change one thing for another project can a tide you over when you’re waiting to build up the budget or have free time or whatnot to do a big remodel or be sometimes they’re the logjam break that just gets you started and once you’ve made some small change that didn’t feel that hard, you suddenly feel motivated or inspired are competent to make more so either way whether it’s what you do so you don’t have to let more work or what you do so you get started. It’s a really fun way to begin.

Della Hansmann 

People have a lot of different feelings about mid-century bathrooms in this we’ve been talking for a couple of weeks where you land on this preservation to update spectrum is really going to determine how you feel about your bathroom. Also what state you’ve added in. Do you have a time capsule bathroom perfectly everything is the same color of peach or do you have a bathroom that someone upgraded in the 1990s and now you have to pull back as much as you can from that space.

Della Hansmann 

Either way, if you don’t love what you got right now you can make really big changes with a few small moves like paint. Paint the parts of the bathroom that can be painted the upper walls, anywhere there’s not tile you will be astonished by if you give it all a fresh coat of white go in a bold contrasting color. Match it to whatever color is going on with a tilework it can be transformative and since painting is so relatively easy to do, you could paint it a couple of different colors until you feel like you get it right you could go bold and dark. I would actually go white first and dark second. Yeah.

Sarah Yearout 

Start light

Della Hansmann 

Start light or wallpaper. Which these days there are some really great functional brands of stick on wallpaper that you don’t have to get into the craftsmanship of installing. Although do buyer beware. Watch out some brands are better than others for if they claimed to be Peel and Stick and removable. Not all of them are as removable as all that but you can have a lot of fun by really transforming the vibe of a room from vintage time capsule to, startling update, just with wallpaper and a few other things.

Della Hansmann 

What else is fun? What do you like to do if you were gonna walk through with someone and say you could turn up this bathroom? You just?

Sarah Yearout 

Yeah, you could, you know, you could change even like the little towel hooks, little if there’s hardware on the vanity, little things like that, you know, if the mirrors come off the wall, you can always redo something like that a few of us have been experimenting with actually peel and stick floor tile.

Sarah Yearout 

So we’ll, we’ll have to get back of how that goes. But that could be a relatively easy, maybe project.

Della Hansmann 

If it works, right, so you’ll be able to report on how it holds up.

Sarah Yearout 

For some fun DIY.

Della Hansmann 

That’s exciting. In general, that really gets to the spirit of if you want to make small or incremental changes to any part of your house, but particularly in a bathroom, replacing one thing with another have the exact same thing in the exact same spot is the easiest way to do it.

Della Hansmann 

So anybody I really believe anyone can take off the hardware from their vanity and replace it with other hardware. Do not need it. I mean, maybe you don’t even need tools, you can do it with finger tight. You need a screwdriver, but really just about anybody who’s willing to watch a couple of YouTube videos and who knows where the breaker in their houses can replace a sconce light with another sconce light are you going to have a handyman come in and do it you can get your friend who knows a little bit about electrical work to do it.

Della Hansmann 

So you can do sort of one to one replacements. Even to replace the toilet with a new toilet. That probably takes a plumber. It’s a DIY task if you really like Plumbing, I wouldn’t Well, that’s I wouldn’t but I did I actually did it with my dad on my own bathroom a couple of years ago. But I did it with an assistant. I did it with expert advice – bothered Howard.

Della Hansmann 

But anytime you’re doing that you’re not changing the layout you’re not getting a lot of drywall dust going you’re not you’re just basically doing the cost and labor of that particular product which is a really nice way to keep a project manageable and yet still affect some pretty big changes over time. So that one to one replacement. Start small. Grow it up to the level that you feel your frustration going away and you’ll end up happy with your bathroom.

Sarah Yearout 

What fun shaped tile can I use in my mid-century modern bathroom? Hi, I’m Sarah year out with Boise mid-century homes and I’m here with architect and mid-century modern expert Della Hansmann from Mid Mod Midwest. And today we’re talking about tile in your bathroom, which is another fun bathroom topic that we’re doing.

Della Hansmann 

We’re just doing a series of bathroom things at this point and really a series of style guide questions because this also comes back to where your house is and where you are. If you want to go perfectly preservationist time travel back or if you want to do something, upgrades without sterilizing your house are updates without sterilizing your house. So the possibilities are many. I’ve made a really helpful Instagram guide that collects a bunch of my favorite tile suppliers and organize them from most preservationist, up to most down to most updating.

Della Hansmann 

If you’re looking to go you wish you had a mid-century color block bathroom and you don’t, then basically you are looking to go with that four inch by four inch square tile with the white grout around it and whatever color makes your heart sing and you can actually get original mid-century tile from B&W Tile, which has been making that four by four color black tiles since the mid-century eras, family and business. They’re great.

Sarah Yearout 

Oh, that’s so cool.

Della Hansmann 

It’s really fun. So if you’re looking for I wanted to be authentic and original, you can get it. You can actually also still find lots of original never installed vintage tile floating around the internet and resale stores and things like that. But there’s a lot of possibilities. If you want to do something that’s a little more updated or go to the 60s or another era that feels more a little bit further forward on the spectrum and still works.

Della Hansmann 

The thing to avoid though, is just anything that reads as too much from the 1930s or from the cottage era because that’s the trendy style moment hop back from now. So that choice is going to make the house feel like this was done in the early 2020s. This remodel.

Della Hansmann 

Or it might even actually if you missed the mark, it might feel like it was done in the late 20 teens. So you want to avoid it’s really cute. I love this and bathrooms but it’s not for mid-century bathrooms you want to avoid the small hex tile on the floor and the subway tile arranged in a subway offset pattern on the walls. That’s a cottage detail that’s not going to read as well in a mid-century update. Other than that, though, you can still actually use subway style tiles you just need to arrange them in a grid pattern, not a brick offset pattern.

Della Hansmann 

And there are so many fun places you can get more interesting shapes to and go to. Like the mercury mosaics or the fireclay or the clay house of at all they have so many fun  interlocking tessellating shapes that are done in gorgeous colors. Do you have a favorite, you have a favorite tile company.

Sarah Yearout 

I love fireclay I, they make my heart sing. I mean just I’ve never thought that I could love like pinks and yellows and just the what they do is it’s amazing.

Della Hansmann 

They are crafts people. And it’s, it’s gorgeous. It’s so gorgeous. Yeah, fireclay is our winner. Um, there’s a couple of others that do nice. Not everything they do works in mid-century, but they have a bunch of things that do work for mid-century, like Pratt and Larson or Zia tile does the sort of Moroccan cement didn’t interesting patterns, the Zelda style can be really fun.

Della Hansmann 

And then if you want to go more into that, that’s where you start to go is the mid-century colors on a concrete painted tile, will give it that look that definitely has a clean, contemporary edge. But it feels like it’s a grownup version of mid-century, rather than you’re stepping out of the style period in some other direction.

Della Hansmann 

There are so many fun places to put tile in the bathroom, you don’t have to limit it to just the floor, right? Just around the tub, you know, around the whole wall, you can have an accent color. One thing I’m seeing that is definitely a modern trend but works perfectly well in a mid-century tile choice is to do in the shower surround to do a set in niche that’s finished in a contrasting color finish shape. That’s a lot of fun. And just an easy, simple detail that’s going to be long lasting and nothing that’s going to break off of the house.

Della Hansmann 

What else you can tell everything in the bathroom, you can tile right to the counter surface. And in fact, it’s actually a super classic mid-century style, not my favorite to have tile with grout lines in it on your counter, because you’ve got to constantly clean that grout but so hard. You can do it if that makes you happy.

Della Hansmann 

How many different kinds of tile could you fit into one bathroom? There’s no upper limit feel chaotic, but you can push it.

Sarah Yearout 

You can

Della Hansmann 

You find that needing to update or change out the tile is something that’s pretty common for people who are buying into mid-century houses in Boise.

Sarah Yearout 

Yeah, and you know, we do see a lot of laminate, excuse me, laminate flooring, which is almost easier to get out, you know, hopefully and then be able to tile or people tile over it, you know, that can make a bigger job a little bit smaller.

Sarah Yearout 

But yeah, I mean, it’s, we don’t often find that beautiful, like original tile work in the bathrooms anymore, I feel, you know, the 90s really did away with a lot of that.

Della Hansmann 

And a lot of builder basic houses didn’t necessarily have tile on the right.

Della Hansmann 

That would have been, it would have been a bit of a stretch detail. For the earliest of mid-century houses, they often would have laminate on the floor and tile on the walls. And I would say my favorite modern update of that is to do fun things with a tile on the walls. And instead of tile on the floor, which you’re most often barefoot in your bathroom. To do a think about putting heat under tile, if you’re going to have tile on your floor or a non cool softer surface. I like cork floors in the bathroom.

Sarah Yearout 

Yeah, that’s so fun.

Della Hansmann 

I would usually I don’t think I would ever pick a laminate floor for a contemporary bathroom update maybe marmoleum, but probably not. But I would definitely think about a cork as a contrast to a tile for the floor in a bathroom while still putting tile in other places.

Sarah Yearout 

What exactly is an owner suite to builder grade mid-century modern homes have them? Hi, I’m Sarah. You’re out from Boise mid-century homes and I’m here with architect and mid-century modern expert Della Hansmann. And today we are talking about owner suites and a little bit of their history.

Sarah Yearout 

So I was really interested when we were talking last month and you had mentioned about owner suites for one of something upcoming that you’re doing. Yeah. And I had not heard of it as an owner suite, you know, ensuite or primary bathroom, whatever. So I was like maybe we should dive into this and you know, see.

Della Hansmann 

Absolutely yeah, owner suite is what people often used to call it the master suite and then the has a bit of people who had phasing out that terminology, it’s got some vibe to it. And really, we’re talking about who the people that live in the house, the people that paid for the house, they get their own bathroom, basically, and sometimes more a walk in closet, although I am very anti walk in closet, I will get to that in a minute.

Della Hansmann 

This is definitely one of the biggest areas in every master plan we do. We’ve done a master plan without a kitchen, occasionally, but like more than nine times out of 10, our master plans involve a kitchen update. And they also almost always involve an owner suite of some sort, at least in the big scheme, at least in the big dream version we’re putting in where can we fit in an owner suite?

Della Hansmann 

Because most mid-century houses don’t come with those installed standard, especially the earlier they are the better. You were chatting before we started recording. And I see in Madison that you never see an owner suite in a house before sort of 1956 957 and then in the mid 60s, they come in more. What was the watershed moment you mentioned for Boise? I feel Yeah, I feel like 50s No 60s Yes, I feel like that’s kind of where we are too. I mean, there’s always going to be your one off but in general, right.

Della Hansmann 

And there’s a lot. There’s I mean, even in relatively grandiose houses, and even really high end finishes houses from the early and mid 50s You won’t see a bathroom attached to a primary bedroom, it just doesn’t happen. And certainly in a build a great house. Never in fact, there was usually just one bathroom for the whole house. It wasn’t even until 1955.

Della Hansmann 

When the 30 year amortized mortgage was introduced by I’m gonna blank on the act of Congress. But that’s when basically the amount you could borrow for a house was also raised. And so people started to be able to put more money into the initial build of the house rather than build a starter home and flush it out later. So that’s when you start getting a powder bath. That’s your step towards there’s a guest bathroom and there’s a family bathroom. And that’s when you start seeing two car garages. And that’s when you start seeing things separate from living rooms. And then shortly after that, the nicest houses around start to have their own ensuite owners bathroom owner suite setups.

Della Hansmann 

The earlier houses the only early mid or early 50s houses I’ve seen an owner’s bathroom in our houses that I happen to know we’re conditioned by doctors or their families to have those. And in both cases they had in both cases, actually, they had a family bathroom, and owner’s bathroom and a bathroom near the garage door near a consulting room where the doctor apparently either did or planned to see patients at home, which blows my mind. Anyway, that’s not the point of this call.

Sarah Yearout 

Wow.

Della Hansmann 

I’m working on one right now. And it’s just crazy to me, I’m like really go to your doctor’s house. And in their house, you meet them. You take off your clothes, and you just have a conversation with them what’s happening, but there’s an algorithm that seems to be where that person who comes to see the doctor. But yeah, other than that owner’s bathrooms didn’t exist.

Della Hansmann 

Here’s the thing, though, there. Depending on where you want to put your priorities, they’re pretty easy to add. You can always sacrifice a bedroom, and then maybe make a bedroom downstairs in the basement that’s more of a guest suite, you can always put in a tiny addition.

Della Hansmann 

And if you do, I like to say you push the bedroom out and you put it bathroom in the footprint of the old bedroom because then you can keep it stacked inside of the either the crawlspace or the slab or the basement. But it’s a very fixable problem for money timing, construction dust, but it’s usually very important to people you see this right when people are touring houses. They want an owner’s bathroom.

Sarah Yearout 

Yes, I you know, we’ve had a couple of houses that have come up in the past year that are really, really cool, but they don’t have the literal en suite. And there, you know, there’s been some feedback where it’s, it’s just not doable for people. And it’s not just families with kids, which would, you know, maybe make sense a little bit more, but it’s couples without kids. It’s there are just some people that need that ensuite, and you know, even if it’s right, like the door is next to the door, and you’re literally just walking out and walking into the bathroom next to your room. Like it’s got to be connected.

Della Hansmann 

That’s fascinating. I wonder where that comes from. I mean, I think maybe people upsizing from apartments are used to having more direct connection. Although, yeah, I live I live in a house that had one family bathroom on the main floor, I put in another three quarters bath in the basement. And to me, I live alone in the house. So that’s my bathroom, it’s as good as an owner suite. I could move a door and block it off from the rest of the house.

Della Hansmann 

That seems kind of crazy though because someone else might want to share it. Another thing actually you see before the on before the onset of on sweets. You’d see some Jack and Jill arrangements to which now people don’t love, we’re always remodeling the Jack and Jill out of Jack and Jill bathrooms.

Della Hansmann 

But that seemed to be a compromise where you could have like either multiple kids sharing a bathroom, or even a separate owners access to parents bedroom access to a bathroom that could maybe be closed off like a shower and powder, and then go in to brushing in it in a shared general sink area. So that’s interesting, too. But when people are frustrated with this, I feel like that’s a fixable problem.

Della Hansmann 

We were talking a couple of weeks ago about when you’re touring a house, what’s most important to you, and if you find the right location, and you find a sturdy in good shape house that doesn’t have your owner suite attached. Well, that’s what we’ll fix. That’s the next thing to tackle.

Sarah Yearout 

Right.

Della Hansmann 

And the other thing I definitely see is that those early mid-century owner suites that come in in the mid 60s are more modest than what you’d see today and so that, yeah, have a bathroom as like a luxurious spa like experience that was not if there is an owner suite, it’s like the main bathroom is two sinks and a tub and more floor space. And the owners bathroom is like a stand up shower and a single sink and yeah, toilet tucked into a weird niche.

Sarah Yearout 

It’s so true.

Della Hansmann 

But that’s sort of the trade off. Even if you if you get a house that comes from you find that like,

Sarah Yearout 

yeah, yeah. But I think that, you know, maybe that’s the deal breaker is just having that direct access, regardless of how modest it may be.

Della Hansmann 

interesting, fascinating. Well, people take these things very personally, and you have to figure out you know, what matters most to you. That’s the most important thing. And exactly work towards making that home.

Sarah Yearout 

Yeah

Sarah Yearout 

How to make my small mid-century bedroom feel bigger. Hi, I’m Sarah from Boise mid-century homes and I’m here with architect and mid-century modern specialist Della Hansmann from mid mod Midwest and today we’re talking about how to make your bedroom feel bigger. So I know that this is a favorite topic of yours. It is and where would you start with that?

Della Hansmann 

Well, I mean, it’s the reason it’s one of my favorite topics is that it comes up all the time with my clients and with my ready to remodel students because mid-century bedrooms are often quite small compared to what we want to do in them and fit into them today. beds were smaller than people I have encountered the actual two twin beds in the owners bedroom. Also full size beds were really common.

Della Hansmann 

Now people want to put in a king or a California king into a mid-century bedroom. And then they’re like what about the desk What about the bureau What about this bedroom set that I’m moving into for my last apartment and it’s a squeeze.

Della Hansmann 

So my best advice for fitting as much as you can into a mid-century bedroom is to build things in. I love I love mid-century vintage and you know the CB2 to the higher end metric sets but they take up so much space.

Della Hansmann 

So I think if you have a snug bedroom, you want to get things up off the floor, you want to think about wall mounted bedside tables, even just that little bit of space underneath will help they’re just a little bit shallower you want to think about perhaps instead of having a bed frame, a wall mounted headboard and a simpler smaller frame to just get a crucial inches back around the bed and you want to make the storage space that you have do maximum capacity.

Della Hansmann 

So I love to suggest that if you have a you have a little door closet, definitely you want to remove the doorframe you want to sort of open it up to the exact interior dimensions floor to ceiling side to side and if you’re lucky enough to have you know a sliding door closet same remove the frame remove the doors and put in built-ins. This is something that some mid-century houses have Do you see that in Boise I see it is like maybe 20% of mid-century houses in Madison come with built in wall stores instead of closets.

Sarah Yearout 

No we have it a lot in hallways like for linen closets, bathroom closets, but we do see it in bedrooms but not a lot. It’s definitely not as common but as the hallway.

Della Hansmann 

I think it was it was sort of the upgrade idea even at the time and when you think about it what is a closet it’s the easiest lowest hanging fruit and builder kind of put in you don’t have to get the cabinet guy to do it. You know any schmo could frame in a door but on door trim and then you need inside of it a rod and shelf that’s not the maximum amount of storage you can get and it’s not the easiest to get to.

Della Hansmann 

So I love to see that become a built in storage for two reasons. One, it’s more better storage you can get to all the pieces you can get more effectively and you can store things in smaller chunks drawers are my favorite thing to put in and to its beauty Before it’s a sculptural element in the room, that becomes a feature and makes the whole room prettier and dressier. Rather than just a simple door.

Della Hansmann 

And three, it can actually take up less space. That’s three reasons not to but swing of a door. Or when you’re trying to get it all your stuff. If you have the urge, I sometimes do to like chaotically, look at everything you have, and maybe get rid of some of it. When you have sliding closet doors, you can only look half of the closet once, but when you can open every door, and you can really see everything at once. So that’s good.

Sarah Yearout 

That’s true. We actually, for my kids closets, we took off the doors, and we just got the IKEA system. And the nice thing is they have those sliding baskets. So they’re so good for Legos, little things, stuffed animals, and then you know, just shelves in the middle for clothing rods on the side. And then was also toy storage. And it was amazing. And it’s funny because the woman who bought our house, older old school, and the first thing she did was put closet doors back.

Della Hansmann 

Well, and that’s fine. That gives the ability to do that. I yeah, I think also, if you don’t, if you want to just have more access to your storage space, the simplest thing you can do is pull off the closet doors and store them neatly the next owner to put back if they would like, Yes, it’s my favorite thing to do is build them in with the same sort of level of detail that you’re putting in.

Della Hansmann 

If you’re remodeling your kitchen at the same time, the same team does your bedroom built-ins that does your kitchen and you could do the same sort of wood stain grain or color block, etc. The other thing though, is you might choose to have a more open view like it particularly for kids, then you can see all of your stats. And that’s really nice.

Della Hansmann 

It doesn’t necessarily have to be closed away if that’s your personality question. So you start from what do I want? Do I want to be able to visualize everything I’ve got and be able to choose outfits every morning by eye? Or am I looking for a way to not see everything but have really easy access to all of when you’re looking at a really small bedroom. The more storage you can pull up off the floor the better and so looking for places to build in.

Della Hansmann 

If you don’t have room necessarily for highboy or wardrobe that can stand out, you want to think about like what if I hung shallow shelves or even shallow drawer unit underneath a window where it’s otherwise hard to furnish? That’s my secret answer for everything. Also for mid-century bathrooms cleaned up off the floor when it’s small.

Sarah Yearout 

I love that.

Sarah Yearout 

Help, my bathroom wallpaper is in really bad shape. How do I save it? Hi, I’m Sarah from Boise mid-century homes and I’m here with architect and mid-century modern expert Della Hansmann. And today we’re talking about what to do when you come across that really bad, bad shape wallpaper in your bathroom in your mid-century home. Yeah, which can be a scary thing.

Della Hansmann 

It can be and not to, well, to start with a horror story. One of the first renovation projects I took on my own was summer after freshman year of college, I moved back with my parents, and I was like I want to be independent. So I’m going to work on a project while I’m here. And I remodeled the upstairs bathroom. And I found the most horrific amount of black mold behind the wallpaper that had been you know, just in there our entire childhoods while we lived with them. I never really feel the same way about wallpaper in a bathroom again. But as we were chatting about before, there’s one case one type of bathroom where it’s maybe a really fun idea.

Sarah Yearout 

Yes, I personally always like to see it in powder rooms. Because you’re going to have less humidity, you’re always going to have a fan you know most of the time and the water is really on for a very short amount of time. So I feel like when it comes to bathrooms, that’s going to be your least humid and hopefully your least chance of finding black mold under a well under it.

Della Hansmann 

Yeah, so I guess my first caveat really is if you’ve got wallpaper in your bathroom or if you want to have wallpaper on your bathroom, make sure you have a bathroom fan in your bathroom which not all mid-century houses have. But they’re relatively easy to install or to have someone come and do it like a handyman project. You don’t need a full renovation to do that. It can be a tricky a sticky subject though because old original wallpaper can be quite challenging to remove.

Della Hansmann 

Honestly, I actually had a pretty easy time getting it off in that bathroom because the black balls had it started to eat the glue that was attached. The peeling the sticking the steaming, there’s a lot of horror stories out there about how hard it is to remove. Here’s the good news I have or the recommendation I have to make your life easier. If you’re moving into a house that has wallpaper on the walls anywhere really but particularly in the bathroom and you know you’re going to remove it eventually it’s on your to do list but it’s not on your right now list.

Della Hansmann 

What I would recommend is to paint over it temporarily, you’ll want a really good strong primer. But you can basically if it’s kind of pattern that’s just making your eyes cross or it’s totally contrary to the decor you want. But so many times in color block mid-century, bathrooms, the tile itself is charming, but it’s just being tuned wrong by whatever’s on the wall next to it. So you can really make a big difference, modernize or vintage eyes, a mid-century bathroom with that color.

Della Hansmann 

So the simplest thing you can do is just paint over it for now knowing you’re gonna come back again later. That’s because it might be a harder job, you might be able to remove the wallpaper from the wall. But you may end up doing so much damage to the wall or it might be so hard to remove when you’re doing it, it’s sometimes easier to simply just cut out the existing drywall or plaster where there’s wallpaper and replace it.

Della Hansmann 

If you get to that point, though, there’s a silver lining which is that gives you the opportunity to do some like in wall built-ins to find some fun vintage like soap holders and magazine holders and things like that and insert them into the wall. Yeah. Have you had you had some fun with pieces like that? I know you’ve had some fun doing like color block update bathroom projects.

Sarah Yearout 

Yeah, you know, we I’ve actually never come across wallpaper in the bathroom. And so that’s probably you know, a good thing. But, um, we’ve the only original built-ins that I often come across and bathrooms are the ones in the mirrors, the ones that do the spin around with a toothbrush holder. But that’s, you know, not in the world. But when you’re talking about the magazine holders, and that’s what it made me think of.

Della Hansmann 

And you can still if you keep your eye peeled and you’re an avid like Facebook marketplace Hunter, you can really find some of those original vintage bathroom detail pieces or think about a custom in wall side medicine cabinet. We always think of a medicine cabinet as having to be with a mirror and yes, sometimes it’s easier to have a flat wall, the wall installed mirror and then have a medicine cabinet with color block or a beautiful wood or some other finish that set into a sidewall which is a detail we often try in small bathrooms where we’re trying to get as much reflective surface as possible.

Sarah Yearout 

That’s true. I have seen some really cute actually built in little built in medicine cabinets, and they’re just flush with the wall and so perfect for hiding medicines and little things like that. And yeah

Della Hansmann 

also handy things you need. If you want to have hand sanitizer or extra towels or what have you and have them handy. It’s a nice thing to do to keep some of the clutter off of the counter surfaces. So I guess my advice about what to do if you move into a house and it has challenging wallpaper on the wall is first try to make the problem look like it’s gone away and then you know use your best efforts to steam strip unstick it from the wall, I should say in some cases modern, even modern, easy to remove wallpapers can be just as stubborn as the original kind.

Della Hansmann 

So wallpaper with care. It can be so much fun in such a great pattern pop and color pop but only do it if you really mean it. That’s my best wallpaper advice.

Sarah Yearout 

How can I update my plain mid-century modern bedroom to make it more fun? Hi, I’m Sarah Yearout with Boise mid-century homes and I’m here with architect and mid-century expert Della Hansmann from mid mod Midwest and today we are talking about how to make your plain bedroom more fun. Which is a topic that we both love talking about.

Della Hansmann 

Yeah, absolutely. So this is a fun one century bedroom is pretty simple, right? But sometimes they can be they can be one of those anchor points of how mid-century does the house feel whether they’ve been updated or not? I think your bedroom was updated when you got it right.

Sarah Yearout 

Yes, our bedroom had it was all white, you know, blank canvas but it had black barn doors covering the bathroom and the walk in closet. And that just wasn’t our vibe. So but we also didn’t want to start tearing out walls and you know, doing all that we’re adding a door when there wasn’t enough space to add a door and the pocket doors would be kind of a lot of work.

Sarah Yearout 

So we just painted everything dark green from ceiling all the hardware all the trim the baseboards. Everything is a dark and you can’t tell like it just yeah, it just blends in. You don’t notice. Now they’re actually very functional doors. They just I couldn’t stop staring at them originally. And you know we get the morning light in our room so it’s not Got to dark and then it’s dark in the evening when you want it to be when you’re going to bed. So it worked out. And it’s probably my favorite, my favorite kind of wild design choice that I’ve made.

Della Hansmann 

I love that. And it’s really good idea whenever you’ve got some feature in the house and this goes for like the electrical box outside or gutters and downspouts to certainly if there’s a choice, someone else made a non mid-century shape that’s in your house right in your bedroom that you look at from the bed, the best way to make it go away without actually tearing it out replacing it and going through all that trouble is to blend it by having it be the exact same color trait like a chameleon and let it just yeah, here into the background. I love that.

Della Hansmann 

And you know, when your woodwork is already painted, the best choice for that that is to have the woodwork be the exact same color as the wall. So again, it just sort of blends rather than doing that. The cute farmhouse white outline around everything that’s not for the mid-century of us. So that sounds like a really fun choice, then you can bring more wood tones and things back with your furniture. Yeah, that’s a fun place to haul.

Sarah Yearout 

Yeah, exactly. And just keep everything else simple.

Della Hansmann 

We were talking a couple of weeks ago about what to do in a small mid-century bedroom. And in that case, you probably don’t have room for a lot of furniture. But if you do have a few extra feet on one side of the bed, I love bringing in either vintage or modern reproduction, mid-century furniture to get the woodgrain back if you’ve lost it in the trim, to have those fun shapes and to bring in the metal colors that you really love as well. So that’s really satisfying. Do you have vintage or modern reproduction pieces in your bedroom.

Sarah Yearout 

We have reproduction. We actually have the CB two the platform beds that has the built in side tables. And they’re above the ground. So there’s, you know, it gives that more of an airy space. But I’ll never go back. I love that they have two shelves, one for a lamp and then one for like a little storage basket right underneath for your books and whatnot. And they’re just, yeah, it’s the best. And then I have an actual vintage dresser.

Della Hansmann 

Oh, nice. And they go nicely together because CBT really hit it with their with their stain and green colors. It feels very Oh yeah, have a piece with what you find. Originally, I have my grandparents’ bedroom set I love. It’s a little beat up from you know, 70 years of wear but it makes me smile when I think about it and has this really cute little pull together. Spin the legs that make me happy every morning.

Della Hansmann 

But I think yeah, bringing those decorative pieces in finding ways to bring in woodgrain bringing in the colors you love either on the walls or on the soft furnishings. It’s a really fun way to play with things and I love paint and fabric as ways to get really wild with your colors and then change your mind if you didn’t live here without exactly you committed to something that’s like an enamel baked on. Set of built ins or things like that. If you can do it with a paintbrush or just replace one fabric covering with another that’s so easy. You can change it seasonally.

Sarah Yearout 

Yeah no exactly. And yeah, light fixtures you know can be easy, easy fixes you know even pieces if you have your built in if you take your closet doors off and you have you know the shelving in there, you can add fun little trinkets and all that in there too.

Della Hansmann 

You can also use you know, your walls can be a display surfaces depending on your case, this is where you come back masterplan thinking, what is it that you and your partner desire? Are you looking for a serene space where almost nothing is visible? Or do you want to see your favorite objects around you, and then you tune your choices that way. I think if you’re looking for ways to make an interesting space, I’d have a relatively simple box with maybe a door and a window in it.

Della Hansmann 

You can think about what you’re doing with curtains can be a fun place. You know, you can do simple up down blinds for privacy, but you could also think about a traditional pinch pleat curtain and if you don’t want to invest in them for your entire living room, doing them in your favorite bedroom in your bedroom might be a worthwhile investing drill. It’s also some fun things you can do with you know running a valence over the window that extends and also has a light in it that can become something a little bit less harsh than that classic central ceiling light which doesn’t do a lot for space unless you’re like packing at night. I almost never lay the light switch at the door I’m always like,

Sarah Yearout 

oh never

Della Hansmann 

Nope. Yeah, side table and again, if you’re lucky enough to have room to think about a reading chair and a floor lamp or things like whatever you might like to rest your eyes on. Sometimes it might not even reading chair you sit in very much with the concept of you lay in bed and you look at anything I could read. That makes my life better.

Sarah Yearout 

Those are all very good points.

Della Hansmann 

Whew, that was a lot of good design advice. You can find Sarah and I continuing to chat about this stuff on Instagram every single week. Our chats are posted on my account, mid Midwest and on Boise mid-century homes, their account too, whether you live in Boise or not. They’re a great group of passionate mid mod enthusiast, so make sure to give them a follow.

Della Hansmann 

That’s all for now, folks, but I will see you again for next week’s episode with a surprising hot take on the best spot for a perfect owner suite. And then shortly after that, will be a live mid-century owners’ clinic. Don’t forget to sign up for your early bird ticket before the end of the weekend. Ciao for now.

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