By the way … feel free to use this episode as a Mid-Century Holiday Gift Guide for the Mid Mod obsessive in your life. Or to gift yourself some of this goodness!
First … some AMAZING news!
You can now jump into Ready to Remodel whenever you are … ready.
Start by watching the now-on-demand free Master Planning Masterclass: How to Plan a Mid-Century Remodel to fit your life and budget.” If you join Ready to Remodel by the end of Cyber Monday there’s two FREE bonus 1:1 design calls with Della in it with you.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Why Buy from Mid-Century Small Business?
Buying from small businesses is about more than just making yourself feel good about yourself to support small businesses, to keep jobs and dollars local.
It’s straight up fun, but it also comes with the real benefit of building your community of design resources.
So while you’re hunting for great reproductions from modern craftsmen who care or amazing vintage pieces that come with a story, the support you get out of those purchases is becoming a greater part of the community of mid-century obsessives.
Check out some of my favorite Mid Mod Small Businesses to seek out great pieces for your MCM home update! Listen to the episode to hear me sing their praises … or just click through to their charming websites and see what’s on offer!
Modbox Mailboxes
Modern House Numbers
Hip Haven
Hip Haven Lights, Planters and More
Atomic Foundry
Atomic Foundry Doorbells and Hooks
Make it Mid-Century
Door Kits, Garage Kits, Laminate Counters, Tile and More
History Never Repeats
High drama starburst doors (and kits)
TruTone
TruTone Vintage C9 and C7 String lights
VINTAGE SHOPS NEAR YOU!!!
There are too many of these to call them all out but here are a few of my particular friends (more local to the Mid Mod Midwest).
Rewind Decor, 1336 Williamson St, Madison, WI 53703
Mid Mod Men, 2401 University Avenue West, St. Paul, MN 55114
Mid-Century Meow, 2479 S Howell Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53207
LISTEN NOW ON
Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher
RESOURCES TO Support Mid-Century Small Business
- Just see that list above, huh?
AND YOU CAN ALWAYS…
- Join us in the Facebook Community for Mid Mod Remodel
- Find me on Instagram:@midmodmidwest
- Find the podcast on Instagram: @midmodremodelpodcast
READ THE FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Here it is, the Mid Mod Midwest mid-century small business holiday guide.
Before I get started, shopping small isn’t just a feel good exercise. It’s a way to build the network of people you know who care about mid-century design as much as you do.
Why not use this holiday season to add a little MCM shine to your home and get to know a few more people? You can add to your list of Instagram DM options for those. “How can I…, where can I…, should I really…, what’s the best…,” and other home improvement questions that us mid modern modelers are always asking ourselves and our friends?
Hey there. Welcome back to Mid Mod Remodel. This is the show about updating MCM Homes, helping you match a mid-century home to your modern life.
I’m your host, Della Hansman architect and mid-century Ranch enthusiast. You’re listening to season 10, episode seven.
So happy Thanksgiving. To those who celebrate and bonus points to anyone who’s listening in to the podcast while they prep delicious food for themselves and or their family or using, listening to this as a little decompression time for too much boisterous family energy.
I may also be slipping away from a group today to listen to a few of my own favorite podcast episodes because it’s an emotionally compressing time of year, even when you’ve got a great family like I do.
Or maybe you’re listening in on Friday as things simmer down, or at any time in the future you can support great small businesses any day of the year, just so you know. All right .
This episode is all about sharing the holiday love with a mid-century small business near you, or you know, easily accessible on the internet. I’m really excited to shout out a few of my favorite mid-century sources for remodeling at home and brushing up the inside and outside of your house.
But first, I’m so excited I can’t wait to spill.
I have some huge news for anyone who’s planning to remodel in 2023.
You don’t have to wait for my schedule to free up to kickstart your remodel anymore because the ready to remodel program that I created to support homeowners just like you who want to plan a perfect DIY design for your mid-century masterpiece, you know, one that fits your life and makes the most of your house just got even better.
It’s now ready whenever you are.
You can decide that today is the time to kick off your remodel plans and get all the support you need to make it go well.
You can jump right into ready to remodel any day of the year, go at your own pace through our lessons and design exercises. They’ll be there for you to tackle. Our Facebook community will be there for you to share your successes and ask for my and your fellow homeowners advice at need, and you’ll have access to monthly office hours calls with an architect, this architect every first Monday of the month forever for as long as you need them.
And in the spirit of the holidays that start tomorrow, you know, black Friday Shop, small Saturday, cyber Monday, et cetera . I’ve got something special just for you when you commit to putting the wheels in motion for your 2023 remodeling plans right now and jump into ready to remodel by the end of Monday, November 28th.
I will give you a special bonus I have never offered to anyone before to celebrate the ever available ready to remodel program.
Get two free bonus calls with me, one to one to focus and supercharge a remodel.
Schedule the first call right away. Tell me your plans and a little about your house, and we will focus to direct what the great remodel roadmap is for you, the most valuable parts of the ready to remodel program for you. You can do this right away in December if you get super excited or don’t be in rush, just schedule it for January. If you wanna get through the holiday season first.
Then save your second call for me for the time of your choosing. Schedule it when you need it, when you’ve got a remodel crisis, I needed answers from an architect asap. Schedule your second call and I will get them for you.
All right , more on this later a lot, but obviously I’m super excited about it and I want you to be just as excited too .
The resource of the week is that my super helpful free masterclass, “how to plan a mid-century remodel to fit Your Life and Budget” is now also available for you on your own schedule.
I’ve recorded it for your easy viewing pleasure, so go check that out at midmod-midwest.com/masterclass .
As always, you’ll find the show notes with links to the small businesses I’m about to shout out and a transcript of the whole episode at my website@midmod-midwest.com/1007 .
So here come the holidays, the time of togetherness, the time of being over-scheduled, the time of spending. There are pros and cons.
If you want to use this episode as a gift guide for the mid model ever in your life or a buy guide later for yourself, that’s fine. I want this episode to last for you, past Small Business Saturday, and any sales associated with it because basically what I’m talking to you about today is how to think about using the buying power that you’re about to unleash in your remodel process to get yourself elements of your home you can really love.
Now , this is all tied up together with messages and philosophies I’ve shared before.
Things like the idea that you should keep your house, your home improvement plans small and snug as possible.
Nothing in your home should be really less than you need, but it doesn’t have to be a lot more square footage. Spend instead on style.
There’s such a satisfaction to the physical objects associated with your model , having stories tied up to them, being able to tell someone or just think for yourself. I know exactly where that came from and why I know who made it and what drove them to wanna create things just like that.
For those of you in the middle of your purchasing and finishing process, do the best you can.
But if you’re in the early stages of your remodel, you’re still dreaming about what your home improvement project will be when it comes together.
This is a true benefit of a master plan. It gives you the time and the foresight, the future casting to really spread out your hunt for these parts of your home update. It gives you the time to go hunting to track down cool mid-century reproduction shops like Hip Haven , or to be on the hunt regularly enough at your local Restore or Antiques Mall to be on hand.
When that amazing piece shows up, the one time it gets dropped off by a person who didn’t have the appreciation for how cool it was in its original home, this is where your master plan helps to turn the brights on while you’re driving through your your remodel or becomes a guidebook more than just a roadmap for your remodeling journey.
Uh , shout out to everyone who’s traveling to the holiday family gatherings. You’re welcome for these road trip metaphors.
One more thing before I get started. You might notice that a lot of the objects of the sources I’m about to recommend here are both great products that I love and our relatively independent of the bigger design remodeling decisions you’ll make in a house. I’m gonna talk to you about mailboxes.
A cute mailbox can go on your house right now, so can house numbers and a planter and lights. Then even if you remodel in the future three years down the line, you have completely reconfigured and reoriented your front entry. You can still use those house numbers, that mailbox, that planter in different configurations. They’re still great design and great quality and even if you move them one spot to another, they still work. They’re not wasted.
You can choose them right now. You can add them to your house before you’ve done anything else. They’re a great level one project for people who are longtime listeners to the pro , to the podcast, but they’re also the sort of thing that you can keep and repurpose as you go forward.
All right , the first couple of suppliers I’m gonna mention here are a bit of a front door dust off set . This pairs really well by the way, with my curb appeal checklist, which you can grab@midmamidwest.com slash front door .
Number one mod box mailbox . I just love these folks.
To anyone who’s struggling with how to personalize your home, I always recommend you paint your front door your favorite color, unless it is gorgeous and unfinished and never been painted, in which case let it shine in its original wood stained glory. But if you’re gonna paint your front door your favorite color, you can still have a panic attack thinking, all right , my favorite color is teal, but which shade? There are so many possibilities.
Here’s the thing, it doesn’t have to be that hard. Focus it down by just going to mod box mailbox and looking at their 12 super cute mid-century appropriate powder coated colors and pick the one you like best, then take it to the paint store and have them match your front door to that exact color, or it doesn’t have to match.
My sister’s house has three different colors on the mailbox and around the front door. She matched her front door to a mural on a wall, you can see from the sidewalk, um , in her front room and her mailbox has a door handle and a casing, and each of those are different elements. Something you can get from Mod box mailbox so you can be super clean and consistent and just have one thing that unifies your whole front house or you can go crazy with a bunch of fun different mid-century contrasting and coordinating colors.
Help me out with a theory I have. If you have not seen a mod box mailbox on a house in your area, get one and put it on your house. Then sit back and wait and see if five different houses on your block or the dog walk circle in your area, don’t show up with them in the next year. That’s what happened in my area.
Just saying, you could be a real trendsetter here.
Um , by the way, they also just launched uh , a line of vinyl like record holders and display devices in the same powder coded colors. They are super cute and another great holiday gift concept. Um, I believe they will be having a 10% off sale starting Thanksgiving and running through Cyber Monday. The code is thanks 10. So check out their website.
Next up on your list of how to update your front door area easily. With a fun mid-century businesses, modern house numbers, they are doing a small business Saturday promotion with free shipping. So get on that and you can give your household the gift of bigger, brighter, shinier numbers so that your friends, your family, the Amazon or pizza delivery person can all find your house with great ease.
These come in fun powder coated colors. They’re easy to install. My default is their bronze. But uh , you really wanna think about contrast when you are choosing house numbers for your house. You want to think about what is the background material though . Be against your siding a fence brick and choose something that is high contrast from that.
By the way, they’re standard house numbers also come standing off from the surface they’re mounted on, so that gives ’em a little shadow relief. If you throw a flood light up against them, you get more definition on them carrying on with adding things in front your front door.
You’ll wanna check out the fun you can have with colored bullet planters or with great bow tie lights , both of which I like to source from Hip haven . They’re having a sight white sale from Friday to Monday, 10 to 20% off, so check it out. Such cute colors, such great shapes.
Check out Atomic Foundry, cute plats to put around your existing mid-century doorbell, and they’re also having a Black Friday promotion right now, November 24th through 27th. Promo code Atomic 22. So check that out. Then there’s the door itself.
Make mid-century is my favorite resource for front door kits. I love this. She came into the design business the same way I did through design school and then separated el from traditional architecture for some of the same reasons that I did. We’ve gone in slightly different directions, but both of us are all about giving better access to design details for mid-century homeowners.
So this is where you can really get scrappy and crafty and personalize your house. The kits you can get from make it mid-century to customize your front door and cut in odd fun shaped lights or add interesting diamond or diagonal or slashing patterns to your door or your garage door are absolutely delightful.
They also, by the way, just have a really cute set of mid-century picture frames if you want , looking for more of like a gift item. This is such a pleasant way to be cost effective and also to take ownership of some of your house so you can get like a simple slab front door for much less cost and then modify it. Or you can find a refurbished one from your local restore and then modify it to have the jazzy lights that otherwise if you had that custom built in a new door would be really, they’re quite expensive these days.
Or if you’re looking for a really high drama front door to die for, check out history, never repeats their starburst door kits. Or they will also make an create an entire Starburst style door ready for you to install or have installed are stunning. Go to my website and click on the link or go follow them on Instagram immediately. History never repeats is such eye candy, you cannot miss it. So for the cute vintage style, mid-century go to make it mid-century and for high design drama history never repeats, you’re gonna win with your front door.
Speaking of front of house for holiday lights, I really want you to check out true tone bulbs. I’ve been a huge fan of theirs for the last couple of years because their marketing as well as their product is vintage delight. This year I finally ordered my five custom colors of light bulbs and I am, I’ve never been more excited to decorate for Christmas. This will be happening after this episode launches cause I’m part of a family that strictly does not decorate for Christmas until after the holidays, after the Thanksgiving holiday is done one holiday at a time, but I’ve been tapping my toes to get out there and put up Christmas lights outside my house, pictures forthcoming.
If you already have Tru Tone bulbs, shout out to me on Instagram. I’d love to hear about them.
Okay, so that’s a bunch of great craftspeople who make beautiful, wonderful mid-century things that you should and can love.
The other thing you can look for is finding great vintage items to fill up your house with. Not new stuff, but like history, real weighty. Someone else’s life has been touched by this and now it’s coming to yours objects. And for that you can go to, um, estate sales, you can go to Goodwill, you can hunt around on Facebook marketplace.
But it’s also, if we’re coming back to that thing I was saying at the beginning, buying the right things from the right people expands your community of good design resources.
This is where you turn to your vintage shops. Vintage shops are such a wonderful place to find curated mid-century objects found by someone who knows and cares and loves those objects, who knows the providence, who can tell you the story of where this thing came from so that you can keep that story for yourself and share it with your guests. I can’t possibly begin to, uh, list every great mid-century vintage shop that exists in America and beyond. I’ll just chat out a couple of my favorite Midwestern friends, uh , here in Madison.
Rewind, decor is a delight. They have some amazing beautiful classic pieces. And then all of this kitchy, um, throwback to our childhood fun of, uh , sort of plastic bold color designs of the seventies, eighties, and even the nineties. They have some amazing quality stuff and some delightful kit . It’s a fun trip inside the store every single time. Do not sleep on your chance to go check them out.
I just recently connected with a wonderful vintage shop in Minneapolis, Mid Mod Men . I have only been inside their physical store once, but their Instagram account is also a delight. It’s a total glorious collection of classic mid-century, a lot of beautiful Danish furniture and glass and art pieces and a few objects that are being newly created that really work with the mid-century style. They are such nice folks and I actually just had a pack of my business card shipped there because again, they get a lot of questions from people who are buying furniture for their mid-century homes who are looking for advice about how they can adjust their house or on the furniture. And these are wonderful places to look. Chatting with the people who work inside a shop that specializes in mid-century objects. Those people are gonna care about mid-century design in the same.
Over Milwaukee way. There’s the delightful mid-century meow, and she does a lovely line in holiday things. I always drool over her amazing evergreen Christmas tree displays. If you’re looking for one of these, I check with her and we got a chance to meet up this summer while we were at the right and like tour and had such a great meeting of the minds.
This is the great thing about buying from small businesses is you really, again, I can’t emphasize this enough, this is more than just making yourself feel good about yourself to support small businesses, to keep jobs and dollars local. It’s straight up fun, but it also comes with the real benefit of building your community of design resources. So while you’re hunting for great reproductions from modern craftsmen who care or amazing vintage pieces that come with a story, the support you get out of those purchases is becoming a greater part of the community of mid-century obsessives. Before you go looking for the best of not great options, uh , at a big box store or an online clearing house, know that yes, you can. It can be done.
You can sometimes find things that will work that won’t hurt your mid-century house in the mass manufactured world. Sometimes that’s even the right choice, but the benefits of shopping mall should always make that your first option. That’s the end of my little rant and pep talk.
Send this episode to someone you want to buy you a mid-century present or save it for your personal splurge list in the future.
If you’d like to give yourself the gift of great design a plan so that you will be buying just what you want and that you’ve got a long-term vision for what you’re gonna do. I’ll point you back to the top of the episode.
I want you to jump into ready to remodel with me right now.
Look, I know you’re busy with the holidays. Work is adding up. You’ve got all these family obligations.
This is all the more reason to prioritize yourself, so jump in to get all the resources and the two bonus calls with me and then go at your own pace. Be totally set to dive in on 2023 plans coming together for your home.
Get started with that now by checking out my free masterclass. How to plan a Mid-Century remodel to fit Your Life and budget@midmodmidwest.com slash match class .
Watch it anytime or listen as you continue to prep your holiday food right now. If that’s where you are, find it and quick links to all the small businesses I just shouted out at midmod-midwest.com /1007 .
Next week on the podcast, we’re gonna be talking about what a gift to yourself it is to take the time for design. This is an old bit of goody topic, a fresh chance for me to sing you the song I love to sing, that there is money to be saved and joy to be found in just thinking about how to shift things around in your home rather than to reapply new services to them .
For right now though, focus on having the best possible holiday weekend. I hope everything is going just as you wished it would catch you next week, friends.