About the (dog) House
This is a blog about our house and the fun we have in and with it. Who are we? Let us introduce ourselves; the masters of the house….
Barclay....Welsh, loves port and pipe, stoic, likes to eat paper, fond of Neutra and William Wurster
Jake.....frenetic, affectionate, worried about the state of the world, comforted by Eames and Saarinen relics
Our house is in Richmond, CA. It was built in 1943 when the Kaiser shipyards were in full production during WWII and they needed to build a lot of housing fast to bring in young families to work. As a result, our neighborhood is full of small mid-forties 2-bedroom, 1-bath houses like ours.
As near as we can tell, and after much research, our house style is probably best described as “Ranch Bungalow”; the 40’s being that transition period between the popular residential Bungalow style of the 20’s and 30’s and the newer style that would take over in the post-war years, the low-slung humble Ranch.
It was obvious this house had been remodeled over the years, inside and out, in incremental (and not always congruous) ways. This is our first house, and we really wanted to make it ours. We also wanted to be true to the house, it’s period, architecture, and style.
Luckily, we love mid-century design since we now have a mid-century house. We know that mid-century usually connotes design from the 50’s and 60’s (often favoring Tiki basement lounges, “Mel’s Diner” kitchens, or retro space age rooms from the Saarinen 60’s). We love those things, but wanted to be both more expansive and more eclectic as befits our own style.
So, we decided that mid-century, in our house, would mean anything from the 1930’s through the late 1960’s. We don’t want to be dogmatic about style, even mid-century style. So, while the major design theme for the house is generally mid-century, we add plenty of eclectic and oddball contemporary touches too. Ironic? Sure! Earnest, geeky, obsessive….even middle class? Sure; bring it on!
We did all the remodeling ourselves, from design through construction, with just a couple of exceptions where the job exceeded our admittedly amateur skill set (the bathroom shower, tiles, and kitchen counters). But other than those, we’ve taught ourselves a lot about electrical wiring, plumbing, what screws will stay in our strange gypsum walls, sump pump models, etc. etc. In short, the joys of home-ownership!
We’d be interested in advice for improvements, resources in the SF Bay Area, links to other great sites, etc. Go nuts and enjoy!
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