Owners of mid century houses, tell me about your lovely original features!

[SeventiesFlair]

Hi all,
We moved into our seventies home a couple of years ago and am slowly getting round to renovating. I love our house - good room sizes, big windows, lots of light - however it hasn’t retained many original features and I’d love to incorporate / reinstate some nice period features into the reno. I’m thinking parquet / tile flooring, exposed brick walls, in-built room dividers…. What original features do you love about your mid century home? Bonus point if pic attached!

@Whatevergetsyouthroughthenight was the wooden ceiling panelling natural wood? I’m considering stripping the paint off mine but worried it will look dark

@Upsizer i also love mid century furniture - need to bring in a few spider plants too methinks!

It was an orangey varnished pine.

Our family home was built in 1970 and was brought from new. There are still some original features. We've kept the garage door - the only house in the street to have done so. Some of the rooms still have the original light switches (see pic) and all of the upstairs doors are the original and I like the patterned glass above the door (see pic). The layout has not changed including the toilet being in a separate room next to the bathroom. The only downside is that it is attached.

https://coloureddiscontinuedbathrooms.co.uk/

I have lived in a couple of mid-century properties.

The enamel bath with the hot water pipes going underneath it which meant the bath and bathroom was always warm.

Storage cupboards as big as rooms.

Crittall windows. Huge windows. Long windows.

Uh, those are the original features the OP meant…? What did you think she was talking about — Georgian cornicing?

Mine is 1954 and has very few of the nicer features left. We have the asbestos ceiling artex ( 🤦‍♀️) and under our kitchen tiles we have the red/white old kitchen tiles, not sure what they are made of but the super thin ones.

in lockdown we discovered a parquet floor under our hall and what is now our dining room but it’s not in excellent condition, however it has been sanded and refinished and it will do us a few years until we decide what to do with it. We have an original stained glass, it’s bloody huge and again in quite poor condition, quotes of 2k + just to encapsulate it in a unit to have it double glazed. And our original front door hangs in our hallway as an internal door now, which is a lovely feature too.

i have lots of mid century ish furniture and the big windows and spacious rooms certainly lend themselves to the big, low slung style of mid century, even though ours is technically arts and crafts not MC.

There's only really the artex ceilings in my place, which we've kept for now but the one in the hall is all cracked and will need to come down eventually.

With regards to furniture I bought a lot of beautiful mid century pieces from Vinterior. I also have some contemporary Ercol furniture. John Lewis and Habitat are also good for mid-century inspired contemporary stuff.

It's a weird era to furnish/ decorate, I oscillate between wanting it to look like a Danish 1960s architect's house and wanting to go full blown Abigails Party.

Ha! I’ve spent most of my life in a 1960 - 1970 s bungalow ( including seven years in the French equivalent, though that had a basement/ series of cellars.) The first was built by my d parents , good size rooms, parquet floors, big windows, huge garden.

I moved out and into a vast selection of houses including sixteenth century small fortified manoir( France), probably medieval in bits barn conversion, new build town house ( grim), 1930 s bay front. Meanwhile DPs came to rest after retirement in another 1970 s bungalow, which we inherited and promptly moved into, though we did have a loft conversion. Eventually left that and bought….another 1960 s bungalow with a loft conversion.

So I don’t really think of them as period, because I ve always had at least one in my life. The constants are decent ceiling height, good room size, good windows, the rest I’ve always seen as a blank canvas, and done them as I chose at the time.

I do like the cornices, though. Painted in a contrasting colour, they finish a room .

I've got a 1960s bungalow and whilst there isn't much original left there is a brick fireplace, two pendant light fittings and the original front and back doors. I love mid century houses!

It's so spacious and airy!

The property we're buying has these tiles in the kitchen and we're keeping them 😍

Try the Wowhaus blog!

No idea why I can't attach a photo.

Finally.

And a serving hatch.

We have a 70’s built house , not really mid century but this was one of the bathrooms when we bought it.

it’s gone now.

Find emilyjanelathan on insta - beautiful 70s bungalow they're slowly renovating

some really great responses, thanks everyone 🙂
@BungalowBuyer lucky you with those tiles, so gorgeous. Am going to see if I can find something similar for my pantry
@Bearpawk - thanks for the tip, will have a look
@AnythingMuppetTM - thanks for the link!

1720 Grade 11. Whole of front corner is splitting away from the rest. Surveyor sucked his teeth last week and said, this will need a structural engineer. It's built on top of a huge medieval vault and will cost several arms and legs to fix. Fortunately, it's rented. Apart from that, it's a lovely, peaceful place to live in and I'll be sorry to leave it. I love an old house.