Lots of potential! As you live in the house you will see what works functionally and what doesn’t. Look at photos and read about mcm designs and decorating. You will get lots of great ideas to incorporate into your home. That style is great for your location. Enjoy the process!

Great house. Here is some inspiration

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Great house, and the verdant site is just lovely, congratulations.
There are lots of Mid-Century-Modern house interiors on Houzz and on the Internet for you to peruse. You can also put in the search term Palm Springs Interiors or Palm Springs style, things like that, because that is also very mid- century modern.
Another thought- you can pick the best of MCM and update it to. For example, next to the stairs that go down to the basement you might want to do a dark metal rail, and either do horizontal metal rails, or really update the look with a solid sheet of shatterproof tempered glass or a thick shatterproof acrylic.
These last two would let light flow through your space.
Another advantage is you don’t have to worry about little hands and feet sticking through the stiles or throwing things through the stiles, or having to dust 360 degrees all around each and every stile.

It would be so much cooler if the carport roof (or whatever that is on the right side) continued the slope of the house roof instead of being flat. And it would allow the needles to wash off.

At any rate, you need to get up there and remove those needles where the carport meets the house ASAP and check for rot. That should be a top priority.

I'd have all the trees near the house checked for health and cut down any that could pose a threat to the house.

The chair rail doesn't go with that style house. Easy fix before you paint.

That's an awful lot of pavement in the front.

Following. Love your house and you already seem to have an idea of what works and what doesn't. So glad you are working to keep it true to it's bones.

Debbie, christinero already mentioned RetroRenovation to you. Pam Keubler recently did an article on where to find Mid-Century front doors. You might want to check that out. I love your new-to-you MCM home!

Some front elevation ideas. Note front door styles.

Really cool house! Looking forward to seeing what you do with it over time. Welcome to the Pacific North West. I’m an east coast transplant too. :-)

I have nothing to offer except to say What a beautiful home! Don’t rush and enjoy

Congratulations on your new home. I agree your first instincts are spot on (re the door and rails). Luckily there is tons of help on the internet and here on Houzz for this style. Glad you’re taking your time. Come back and post ideas when you’re settled in. Many of us will go for the ride with you.

Lucky you . I would get to work on the carport for sure it doesn’t really work with the rest of the house.

I didn't think I liked mid century modern until I saw your house.
Grover is right, take your time and you'll end up with a stunning home.
And as one who had a house with sn improper flat roof stuck on a back porch by a prior owner, make sure that is proper as someone else mentioned. We had to redo ours with a rolled roof (if memory serves me right). Angle that portion if you can.
Looking forward to seeing your home as you settle in.

What a great place! Yep, I'd perhaps replace the railings/balusters with wood and cable. See example below:

As for the front door, replace with a painted door/sidelights that have a clean, modern look, and perhaps a bright color:

Lastly, I might consider painting the exterior brick to make it more up-to-date. Charcoal grey might be an option, or possibly dark forest green to blend in with your woodsy setting.

As stated by other posters, www.retrorenovation.com is a fabulous site with tons of information on sources for MCM appropriate house parts and mid century decorating.

One piece of advice that's really valuable for those renovating older homes with character, such as yours, is to WAIT for a while, even years, and learn what does and doesn't really matter to you before charging in and changing/gutting something that you might later come to wish you had left alone.

And for sheer fun, Atomic Ranch magazine is eye candy for the MCM enthusiast.

I find the white on the ceiling beams to be disruptive.

The white inside along with railings is most probably not the “original” look. But once furnishings and rugs are added it will feel ok for now until both funds and inspiration meet!!

A couple more resources:

http://www.atomicindy.com/2011/11/mid-century-modern-landscaping.html

https://www.eichlernetwork.com/

Wow what a great house! My favorite style. Take your time!! Save your $$! Don’t rush into anything. You’ll never regret that, though many people regret making rash decisions! It’s already beautiful! Congratulations!

I couldn't resist working on your house and giving you some things to think about. Some are pretty simple and diy.

No MCM house ever had a chair rail. Remove it and learn to patch walls.

The railings are all wrong. If you're handy and have a few tools, you could probably build slat railings yourselves.

The etched glass in the door has got to go. Glass cut to order is pretty cheap. Unless all your doors are like this, it wouldn't cost much.

On the more expensive side, look into soda or dry ice blasting those beams and staining to match the ceiling.

On the really expensive side (but oh so gorgeous), if you have a slab in good condition, consider polishing it.

Spend the first year in your home dreaming, planning, making an MCM scrapbook and focusing any $$ you can on major issues that can come up in a 55 year-old home; plumbing, roof and window leaks, HVAC troubles, unhealthy and dangerous trees, poor drainage problems, removing the add-on carport, learning what's under all that carpet and discovering your DIY skill sets. Make it function first; form will follow. You'll enjoy many years of working to bring out all her beauty!

Thank you everyone! We're really excited. Haven't finished post-inspection negotiations but we're confident we'll seal this deal. We're motivated to buy and the seller is definately motivated to sell.

Here's some notes based on comments:

The inspiration is so awesome. Especially the photoshopped pics. For example, I'm really appreciating that we have that big door cutout so we have so many options for a front door. what serendipity :-)

I like the idea of being mindful of horizontal lines throughout, including the stair rails. the wood rails with cables are really beautiful and i think would fit the space. I added another couple of pictures so you can see how that space is layed out -- it's almost like the ends of the house are a single main floor connected by a hallway in the back of the house and the center of the house is split level -- the living room in the front center of the house, a bonus studio up from that above the back hallway and a bonus room in the basement under the living room in the front of the house.

I hate the carport. I think it needs to come down. If we keep it there, I'd want to follow the roofline which would mean lowering the grade on that side of the house. It's too low now; neither our van or SUV fit under it presently. We've talked about the dream of a garage on that end of the house someday. We'll see. the roof is a brand new (<3 years) 30 year roof so it's very low on our list. We've got a chimney inspector coming to inspect and fix the chimney and someone coming to fix the siding on that back bonus room roof.

Arborist: on our list of inspectors to get in once we move in. Those trees are not without healthy foliage so we're not in imminent danger from any of them.

Love the frosted door with retro paint color. It's singing to my heart right now.

New to Houzz so i'm just beginning ideabooks and discussion threads. I've been lurking on some old ones for ideas and answering all the questions I have.

Grover: thanks for your input! there are 3 external doors -- all are the same. I'd start with the front and put the others below on the list -- they're both in the back of the house. The house isn't on a slab. There's a crawl space under the house. As a matter of fact, our inspection called out that the joists under the kitchen/great room have been repaired poorly and need to be repaired properly. In addition, ... when they repaired, where plywood subfloor was called for.... They. used. cabinet. doors. That's falling under our inspection negotiation now.

The whole house except for the kitchen/great room is hardwood. In the living room and studio, they're polished and beautiful. In the hallway and bedrooms, they're covered with the same carpet that's in the great room. The great room/kitchen has some kind of vinyl flooring under the carpet. We're struggling with the flooring decision because it's one we have to make in the next few weeks. We need to finish it before we move in at the end of July.

OH HERE'S SOME NEWS~ when we went for the inspection, we met the next door neighbor and found out he grew up in that house and had lived there many years. His grandfather bought it from the original owners in 1967.

Thanks again everyone! I'll try to keep up here. I love reading all your advice.

One really great thing about carpet over hardwood: it tends to keep the floors pristine. ;-)

Just beautiful, inspirational pics I love, showing art etc. you will have so much fun with this home

Some ideas with black trim.

Some ideas with cedar siding

painted brick

that's the winner, right there. perfect!

You might do something like this for the carport.

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It's beautiful. Take your time with it. One thing I found out with our house is that sometimes I tried to piece out work that I should have saved up for and done all at once. So think about how thing work together.

I don't know how much lot you have at that side of the house, but after removing the add-on carport you might consider rebuilding it with a butterfly roof and extending for some covered patio area

small update!

first of all. everyone who has seen the house has loved it. and people in the know tell us the layout is very typical of the period. We're lucky that it's less of a "fixer upper" and more of a "needs a desperate face lift" house. that buys us time.

inspection was signed off - contracted work to be completed by closing - June 13!! We are hiring an amazing floor installer who's done beautiful work for dear friends of ours -- he told us the original wood flooring is beautiful - mixed white and red oak which is unusual now but quite common for the period. I think he's planning to match the original when he lays flooring in the new areas (living/kitchen and hallway) The floors will be done before move in ~July 13. Can't wait to show you all!

Very exciting. I would suggest you get samples of flooring before this person starts installation. Avoid big problems. Actual boards with stain etc is far better than words and trust. Verification is very important.

With that wood floor going into the kitchen , please purchase extra unless you are redoing the kitchen now. That will make it easier to fix the floor if you change the layout for a new kitchen space... it is always an issue...speak with your flooring installer about it.

I recently had a customer that redid all her wood floors and didn't do the kitchen until years later and it was a disaster trying to get her floor and then she had to refinish the entire first floor since it was an open floor plan.

Greenmtngrl-

I don't remember-did you say you were going to put wood in your kitchen?

If so, you must be a very, very neat cook.

The way I spill and things, I would never put wood in my kitchen.

@loobab - She just posted it a few hours ago:

" I think he's planning to match the original when he lays flooring in the new areas (living/kitchen and hallway) The floors will be done before move in ~July 13. Can't wait to show you all! "

I just happened to catch that comment myself!

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Oh wow, well then good luck. I'm way too messy and clumsy.

I didn't even register for crystal.

I just went to a restaurant supply place and bought a gross of the different size types of glassware I needed because I knew even I wouldn't break them all!

Hi everyone!

well, we're closed as of friday night! we went in yesterday to pull up the carpet where there are wood floors. doing the entire house at once is beyond our budget right now -- at least for the guy we want to do them -- so we're phasing the project. we'll be refinishing all of the wood floors in natural oak. here's what the bedrooms look like as a before picture. They're starting tomorrow so we'll see the after really soon.

i have a question if someone knows where I can look for an answer. I'd love to find someone who can help us with a 20-25 year plan for this house. We know what we want to end up with, by and large, but we're not sure how to plan stuff now and mid-term in a way that helps get to the end. is there a discipline of consultants that does this? just sort of help people with a plan; for a consulting fee they'd be part engineer, part designer, part architect, part psychologist? ok, maybe the shrink is over reach :-) but knowing that all this work is going to happen in little bits over a long period of time.

i'd hire that person tomorrow. ^^

Thank you all for all of your help. Love this site.

Congratulations!
And good for you to look at the long term results.

That house brings back memories of a childhood friend's house. You might ask that neighbor we lived there if it orginally had double doors and no sidelights. They were common in my old neighborhood along with those angled windows. Hard to believe we thought it was cool when the neighbors covered those gorgeous wood floors with avocado shag carpet in the 70s. Have fun putting your own modern twist on a beautiful MCM home.

I hope you can find your person to walk you through this. I think as long as you clearly indicate your long-term goals, most things can be broken down into steps. You might need the advice of a contractor and engineer and designer to get the steps in the right order.

Love your floors and they will look fabulous all redone. Are you planning on a same glossy finish as the main living area? I'm not sure what is correct for the period, but I think it would change the look for the better to use a satin finish. We redid our floors using Bona Traffic HD in Satin and it still highlights the beautiful coloring in the floors without all the shiny reflections.

You may not be able to find one person that can do all of that, but I bet a design-build firm could. Seems like that might be a good approach because it will be a team of people who already have experience working together. And I’m sure they would love to have you as a client for each step along the way.

Oh, lucky you! All the preceding advice is so good. It's a blessing in disguise that you can't afford to do anything. Most of the time, people who don't know this style want to tack on all sort of inappropriate add-ons, rip stuff out, and we're all saying: "No, don't do it!" Wait it out and become an expert on this style. Look at this room--very little furniture, so the lines, materials, and space are center stage.

Search on Houzz for one-story brick MidCenturyModern exteriors. Build an ideabook with all your favorite photos. Edit them as you go, adding and removing photos. This will give you a number of possibilities when you are ready to make this home truly yours.
Do the same for MCM interiors.
Look up MidCenturyModern colors. Your local paint store will probably have folders with color palettes for various home styles, including MCM.
If you want to be true to all things MCM, you will want to do a ideabook collection of furniture, as well.
Keeping your ideabooks by topic will help you better than a single ideabook with everything in it.
MidCenturyModern homes tended to be low-slung, with terrazzo flooring and light-to-medium wood doors, paneling and wood furniture. They often had big sliding glass doors opening to the yard, pool and view.
This looks like a very nice home. We would enjoy seeing “before and after” photos as you go.

Just wanted to add that Craigslist can be a great source of MCM authentic pieces--credenzas, side boards, side tables, dining furniture. West Elm's aesthetic is an updated MCM style, though the quality won't be as good as the real thing. You don't need to have your house be an MCM museum, but do seek out some quality pieces. Here are some Craigslist pieces in my area along with a West Elm piece--all between $300-350. Just plug in "midcentury" or "mid century" into the Craigslist search engine in your area on a regular basis, and you'll likely find some great pieces.

WEST ELM

REAL DEAL FROM THE MID CENTURY ERA:

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