Mid-Century Magic

BY DANIELLE POPE | PHOTOS BY JOSHUA LAWRENCE

A thoughtful reno makes this  Oak Bay home bright, welcoming and accessible for the whole family.

Mid-century modern home renovation — These homeowners redesigned their 1950s rancher with gathering in mind. “Our favourite part of Christmas is definitely hosting family and friends and eating together,” says Natalie. “We designed the kitchen and dining area for hosting.”

Mid-century rainforest: that’s the term Natalie and Adam use to describe their Oak Bay family home.

Its Scandi vibe, washed oak floors, white walls, fluted room dividers and watery blue accents tell part of the story. There is pop art tile in the bathrooms, exposed beams and wood everywhere. A mature garden horseshoes its way around the home, creating enchanted green vistas.

With the holidays drawing close, the couple are readying their expansive kitchen to host 14-person dinner celebrations — Adam in his chef element, kids watching movies on the lower level, the adults settling into conversation nooks around the house.

“We really wanted to capture the idea of coziness and the feeling you get when you come home from the beach with your muddy shoes and you kick them off at the door,” says Natalie. (The couple asked that their surnames not be used.) “Our house is a representation of that very comfortable feeling — the Gore-Tex-socks-hanging-up-in-the-mudroom kind of feeling.”

Between the juxtaposition of its modern beauty and its reality as a house designed for a family with two teen boys and dogs, it’s hard to believe the home was ever not this way. Yet the family lived here for almost a decade in what was then a largely outdated, 1930s-style home, with a “death staircase” and very limited accessibility.

And, for this family, that always mattered.

BEFORE

The kitchen’s dated faux Tuscan vibe was replaced by sleek oak cabinetry, a continuous stone backsplash and a new layout featuring an island that’s perfect for visiting. It remains one of Natalie’s favourite spots in the home. She can usually be found nearby working at the kitchen table, or chatting with Adam while he’s in his chef element.

Dark to Light

“I have a physical disability and always have,” says Natalie. “Putting my kids to bed or going to my own bed was a barrier. With the staircase to the laundry basement not up to code, it was actually unsafe for me or anyone else.”

The home was dark, due to its tight hallways and closed rooms, but the backyard redeemed it almost entirely. The family dreamed of living in a post-and-beam mid-century home, and they brought forward what they could with furniture and accessories.

“This started as a 1957 rancher, but without a lick of mid-century modern,” says Natalie. “It was built with 1930s-style coved ceilings, small, divided rooms, lots of doors and a huge fireplace that occupied 100 square feet of the living room. Someone had painted every room a different colour, and the kitchen had that faux-Tuscan vibe that was really popular in the ’90s.”

BEFORE

Prior to the reno, large columns and closed-off rooms divided this home. The homeowners created a more easeful flow by opening up the kitchen and dining area. The result is a united, welcoming and accessible space designed to work long into the future.

Adam is the first to say it’s funny how long you can live with something before making a change. The thing was, even as they searched for other options, nothing compared to what they had.

Somehow, that made the “unworkable” kitchen, the outdated bathrooms and even the risky layout palatable for a time.

“We wanted a modern layout with three beds on the main floor, rather than the classic Oak Bay two up and two down. The boys having their own space was important, and stairs just don’t work for us; we needed something functional that could let us age in place,” says Adam. “We searched for years, but we kept coming back to what our place offered — a beautiful, southwest-facing backyard, a huge lot, close to the beach and so many amenities.”

And, despite its sketchy staircase, most of the basement was finished, giving the family just enough room to get by. Then the pandemic hit.

BEFORE

It was the need to renovate the cramped and dated bathroom that led to this family taking the plunge into a larger house redo. Now the blues, greys and warm woods create a subtle and modern West Coast vibe, while the level-access shower is designed for aging in place. Accessibility and function — and additional storage — are maximized in this space, while movement-limiting corners are reduced.

Renovate or Rebuild?

Suddenly, Natalie and Adam were putting their computer monitors back to back in a makeshift shared office. Then Adam’s dad had a nearby space to rent, offering the family an attractive place to stay so they could get serious about renos.

“Our goals at the beginning were just to redo the kitchen and bathrooms. That was in 2020,” says Adam. “Pretty quickly, our focus was changing. We realized it would be good to have a real home office, and it was time to move the laundry upstairs and give everyone their own space.”

Thanks to the support of D’Introno Interior Design and Goodison Construction, the family was able to realize their vision.

“This home was cute for its time, but it needed to be updated for a family and for someone who needed accessibility,” says Tonia D’Introno, principal of D’Introno Interior Design. “I was brought on because they wanted to upgrade their bathroom-accessibility situation, but pretty early on I could see how much of the house was not functional, at all.”

“I was brought on because they wanted to upgrade their bathroom-accessibility situation, but pretty early on  I could see  how much of  the house was not functional,  at all.”

Tonia D’Introno, principal, D’Introno Interior Design

A sore spot for D’Introno was the entryway, littered with boots, shoes and coats along its narrow corridor.

“It was literally hard for Natalie to move around things as soon as you entered the house because the hallway was very narrow, with no proper place to put anything,” says D’Introno. “My original impression of the house was that while some areas felt so cramped and poorly designed, others were so expansive and relatively useless.”

The large, cordoned-off living area went unused, with the enormous column fireplace the only mainstay of the space.

“Sometimes when you do a reno of this scale, you look at the wish list and it doesn’t equal a reno — it’s a teardown and rebuild,” says D’Introno. “You have to be careful not to get halfway through and say, ‘We should have just done a teardown.’ ”

BEFORE

In the living area, the coliseum-sized fireplace of decades gone by was replaced with a modern heating source — a configuration that created enough space for art, a TV, sitting area and even bonus square feet for the entry mudroom.

Playing with Inches

Yet the team pulled it off, with almost every wish-list item checked. The home was gutted, with long-term livability at the helm, should ramps or other accessible features ever be needed.

The oversized living room was portioned off for a new entryway, extended bathroom, a larger primary bedroom, a new laundry-pantry area and an expansion to the kitchen, which blended seamlessly with the backyard. A large island is now a welcoming gathering spot.

The basement, finished with just seven feet of clearance, was redrafted with optical illusions to bring a feeling of spaciousness — like tall doors, thin trim and a redesign that gave each boy their own room, a dedicated bathroom and lounge area.

And, of course, the stairs are gone, replaced with an accessible staircase only the kids need to use.

Designer Tonia D’Introno says she was “playing with inches” when it came to creating a mudroom out of the original entrance. The end result has room for everyone’s needs and can easily keep mess out of sight, with a fluted, sliding closet door that adds visual interest upon entering the house.

“I was literally playing with inches,” says D’Introno. “It’s so understated. You would never think so much thought was put into it. Now, when you walk in the home, it opens to this hidden mudroom with space for everything and the sliding-wall system means you can tuck it all away and enjoy a beautiful millwork feature.”

Despite all the changes, Natalie and Adam say the kitchen is their biggest win. Natalie says you can usually find her at the kitchen table, chatting with Adam while he’s cooking up a storm.

“It’s exactly what we want. I never have a day when I say I wish we’d done that differently,” says Natalie. “I see us feeling really comfortable here for a long time to come.”