Pampliset,

Wow. The bones are great there, as is the light. I agree with the kitchen assessment, but maybe a color change, new countertops (soapstone) might improve it? It certainly is a house that you could easily revise over time...

Oh what a neat home and what looks like a charming neighborhood! The kitchen would be such an easy fix with removing some of the upper cabinetry and adding some vertical boxes�and some type of salvaged sculptural metal designed into a little island. And the things you could do with those fireplace walls.
When I win the lottery I want to buy a place like that.

You can bleach the wood in the kitchen. Strong alkali and strong acid to neutralize it. (This is dangerous work and requires careful attention.)

I would gradually change a few things. In each area, the rework was done with an idea in mind. Accepting this and understanding the idea lets one appreciate the work more.

HTH

How old is the house itself?

I agree that houses do have a natural evolution, and the kitchen in this one did preserve the brick wall and the tongue and groove ceiling. I think its the hutch that seems so out of place to me. There is a bit of tension between the relatively "rough" original work and the refinement of the newer work.

(This is a better fit than the butter yellow, highly carved and corbeled Clive Christian kitchen that I saw shoehorned into a smallish one bedroom apartment in a brown and bronze high rise that was pure "Bob Newhart" show (the psychologist, not the inn owner).

The underlying house could be 1800s, like the one next door.

Correction...I meant horizontal cabinets.

It's a great house with so much potential.

The feet on the hutch stand out to me, the colonial square ogee style would be less "cute" and more grounded.

That is just wrong, on so many levels. I see that in MCM homes in my area (Southern city) but here they typically go at it pretty scorched-earth. There is NO MCM remaining save for perhaps a few beams the drywall hangers missed. Around here, if it ain't French, it ain't $*#@.

I have to think that this was a flip, and that the kitchen hasn't even been used. I don't think that anyone who would have lived in the house and kept the other 90% of it the way it is would have installed that kitchen.

Somewhere, there is a nice, warm family home in want of a kitchen. Unfortunately, this one lost its way.

I don't know what is on the other wall of the kitchen, but I'd want to eliminate the counter run with the sink and DW, and replace the solid railing with something either acrylic or wire. Open up the view to the living space and make the kitchen completely traumatic for anyone afraid of heights. But not knowing the rest of the layout, I have no idea if that would even work.

Actually the current owner, according to the public tax records has been there for seven years.

Its harder than it sounds for many people to conceive putting in a kitchen in something other than the current mode, so I don't want to be too hard on the current owner. At least its natural wood and not neo-Edwardian. I think its the hutch that really grates and thats not such a big piece of the picture, I guess.

The original kitchen in this house was probably stick built, not incredibly functional and maybe kinda ugly--I've seen some of the originals and I dunno...There was an iconic Louis Kahn glass and wood box up for auction last year or so, in order to try and save it from being torn down and replace with something neo-palatial, and one of the problems really was the kitchen: Tiny; shallow cabinets; some with sliding thin ply doors, that old 60s track light and 60s appliances. And you almost would have had to do an addition of another glass box in order to get what is currently considered a functional kitchen in the house.

Okay, the hutch is bad, though functional. If you can't rip it out right away, take off the upper doors, the beadboard and the bun feet, and distress it-glaze it-strip it or something.

It's a great house. Frightening bathtub, but a great house.

I actually appreciate Brutalist architecture.

I don't appreciate remuddling though.

But if you're going to do it, don't lose your nerve and have an attack of "good taste" right before you sell. You please no one.

That kitchen reminds me of Cousin Marilyn, the unfortunate blonde "straight" girl in the weird/cool Munster family.

I seem to have lost a post somewhere. I have a variation on this thread in Home Decorating so I am forgetting what I say where.

The most successful Brutalists understood what light could do in harsh, rugged spaces. Some of Louis I Kahn's pockmarked buildings are beautiful with the sun shining through the spaces.

I hope the frightening bathtub stays. A bathroom like this is almost pathognomonic of a crazy-architecty house like this.

If I were the owner I may not *use* the bathtub (there are two other bathrooms in the house, presumably more conventional)...but I would want to keep it.

I think this kitchen by Henrybuilt would be a better fit, perhaps. Modern, but organic.
{{!gwi}}

Oh, yes! That kitchen has a nice MCM look without being too architect specific. It would be perfect!

Re the frightening tub, I wasn't suggesting you get rid of it, necessarily. It is a feature and an authentic piece of the vision. But "pathognomonic"? So we're agreed? Architecture is a disease?

The tub is trisomic icelandic sauna specific. It better be a warm bathroom. The bulbs need a mirror collar to direct the light in a forward beam and to let that warm wood bask in indirect glow.

Are the thermostats electronic? So many baseboard heaters, so long and strong. Must be to let them be warm, not hot. Is the house cold and poorly insulated?

Driftwood-bleaching kitchen wood makes it match the bruto surroundings. Then you don't need gnomonic assistance, you just gno what it is.

What a fascinating house. A Henrybuilt kitchen would be perfect. I must admit to being quite intrigued with that bathtub. Before buying the house we're in now I fell for a house with two original early 1960's bathrooms - one pink, one turqoise. Both were very well designed and installed and were in excellent condition despite their age. Very modern style and modern amenities, lovely to my eye, and perfect for the FLW inspired bungalow they resided in. We very nearly bought that house, but in the end I had to choose neighbourhood over dream house. Anyway, a few weeks after we passed on that MCM masterpiece I was discussing the house with an agent who had shown it a few times. He said the big problem with selling the house was those two "awful" bathroooms, and that the owners should rip them out and then sell. I was truly horrified.

That house will always be my dream home, and to this day I worry about those bathrooms. I just hope someone with an affinity for MCM design bought that house.