Our Redondo Beach Midcentury Exterior Makeover- Before and After

Happy Friday all!

As many of you know if you follow along on Instagram, Chay and I have moved around quite a bit over the last 3 years. We love to change things up and before we have kids we are trying to be intentional about exploring places that we may want to settle down in and our most recent move brought us to Redondo Beach.

Why Redondo? I am from The Southbay, specifically Palos Verdes, and this is home for us and where most of my family lives. It's also very close to Chay's office. We moved from Echo Park, where we lived in our first home for just shy of a year! We loved it so much but saw a great opportunity to get a great deal on a home in a beautiful (albeit quiet and maybe a bit slow paced for my taste) beach town that will be a great investment whether or not we decide to sell or stay. It is minutes from family and friends and felt like a good idea to try and see how we like it!

Well, as many of you know if you are looking into purchasing a home,  beach cities don't give you quite the same bang for your buck as cities more inland. We knew if we bought this house we needed to do some work on the aesthetics like finishes, floors, and cabinetry etc, but the bones and layout are great!

It's a midcentury open floor plan with a flat roofline and beamed ceilings. The inside needs a good amount of updating, but we thought why not give the exterior a quick and affordable makeover as we wait for the right time to remodel or sell! I know we just moved here, but were not really the type that feels tied to any home/decision if we're not in love with it. Sooo we're just giving it some time to see if it's a home that we want to pour our time/energy/hearts into, or if another area is where we would rather be. We knew we would be adding some value for minimal cost, and knew the refacing and actual future exterior wouldn't make any sense to do now and pour money into just yet.

So lets check out the before photos!

BEFORE

notice the cypress trees to the far left of the photo. There were 2o at 50 feet high! Ugh!

So not into the color scheme here! Its fine and cute and way better than it used to be even a few years prior, but still just kinda blah and like its trying too hard to look "midcentury".

We decided to just paint the bright white glossy trim (that I hated) a charcoal black color to have a more modern feeling with the dark grey color of the house as a way to be monochromatic and less "beachy". Our front door was a bright neon orange as an attempt from the previous realtors to make the house look stereotypical Midcentury but it wasn't the right orange color for a statement front door! We painted that charcoal as well as the basic factory garage door. WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!

To really spice things up we tore out the 20(!!!!) 50 foot tall Cypress trees (you know the really skinny and tall pine tree looking trees with spiders and rats living inside?), some small random tree with red berries on it, a ton of grass and random landscape the previous owners slapped on the lawn before they sold. 

I wanted easy to maintain desert landscape in all monochromatic greens and blues. I love being in The Desert and love how clean and chic desert landscape looks in front of a midcentury home. I picked about 5 types of succulents without going too crazy because that can end up looking over the top and almost dirty with too many variations (do you know what I mean? Like the people with a thousand types of plants in their yard with no theme at all or plan, just a crazy mess of plants and weeds). We added some modern pavers with black Mexican beach rock in between and called it a day! (Well it took two weeks hahaha but you know what I am saying!)

Now for the after pics!

after

With a little paint in a more modern color  (we used Farrow and Balls "Railings" and color matched it!) and new landscape, I think the house looks more clean and polished than it did when we moved in. I'm super happy with the results to buy us some time to figure out what we wanna do! Do you guys have any tips for afforable curb appeal? Id love to know. Leave a comment with your ideas!

xo, Kim

New Obsession: Black Painted Houses

It's Tuesday people! So what better way to ring in the day after Monday then to talk about my favorite new trend. This week (and for the last few months really...) I have been dreaming about and searching for homes with black or charcoal exteriors. I have also noticed interior designers and architects like Barbara Bestor and Amber Interiors loving and posting projects with black exteriors as well! They are getting more and more attention and for good reason.They are edgy, fun, modern, and they truly stand out, yet are also neutral at the same time.

My last house in Echo Park was black and I absolutely loved it. It was super cool and I was so proud of it (although it was a new build so I had no input, I just felt cool because we were the owners lol) ! Up until this point, when I dreamed about my future home, I always thought I wanted a white house with black trim (and of course I will always love that classic and popular combination because it is stunning and sleek). After living in it for the short year we were there, I fell in love and really wanted our next home to eventually have that dark and modern feel. We moved into our new house in Redondo Beach (because my husbands job was much closer to this home) which unfortunately is nothing like Echo Park in design or sleekness. It's a grey mid century home with white trim that is close to the beach but far from style. I don't know if I sound like a brat but I really don't care. Facts are facts. This house needs work! (I will be posting more on the transformation as we get closer) One of the main things I cannot wait for is for the house to be re-stuccoed and painted black, but for now we are going to stick with monochrome colors since the house is already dark grey. We plan on giving it a face lift with new plants and painting the white trim (which comes off as beachy and traditional, not my thing) a dark charcoal. As I have been researching colors, I have compiled my favorite black homes that are popping up all over Pinterest for my own Inspo! Take a look at these gorgeous black homes!

All images taken from my Pinterest

How pretty are these homes? Are you a believer yet? I just LOVE how the plants POP! against the black backdrop. So gorgeous! I cannot wait to paint our home and see how it all comes together! What do you guys think about a black exterior? Super Sleek or a little too dark for your taste? Let me know in the comments below!

xo,

Kim