John and I bought our 1948 clapboard and Roman-brick Ranch from a friend who had lived here since the 1980s. Our friend had zero interest in taking care of the house, giving it no attention of any kind for at least 35 years. If the roof leaked, he ignored it. If the pipes froze in the cold, he ignored that.

We couldn’t even get the house insured for the first few months until we tore off and replaced the roof, fascia, and gutters; painted the house; and removed a huge amount of overgrowth. But I could see what was underneath the filth and neglect: a small but sweet mid-century house with tremendous potential—the dream home of any soldier returning from the War.

The awful greenish-brown carpeting covering the floors turned out to be a blessing. When we pulled it up (saturated with dirt and dog hair), we found original, narrow-board, white-oak floors that had never been sanded. They cleaned up beautifully with professional refinishing. Another lengthy job was removing multiple layers of wallpaper from the living room, dining room, bedrooms, and hallway—very time consuming and messy, but under it we found walls with nice, “orange peel”-textured plaster.

The heating system had been powered by a one-ton, cast-iron boiler that pumped hot water through copper pipes in the ceiling. When the boiler failed, it caused areas of ceiling damage where the pipes froze and burst. The flashing around the chimney also leaked, causing damage to the ceiling just over the fireplace mantel.

Although John is an engineer and extremely well versed in both electrical and plumbing, we had never learned how to plaster correctly. This was a new curve, especially since our walls are made of something called “button board,” a kind of combination plaster/wallboard that dates to the era of the house. It’s drilled with holes so when the plaster is troweled on, it protrudes through the holes to form keys to hold the plaster in place.

As for the kitchen and only bath, there was no option other than a “studs out” renovation. Believe it or not, the walls in both rooms were plywood. In the kitchen, we carefully removed the kitchen cabinets for reuse and put them in our makeshift workshop—a garage-sized tent in the backyard.

Over one especially cold winter, I scraped and stripped the many coats of paint away, and then sanded multiple times before applying primer. The kitchen originally had a small peninsula that made the work area cramped and tiny, so we removed it, relocating the cabinets to the west wall. This opened up the space and also made room for a dishwasher right beside the sink.

Knowing that two-tone cabinets were a popular look in the 1940s and early ’50s, I chose a pale blue-and-white palette for the kitchen. I painted the cabinet boxes and frames Shoji White and the doors and drawer fronts in Slow Green, both from Sherwin–Williams. All the cabinet and drawer pulls are original except one, which I replaced with an exact replica. I soaked the hardware to remove paint and grime and they look just like new.

“We did 90% of the work ourselves, partly for financial reasons and partly because we love doing it. it was an incredible journey that took the better part of ten years.”

Although I wanted Formica countertops because they are correct for the era of the house, John pushed for a more modern alternative, for resale reasons. In the end, we chose quartz in “Snowfall.” Quartz is expensive but beautiful and I have been happy with it. The floor was an easy choice. We chose vinyl composition tile (VCT) in Willow Green, professionally laid with an wide inlay border in black.

In the bathroom, we found plywood, installed even behind the tub. The walls originally had been covered in a faux-tile material. At some point, that had been peeled off and replaced with Masonite/melamine sheet goods. Everything was rotten from leakage, including the white- oak flooring. Only two things were salvageable: the door, which we stripped and refinished, and a privacy-glass window with a starburst pattern.

As an artist and designer, I knew I wanted a shoulder-height wall of 4″ x 4″ square ceramic tiles in Daltile’s Spa color, with black trim tile to wrap around the built-in mirror and door. As the tub was too damaged to save, we replaced it with an enamel-over-steel tub that closely matches the original design. The new floor is Marmoleum, a long-wearing linoleum product. When rewiring, we replaced the old wall heater with a safer Retro-look heater with a chrome finish.

We recently finished the combination laundry room and pantry—our last interior project. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished but ready to take on a new challenge, so in the next year or so we will be selling this lovely place to start looking for our next restoration project.

— Written by Evan Degenfelder; Lebanon, Oregon. All photos courtesy of the Degenfelders, except where noted.

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