ELMHURST

MidCentury Ranch

“When I saw this house, I immediately saw possibilities. It was nice to be able to make it exactly what I wanted”

There are two kinds of people in the world — those that love a turnkey home, and those that don’t. Ryan Abrams is a faithful member of the latter club. So much so that when he was hunting for a home in east Atlanta a few years ago, his main condition was finding one that was completely untouched.

“I saw a lot of renovations that felt like easy flips, with poor paint and tile choices, and unfortunate layouts. When I saw this house, I immediately saw possibilities. It was nice to be able to make it exactly what I wanted,” says the Texas native, who works as a camera assistant and moonlights as a DJ.

All but one of those possibilities unfolded when he bought the 1960s ranch-style house and moved in a few months later. The one that didn’t? The kitchen. Which Ryan saved for later, deeming it necessary to first develop a vision for the space. But sometime last summer, he learned that not having a dishwasher and garbage disposal for the fifth year in a row was worse than not having a direction.

A mid-century modern kitchen with wooden cabinets and pops of color

Ryan never imagined what the final version would look like, but he did know what he wanted it to feel like. “I told Laura when we started the process that I wanted something masculine but tasteful, and nothing anyone would call ‘trendy’ in a year or two,” he recalls. It was just as well, because, “I don’t do trendy,” laughs Laura, who leaned into the kitchen’s midcentury character. The result was better than Ryan imagined. “She nailed it right off the bat. Aside from a few initial notes, what you see is pretty much what she first presented to me,” he says.

Wooden cabinet and bar details in a mid-century modern kitchen
A mid-century dining room and kitchen space

“I wanted it to feel like a reinterpretation rather than a reproduction; something that felt of the moment, but inspired by the past”

“I wanted it to feel like a reinterpretation rather than a reproduction; something that felt of the moment, but inspired by the past,” says Laura, who took cues from Le Corbusier’s seaside holiday cabin on the Côte d’Azur in France, the colors of Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin, and Ryan’s art collection.

Wooden cabinet and bar details in a mid-century modern kitchen

The cabinets are walnut wood designs conceived by Laura and built by a local maker and frequent collaborator, Peter Eiland of Eiland Woodworks. We worked to find shades that weren’t too bright but still brought a pop,” says Laura of the row of upper cabinets. A Zephyr insert camouflages the hood into the wooden millwork and the oak wood flooring is original to the house, though Laura had to patch it in a couple of areas. “Luckily, this flooring is easy to blend and we just let those stain imperfections shine where needed. As I like to say, old houses are perfectly imperfect.”

Wooden cabinet and bar details in a mid-century modern kitchen
A close-up of cabinets in a mid-century inspired kitchen

This 1960s Atlanta Kitchen Keeps the Sunshine Close /
Words by Vaishnavi Nayel Talawadekar for Architectural Digest

Photography: Jeff Herr

PROJECT DETAILS

  • design sketch

    design sketch

    A sketch of the kitchen by our founder Laura Jenkins to help the client envision the selections for the interior design.

  • kitchen design mid-century modern Laura W. Jenkins Interiors

    mood

    Some final finishes. walnut wood cabinets, and hardware for our mid-century modern inspired kitchen.

  • Concept board

    elements

    Inspiration and elements selected for this kitchen renovation in a mid-century ranch house.

  • kitchen design, mid-century modern, Laura W. Jenkins Interiors

    construction

    Custom millwork being installed in this kitchen. The existing house was built in the 1960s so we took design queues from other mid-century modern designs.