We just bought a MCM house in Phoenix (likely Ralph Haver). Our first priority is to fix the garage that doesn’t match the house. The main house has exposed gray bricks and the garage (built later on with dry wall) has some “cottage style” wood siding + red bricks. Current ideas are grey brick siding or full size bricks with a frosted glass / aluminium garage door… Suggestions?
Members of our facebook group for midcentury home owners were happy to help.
Below are some examples of members thoughts on the topic. These are only a few of the thousands of tips that are shared in our exclusive Facebook Group dedicated to midcentury modern home owners. If you own a midcentury house and are not already a member, join us now!
- “Can you white wash the red brick so it matches the gray, and put up horizontal siding instead of vertical? And change out the garage window.“
- “I think a lime wash could go a long way to making the red brick blend in. You can make it as thick or as thin as you like so you can really adjust the opacity. It comes in several different colors, from very white to soft gray.”
- “Don’t change the brick because you will never exactly match the gray bricks, and will wind up looking like mismatched bricks. I would lime wash the red brick, just to tone them down and make them blend better, but not try to exactly match the gray brick. I’d also leave the vertical siding, but paint it a darker gray…maybe the same color as your fascia boards. Glass garage doors are cool, but are not MCM. I’d keep the one you have, but paint it the same color as the siding. Get rid of the little colonial-looking panes in the garage window. It looks totally out of place as it is.“
- “The biggest opportunity with this elevation is creating a better focal point with the front door and main part of the house. Right now combination of colours/materials and large size of the garage addition compete with where you want to draw people’s focus. So, one route I’d consider is: remove the board and brick on the garage and replace with wide-plank boards; this is a period-appropriate material and is flat, which will help the texture of the main house’s sandy brick/mortar pop more. To help the garage fade into the background and add some visual interest to the elevation (as it’s a bit plain and could use some pops of detail), consider adding a white breeze block wall that starts at the front corner just to the right of the garage door and extends to roughly where the driveway starts to curve. Most important is finding a bolder/brighter colour for your front door; it’s too pale/bland right now and just kind of disappears into the recess of the roof; a few period-appropriate options would look great there, from a saturated blue-torquoise, deep orange, or rich coral.”
- “I don’t think changing the siding to horizontal is going make a big impact. I would spend that money on landscaping that window side of the garage. A new, modern garage door would help, too. I don’t know how to get that red brick to match. You probably can’t. That said, try the lime wash on a less noticeable area before you commit to doing it.“
- “Paint the garage red brick, siding and garage door the dark gray trim color. Remove double hung window in garage, done!”
- “Paint your garage door to match your front door…or go a geometric mural since it’s such a focal point. Have some fun with it. I’ve seen people do a great job of painting faux MCM skinny rectangular windows down one side as well.”
You can read more tips about this topic and offer your own suggestions here.
