This Mid-Century Modern “Time Capsule” House Rocks

Name: Taylor, a husband named Ross, a cat named Simba, a dog named Chili, and a baby named Seven.
Location: Wilmington, North Carolina
Size: 2,500 square feet
Years lived in: 2 years, owned

My name is Taylor and I own a greeting card company named Tay Ham. I live in my dream house with my husband Ross (who owns a tech company called Connected Investors) and our little baby girl, Seven, who will be a year old this June. We also have a blue Weimaraner rescue named Chili, and a yellow cat named Simba. We found our house a few springs ago and bought it without even going inside first. We were cruising around one Saturday morning and remembered our friend told us about this cool house she saw for sale. We went to go look just for fun.

After walking around peeking in windows we called the realtor to get some info. They were taking highest and best offers and all bids had to be in within that day by noon! It had only been listed for two days. We decided to put in an offer and few hours later we were the proud owners of a new old house that we hadn’t even been inside of yet. We were not planning on buying a house that weekend but this house had such good vibes.

It needed A LOT of work—the roof was literally caving in. We just felt so much love for it and have had the best time bringing it back to life. It also came practically fully furnished. The guy even kept receipts and catalogs of all of the furniture he bought and magazine clippings of houses he took ideas from. It was so inspiring to see his entire design process. It encouraged us to keep a lot the same as we found it. We chose the same paint colors in a lot of rooms, kept the original oven, and some wallpaper stayed, too. We found dead stock carpet from the ’70s and used that for part of the house. In the rest of the house I chose to tear up the carpet and finish the concrete slab, which is probably the only real change we made.

We are only the second owners. The first was a man and his family who built the house in 1968 and lived there until he was 96! We stay in touch with his daughters who sold us the house. They come over to have cookies and coffee three or four times a year. It’s really cool. They really love that we kept the house how their dad had designed it. There are some crazy similarities between our families, too. Us being in this house was kismet and we love it so much.

In conclusion, I love my house and all the things and people that came along with it.

Describe your home’s style in 5 words or less: Mid-Century Modern Time Capsule.

If you could magically change something about your home, what would it be? When we decided to keep everything as it was originally that meant keeping the teeny tiny bathrooms. If I could magically make the master bathroom bigger without changing anything else about the house I’d do that.

Any advice for creating a home you love? It’s important to remember that it is a home and not a museum. Make it livable, comfortable and great-looking!

Thanks, Taylor!

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