From “crayon box explosion” to classic Midcentury Modern, this urban bungalow is an inspiration.

No more teal ceilings.

When Stacey Childs bought this Ludlow house, it was very, very colorful. The second bedroom, which she uses as her office, had two pink walls, two yellow walls and a teal ceiling. This bold scheme continued on the first floor. It was difficult to see past the small rooms and crayon box colors, but Stacey knew she could maximize the space and bring the house back to life.

Inspired by Midcentury Modern style, often called “mid mod,” she neutralized the wall and ceiling colors and opened up the rooms by taking out the wall between the dining room and kitchen. Now, a black herringbone tile backsplash stretches nearly the length of the home’s back wall, accented with dark wood open shelves.

Upstairs, Stacey again reworked the existing space to enlarge the bathroom and add more closet space in the master bedroom.

The classic grey, white and black color palette is softened by midcentury wood furniture, butterscotch leather and lots of plants.

Since the bungalow house style is common in the Greater Cincinnati area, this renovation can inspire other homeowners to “mid modernize” their own spaces.

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Thank you to the exclusive sponsor of this episode:

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More information about the property

Learn more about the City of Ludlow here.

Follow Stacey’s renovation company, Left Bank Property Development, on Instagram here.

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Additional photos of the property (slide show)

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If you’d rather read than watch, here is the episode transcript:

Jill Morenz, host: Hello, welcome to another episode of Beyond the Curb: River City Living. I’m Jill Morenz with The Catalytic Fund. Today I’m going to show you what’s possible when renovating one of these bungalows that you see throughout Northern Kentucky. This one’s in Ludlow, and it’s a treat.

This episode is sponsored by First Financial Bank. They are a community bank, not just a bank in your community. Learn more about their services at bankatfirst.com.

Although there are still some exterior projects to complete, the interior of this house has been changed dramatically. When Stacey Childs bought it, the house had small rooms and was painted in bold, dated colors. Now the rooms float together much better. The black, white, and gray color palette is warmed up by the butterscotch leather couch, wood furniture and floors and carefully chosen accessories.

Stacey took out the original wall that divided the kitchen from the dining room. The way Stacey created this kitchen out of the two original rooms is so beautiful and functional. She put in this huge island and built these shelves that stretch all the way across the long back wall. I love the black travertine backsplash with the wood shelves.

Upstairs, the master bedroom originally did not have a useful closet. So Stacey had the slanted sections on either side of the dormer turned into closets, concealed behind sliding barn doors.

Look at the tiny bathroom that was here before Stacey got to work on it. She borrowed space from the neighboring bedroom’s closet and was then able to fit in a custom vanity, roomy shower and clawfoot tub. This is the second of three bedrooms. Stacey uses the third bedroom for her office.

Stacey Childs, homeowner: I found this house because I was looking for it. I was looking specifically for a place in Ludlow and was lucky enough to come across this particular house. It needed a lot of work and that’s exactly what I was looking for. I always like to put my stamp on the places that I live in, and so this was perfect. I was able to come in and basically destroy the interior of this house and rebuild it from, basically from its bones up. The reason I bought it is because of the fact that I always buy houses that have a tendency to, I guess, talk to me. This one, when I walked in there was so much natural light, even in the state that it was in. It was just saying, “please help me be pretty again. I’m here and I need someone to bring the joy back.”

I have kind of a building and sort of construction background and walking through here, I knew which walls were load-bearing, which ones I could remove and move around easily enough. So the wall between the dining room and my kitchen was the first thing to go, to open up the space and make this more of an open concept floor plan and just move more light around here.

One of my favorite features is probably my little half bath that I created in the kitchen. Most people don’t even know it exists, they just think that maybe it’s a pantry. But once you open the door, we carried the exposed brick into that half bath. And I also used some salvaged materials from a house about this age. So the sink, the toilet, the mirror, everything in that room is all repurposed and was put back into this house to give the house a little bit of that feel of that era, so to speak. The house was built in the mid-forties so I still wanted to give a nod to that era of the house and not modernize everything.

I love the open shelf concept. I know it’s not for everybody, but for myself, for somebody that, I guess lives a pretty neat and tidy and very organized lifestyle, it works perfectly for me. I really like to be able to display my bourbons and my coffees and teas, I collect both. So having them on display really works out great.

I love living in Ludlow. While the proximity of the city is great, the fact that it’s has this really small town vibe, but you’re three minutes from downtown Cincinnati. The community itself, the local people that own businesses here, they live here. So supporting local means a lot to me, supporting small business means a lot to me. So the fact that I can do that here in Ludlow is, it’s a fantastic community. I also like to be able to walk to the coffee shop and to my local tavern. And if I have need for small grocery items, I can also do that as well. My walks about 10 minutes, but it’s close enough to be able to go right into town and not have to jump in my car.

Jill: Thank you so much for joining me on our tour of this creatively re-imagined urban bungalow in Ludlow, Kentucky. I invite you to take a look at our website for other episodes and in-person tours. You can find those at beyondthecurb.org. On behalf of our sponsors and The Catalytic Fund, I’m Jill Morenz, and thanks for coming Beyond the Curve with us.

Beyond the Curve is presented by The Catalytic Fund, a company that through its investments and real estate expertise, executes high impact real estate projects in Northern Kentucky and creates new spaces for living, working and entertainment.