This home’s been renovated a lot in the last four years, but instead of a modern makeover, owner Jesse Raimondi has turned it into a testament to the very best of mid-century modern style. You’ll walk in to see a swag light hanging in the corner. It’s activated by antique-style, push-button switches — the same as all the lights in the house — and sits above a wood-sideboard cabinet (with a plastic-dome record player on it) next to a green fiberglass chair and a grey tufted couch.
The kitchen’s ash wood-panel cupboards and copper-tile backsplash will bring readers of a certain age directly back to their childhoods. Those came with the house, but almost everything else — including the small white tulip kitchen table and chairs, yellow retro placemats and old-school dinnerware — are all 21st-century finds, just like the rotary phone (yellow, of course).
So how did 26-year-old Raimondi, who’s way too young to have seen these hues and home furnishings when they were mainstream, end up turning his first home into a living time capsule?
“Growing up, my family went down to Palm Springs a lot, and they have so many old homes from the ‘50s and ‘60s that are so well preserved and celebrated,” he says. “You can do self-guided tours in neighbourhoods that are completely preserved, and it just stuck with me forever.”
This home’s bones were preserved well enough that Raimondi, a landscape architectural technologist with Classic Landscapes, could turn it into something worth celebrating (with the help of his family). But some things stuck (almost) forever, like the rose wallpaper, which they took off “in dime-sized pieces.”
Sitting on the living room couch (it’s actually from IKEA, but Raimondi added legs), Raimondi’s relieved to have most of the work behind him, though he’ll never stop hunting for the next perfect piece, and he has his neighbours’ old turquoise-blue wall oven in his garage, waiting to be installed.
Not many 26-year-olds can buy and renovate their own homes. And not many people of any age can do what Raimondi’s done with his: Turn a childhood dream into a reality that could last a lifetime. “This is my first home, and hopefully my forever home,” he says. “I plan to be here for a very long time.”
Ballet Edmonton’s Home Tour takes place on September 21 & 22, 2024. This annual fundraiser allows patrons to see inside a curated selection of beautiful private homes while supporting the arts in Edmonton.
This article appears in the September 2024 issue of Edify
This content was produced in partnership with the advertiser by Odvod Publishing for commercial purposes.
