Their midcentury house had lost its charm. They brought it back to 1966.

Dana Jenkins and Colin Davis began their house search in Atlanta six years ago with a dream: a midcentury modern house filled with character.

When they walked into the four-bedroom, three-bath tucked away on a street in the suburb of Chamblee, they knew it wasn’t perfect. The 1960s property bore all the hallmarks of a modern flip: white and gray paint on most walls, granite countertops reminiscent of the mid-to-late 2000s, brushed nickel hardware, farmhouse-style shaker cabinets.

Still, they could tell the house had all the bones of the midcentury modern home of their dreams. The original ceilings were untouched, a skylight allowed the perfect amount of sunshine from outside; a fireplace in the home’s lower level added the type of natural warmth they wanted their home to have.

“There’s these little details with midcentury modern homes, and this isn’t one of a kind, but you can tell it had some type of thought going into it when the builders planned it to begin with,” Davis said.

For the past five years, Jenkins, 29, and Davis, 30, have thrown themselves into renovating their home and restoring the house back to its original 1966 glory. They call the process “unflipping.” In a city like Atlanta, where luxe modern houses and condos are increasingly popular, the couple has found a following interested in their careful curation and effort to bring the past into the present.

Despite having no design experience, the couple was guided by a love of Frank Lloyd Wright and his Usonian style. As soon as they moved in, they got to work, starting with the exterior. First, they painted the outside, replacing the blue (it “wasn’t a charming midcentury blue,” Jenkins said) with a more natural, neutral shade.

Then they took on the kitchen, where the granite counters and shaker cabinets simply had to go. Every color they introduced to the house, from the olive backsplash to the slate flooring, was inspired by nature.

“While this might not be a Usonian house, we do try to encapsulate that because the general theme for the style is: bring in the natural elements and feel clean, simple,” said Davis, who loves the mountains and the outdoors.

The kitchen renovation provided a valuable lesson. “Saving on certain things and then splurging on others has helped a lot,” Jenkins said. They invested in a pricier refrigerator but got kitchen cabinets from Ikea; they splurged on trim and casing for their doors but bought the doors from Lowe’s.

Unflipping the house has become all-consuming in the best way possible, the couple said. While they both work full time — she as a pharmacist and he in cybersecurity — they spend almost all of their free time dreaming of and searching for ways to bring midcentury modern items into the house.

“I’m always on Facebook Marketplace, always just online looking for pieces, estate sales, thrifting, always looking,” Davis said. To date, the couple has spent $76,000 on renovations and design.

There have also been some dream items that required the couple to exercise some patience, like the floating wooden Poul Cadovius wall unit and the Z chairs in their living room, items Davis calls “golden.”

“We looked for a shelving unit for the longest time, and we finally found one and once we got that put in it was like ‘All right, this is the piece to work around,’” Davis said.

Downstairs, the flipped house had a built-in bar. Davis said they changed the shape of the bar to make it more slanted and add some midcentury charm, and they threw in some green and yellow floral barstools.

The couple knew that the original house probably had wood paneling on the lower level’s walls, so after a few projects, they took down the wallpaper and did what Jenkins described as “very divisive” thing: replaced it with wood paneling. A Nova arc lamp, burnt orange tufted sofa and some curtains completed the space.

The hunt for the perfect items has led the couple to get to know some resellers both locally and across the country. They’ve also brought their family into the fun, particularly Jenkins’s dad, who has driven several pieces of furniture from the Northeast to Atlanta for the couple.

“When he’s in, we always say ‘bring the minivan’ and we’ll buy things while he’s here that we can transport in his van,” Jenkins said. Although her dad has always been happy to help out — schlepping a sofa from Scranton, Pennsylvania, for example — he hasn’t always seen his daughter and son-in-law’s vision.

“He grew up in the ’60s and ’70s and was like, ‘Why are you putting wood paneling in your basement?’ But when he saw it all come together he’s like, ‘OK I get it now. I love this down here.’”