If you have a vintage bathroom with pastel color tiles, one of the greatest ways to play the tiles up — and in a way, to play them down — is with a colorful patterned shower curtain. In just the same manner as wallpaper, shower curtains add visual interest with both pattern and secondary and tertiary colors that you can further accessorize with — that you can use to “pull the room together” in a pleasing way. Today, I show five colorful — kind of bold modern — shower curtains from DENY Designs that could easily be the starting point for giving a midcentury bathroom a fresh new look. Above: “Hide and Seek” shower curtain designed by Rebekah Ginda. Do you have a bathroom with blue tiles and black trim? Here you go.
5 colorful modern shower curtains from DeNY Designs
Posted by: • January 27, 2012
Small bathroom remodel in 5 steps
Posted by: • January 27, 2012
When I was at Mom’s last year helping with the renovation of her master bathroom, we also did a small update to the small, second bathroom. (Mind you: Five children grew up just fine traveling daily through this “tiny” bathroom. Don’t even get me started with today’s 20-something house hunters who can’t LIVE in a house with a bathroom this SMALL.) For the small bathroom freshening, I count basically five steps or decisions — mostly inexpensive ones — that gave the bathroom a fresh and classy sassy new look. The most expensive and only “structural” change — but the one with a very fundamental quality impact — was tiling the floor, eliminating vinyl:
Step one: Replace vinyl floor with stock ceramic tile.
We pulled out inexpensive 1970s-era vinyl flooring, and replaced it with white octagon-and-dot ceramic floor tile. We got the ceramic at Lowe’s, it only cost about $2.50 per square foot, as I recall. We used medium gray grout so that the shape of the tile would pop. And so begins my small “graphic bathroom.”
Inez Croom 1960s wallpaper — 47 designs still in production today
Posted by: • January 26, 2012
I am now into my fifth year of blogging daily here at Retro Renovation, and I have to admit: I am astonished that — most often through readers’ help — we together keep uncovering AMAZING designs created by AMAZING people from the postwar era that have received little or no recognition in the design world today. You’da think I’da run outta things to write about already. Not. So. Heck yeah there is more →
Come on people now, smile on each other, everybody get together, try and love one another. Right now.
Posted by: • January 26, 2012
I have been away. I was at a conference. Then I was at mom’s in Kentucky. Now I am back home. I have running around like a maniac. Alas, I have overdone it. I have a cold & flu, or some such. So today, a simple message of 70s luv. Straight from the guest bedroom at Mom’s house. I think this was mine, circa 1975. I futzed around with the image in Lightroom. I am not sure I was ultimately successful. But like I said, I am claiming exhaustion. Check back at noon, though. Something new coming. Did you know — I am now publishing twice daily, Monday-Friday. First thing in the a.m., then again just before noon. More RR daily to stoke your fires.
Satanic vintage wallpaper, yellow Preway fireplace in 1973 deck house
Posted by: • January 25, 2012
Yikes. Satanic 1970s wallpaper. This is among the strangest things I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure I could keep this in my house, it’s so creepy. But yay on reader Suzanne who will be keeping this … invaluable … original piece of her house. Also see her fab foyer and the school bus yellow vintage Malm Preway fireplace.
7 ceiling fans for a midcentury home
Posted by: • January 25, 2012
Roseana writes:
I’ve looked and looked on your site, but I’m not seeing much in the way of what folks have done about replacing ceiling fans in their ranch or modern homes. Here in Texas, they are just essential. I’ve used fans from Modern Fan Company (the Ball fan) in a couple rooms, but I’m looking for something that’s less “minimal” than that design. And NO light fixtures in the fan, please! Who’s got some great leads on ceiling fans that aren’t garish and still fit in with the retro look we’re all after?
Eva Zeisel: A comprehensive online guide
Posted by: • January 24, 2012
… Novelty is a concept of commerce, not an aesthetic concept…
Eva Zeisel, an iconic designer whose ceramic dinnerware and giftware was part of transforming design in midcentury America, died on Dec. 30, 2011. What an amazing woman. She lived to just past 105 — and worked throughout. I have been spending time immersing myself in reading about her life and designs, and the combination of joy + intelligence shines through. On this lengthy tribute, I have gathered all the best media — videos, articles, books — as well as Eva Zeisel products still available today — onto this one page.
One of my key takeaways from my research: Eva Zeisel refused to be held hostage by any philosophical design “movements”. In fact, she rejected the square lines and geometrical tyranny of the midcentury modernists — saying instead that designers should ignore any so-called common wisdom, and do the work that speak to their hearts. Or moreover: To their hands, given that she was a potter. She also said she loved rounded lines — the “S curve” — because she herself was a little bit… chubby. What a lovely woman. What a pip!
Read on for my comprehensive online guide to the life, work and products still available today of Eva Zeisel.
Somewhere in Time Antiques Mall, Radliff, Kentucky — 53 photos
Posted by: • January 24, 2012
I was in Kentucky last month, and while my mom went to an appointment, I speed-shopped the Somewhere in Time Antiques Mall along Route 60 in Radcliff, Kentucky. It was super duper fun — there was lots to ogle, from all eras, at generally terrific prices. Click on through for 52 more photos from my photo shoot. Heck yeah there is more →
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