Products and ideas to remodel your mid century home in authentic vintage style
Your daily dose of midcentury remodeling resources…
home design inspiration… thrifty finds… and a generous
community of people passionate about their vintage and
postwar homes – “modern” and “modest” alike.
I'm Pam Kueber, your mid mod mad guide. Read more
Vintage steel cabinets that have wood doors are starting to surface quite a bit lately. Erika recently purchased these vintage St. Charles’. Yowza, look at the brushed door steel trim and integrated cabinet pulls, these are absolutely gorgeous. Erika is in the midst of her kitchen renovation, but she pulled some cabinets out of the garage and into the house to take some photos to tantalize us.
Anne Taintor is one of my inspirations. Long before I got into the blog, I was a fan of her cheeky graphic takes on midcentury women, which combine “vintage images with Anne’s own interpretation of what these men and women might really be thinking.” Hey, I certainly can identify with this magnet — my obsession with the blog and all things mid mod certainly feels like a room full of polka dots some days. Heck yeah there is more →
It’s a small world — I literally bumped into reader Cindy (center) as I headed to shop in Northamptom this weekend. This is really kind of freaky, because that’s a half hour from her house and an hour from my house, and there are 6,497,967 people in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Cindy had been going to tag sales with friends. She picked up this trio of vintage seagull wall art for $5. I think you’d call them “in the danish modern style” – although it might be more true to say “popular 70s.” I think these are great for patios… I have a brassy seagull wall hanging, also a steal $, above our barbecue in the U-shaped patio at the front of our house. Well done, Cindy. See you at the James Taylor concert at Tanglewood in two weeks!
A big “thank you” to Elizabeth Mary for hosting me at her house on Friday. She lives just 35 miles away, so I took a little road trip to visit her and see her 1946 house. More to come on the visit soon. Meanwhile, many thanks, Elizabeth, for your kind hospitality. Your house is gorgeous, so full of love. P.S. Yes, I collect vintage greeting cards, too. Basically, there is nothing mid-century I don’t collect, much to Mr. Retro Renovation’s consternation.
I have two large brochures of mid-century window treatment designs, published by Conso, the Consolidated Trimming Corporation. The booklets are not dated, but based on the furnishing and other hints, I put them early to mid-50s. Following up on the mega-post last week about fabrics for kitchen curtains, I scanned the brochures for design ideas. Above: Very classic… A picture window flanked by two double-hungs gets an austrian style cornice at the top, and pinch pleat cafe curtains below. The orange trim is terrific. Heck yeah there is more →
Reader Lee B. shares this find: Men’s neckties in fabric replicating our favorite Formica Boomerang laminate. $42 from the Brooklyn Museum. The site notes that the boomerang, or skylark pattern, was first designed by Brooks Stevens in 1950 and updated by Raymond Loewy in 1954. The intertwined shapes are called ‘biomorphic,’ and reflect the nation’s fixation at the time with atomic particles & aerodynamic styling. Thanks, Lee. Mr. Retro Renovation is for sure going to get one of these for Christmas.
HAPPY SUMMER SUNDAY, everyone. Here’s a little reminder to take a moment today and celebrate the teeny tiniest little details in your home. These vintage plastic bellflower curtain pulls must have been pulled up and down a million times since they were first installed. You can see how the oils on the Mrs.’ fingertips have left their mark. I find them amazingly beautiful. Maybe it’s the small stuff that is the most important of all. Thanks to flickr friend fancymefoxy for seeing this detail, and capturing it to share. You can see her entire photostream by clicking directly on the photo.
READER JSNUGBEAR adds his paint colors for a ranch house to our growing list of real-life reader stories. In addition, he has been a great reporter and taken lots of before, during, and after photos that show the transformation. Jsnugbear aka John also gets to show off his vintage cloth awnings, I am jealous. Above: A shot of the house, completed. And, do I spy with my little eye: Don Featherstone flamingoes to celebrate a major major item crossed off the “to do” list? 
Heck yeah there is more →
I am super fascinated by the archaic features and fixtures of midcentury houses…. Things that have been superseded by something more modern, or which simply faded from fashion. Quick! We better get them on the blog fast, so’s we don’t forget them. Stuff like hudee rings, and push-button plumbing, and appliance centers, and today: Dovecotes [...]
Albas posted this strange pink 1962 sink for sale on the Forum. A one eyed one horned giant purple people eater. Actually, there seem to be THREE of these sinks for sale. But what are they? We have never seen these wodditties before.
Remember the Sunbeam appliance center (pictured at the bottom) that I bought myself for my birthday? Well, I recently saw this ad for another one, from Westinghouse. Isn’t it just spectacular?
Over on the Forum, EmbraceEphemeral spotted and posted this vintage sauna for sale. You know — the old fashioned kind where you get locked in like you’re in a refrigerator, but your head is sticking out. It’s on craiglist in Indianapolis, $95. Hilarious! I’ve started to categorize various “wonderful oddities” — “woddities” — that together we [...]
Thanks to reader Diane for this tip: An amazing vintage midcentury modern dollhouse — in serious decay. It is for sale on craigslist for $40 in Columbus. Diane rightly points out that it might fit my “wonderful oddities” category. But I’d take it a step further and say that this is one of those artifacts [...]
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