Retro Renovation

Drum roll, please: Announcing 4 new vintage 1950s Atomic wallpapers from Bradbury & Bradbury, launched on RetroRenovation.com today.
Finally, our days of wallpaper deprivation are coming to an end. The images speak for themselves: These papers — along with Atomic Doodle, Googieland and the four 1940s papers that B&B introduced last month — are a tremendous [...]

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Stephen J. Bauer, artistic director and owner of Bradbury & Bradbury, kindly agreed to answer some questions about B&B’s new line of mid century wallpapers. I hope you find it really interesting…and fun. Hey, I’d sure like to have a couple of margarita’s with this guy! Thank you, Stephen, I owe you one!
1. Stephen, [...]

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Following up on yesterday’s 40s papers — here are the two great 50s vintage reproductions from Bradbury & Bradbury. I love Atomic Doodle, it reminds me of the vintage paper that I was able to finally hunt down for my kitchen. On the other hand, my BWW web genius advisor took an immediate shine to [...]

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I know that Pottery Barn and the like want you to buy those tabbed draperies, or the ones that simply slide onto decorative polls. But this is definitely not the right answer if you are in a mid century home! You need pinch pleat draperies, and that is that! In addition to looking so much [...]

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Melinamade’s website pointed me to Krypton Furniture’s retro modern line of furniture including these groovy chairs. At $1,799 each, you can’t call them inexpensive – but if you can swing the cash you know they’d make an incredible statement. Great to mix and match with more traditionally styled furniture in your 50s or 60s rumpus [...]

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I bought one yard of melinamade.com’s “celestial aqua” barkcloth to make the valance in my kitchen — and the fabric was just awesome. It is really nice and heavy-weight…great “hand”, or feel…and the colors are rich and beautiful. I love it, it makes a huge difference!
In the photos you get to see Melina herself. If [...]

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This fabric collection from Maharam — called Textiles of the 20th Century — is fabulous! It features vintage design fabrics for upholstery and draperies taken from original design classics from mid century designers (and their early 1900s European forefathers) including:
Gunnar Aagaard Andersen, Anni Albers, Charles and Ray Eames, Alexander Girard, Josef Hoffmann, Arne Jacobsen, [...]

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It’s fantastic that you can still get original-design Heywood Wakefield furniture, built new. In 1992 a Miami company bought the rights to the HW furniture line and began producing it to original specifications.
Heywood Wakefield “blonde” furniture was the epitome of 40s and 50s decorating. If you need a sofa - they have several models from [...]

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These are fabulous beyond belief — I am blown away that they still make these great, cone fireplaces! Okay, we’re now into 60s style…but I think one of these Malm Fireplaces will look great on the screen porch we’re planning out back. Alternatively: In the attic, when we get around to finishing off the space [...]

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I’ve had great luck with finding vintage lighting on eBay. I think the prices are the best, and it’s great to have true vintage lighting.
But I also love some of the lighting available from Rejuvenation Lighting, a Portland, Oregon-based company that creates reproductions from vintage stock. I’ve purchased some of their sconces for my bathrooms, [...]

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