Products and ideas to remodel your mid century home in authentic vintage style
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postwar homes – “modern” and “modest” alike.
I'm Pam Kueber, your mid mod mad guide. Read more
Retro goodness is indeed bountiful in Bountiful, Utah. Reader vintigchik gets snaps for spotting this cowboy themed basement bar for sale and emailing me about it. I reached out to the seller — and in our exchange, he mentioned how this 1950s house had held another treasure: $45,000, which he found in the garage attic [...]
Malena saw my story about the mid century modern style lattice now available from Acurio Lattice, and she created these glamorous black lacquer wall panels using the Circles design. It sounds pretty easy and looks fantastic. Malena writes:
Update: It’s Thursday noon, and I have just gone through the comments one more time. Eliminated three more – mine and two repeats (moderation issues). Down to 1,018 and That is It. Getting ready to choose via the Random Number Generator… am doing it in an “audited” way for the record. Update: Congratulations to Tracy [...]
Here is a great idea from the ever-inspirational reader SF Troy. I recently checked in with him to see what has been going on in his Bay Area Eichler home. He said that he’s been very busy riding his bike in fundraisers — yay, Troy! — and only recently has settled back inside to contemplate [...]
If you’ve been holding out for great prices on vintage Marimekko designs for your bedroom or bathroom, go take a look at the Marimekko on sale at Crate & Barrel. The sheets above are the Samovaari design originally created by Maija Isola in 1970. It’s available in a variety of colors for towels, sheets, duvets and shower curtains, at great prices (for [...]
Perhaps the only thing more retro than a Murphy bed is buying plans to build one from a company that’s been selling DIY project plans since 1948. Reader Shane aka Trouble turned me onto U-Bild — which has been in business selling full-size, traceable plans to DIY woodworkers since the hey- was connected to the [...]
Thanks to reader Kate H. for the tip that several vintage designs from Vera Neumann — “Vintage Vera” — are now on the shelves at Macy’s.
When folks move into new/old 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s or 1970s homes, it seems like one of the biggest and most common needs is to update materials in the kitchen that are on their last legs. In general, if you have a laminate countertop that is in good shape, I’d say: Keep it. Or [...]
I have da boomerang laminates covered one-by-one in other stories, but here, I pull them into one place for those renovators to compare and constrast. According to my research, there are three laminate boomerang designs — with a total of 14 possible colorways — available today. Updated January 2011: Wilsonart ads 11 more colors of [...]
Here is another set of products from the past — still available today — with a fascinating history: ‘Memphis’ style laminates designed in 1978 by Ettore Sottsass, “the greatest Italian designer of the last half century.” These laminates are still offered by Abet Laminati. This is not necessarily a name familiar U.S. consumers, but Abet [...]
Where to find speckled gold laminate? Also called “lame” (with an accent on the “e”, as in “lam-ae.”) A typical reader question, like this one:
Arborite has two new laminates in their 2011-2012 collection that just popped onto my radar. I haven’t seen these as actual samples yet — I’ll order them this week. Meanwhile, I wanted to put them out there, because I know that many Retro Renovators have been left kind of up a creek since Formica discontinued [...]
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