Retro Renovation» decorating misc.

4 vintage modern tiles — pretty as a peacock

pam kueber — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:50:42 +0000

I love midcentury modern decorative wall tiles — so tactile, so rich in their colors and fanciful in their design. These are great collectibles and “mix it up” in terms of adding texture and visual interest to your walls or tabletops. I went poking around Bungalow Bill’s website to see what new/old eye candy he had to entertain and delight (or buy) and found a flock of peacocks that made me very happy indeed. If you got it, flaunt it. If you don’t got it, get it. Above: “A large mid century modern tile by Ruscha. It has all the colors popular in the early 60′s decor; red, persian blue and emerald green,” Bill says. Three more birds of a feather follow –>

Above: Peacock tile designed by Inge Exner 1961-1962, for Knabstrup, Denmark. Yes: A tile can be “Danish Modern,” too.

Above: The maker of this pretty guy seems to be a mystery. Bill say it’s German.

Finally, above: Okay, so this is not mid-century modern, it’s earlier. But it is quite beautiful — and the most valuable of the bunch. Bills says:

This 7-inch round tile has an embossed figure of a peacock with his tail spread wide. It was made by Helen Greenleaf Lane. Similar examples can be seen in on the cover of Volume 4 of the Encyclopedia of American Art Tile by Norman Karlson, and in Volume 2 of California Tile: The Golden Era 1910-1940. Lane studied pottery at the University of Southern California under Glen Lukens. Her output from her studio in Upland was short, only between 1920-1929. Seldom do tiles from this artist surface for sale. The condition remains excellent with no chips, cracks, or repairs.

Thank you, Bill, for giving me permission to feature these photos. Readers, check out all of Bungalow Bill’s beautiful wares on his website here.

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170 plastic Decorator Panels in 19 groovy patterns — New Old Stock for sale in Austin

pam kueber — Mon, 07 May 2012 08:30:49 +0000

“…I promptly dropped my phone and fell
out of my chair” – Dustin, upon the discovery.

Boom! Pow! Welcome to Monday morning: Here is a great find: 170 new-old-stock (NOS) of 6′ x 2′ plastic decorator in 19 patterns, found in Pennsylvania and now for sale near Austin, Texas. And a first for the blog: This story has a back story of murder, too.

According to seller Dustin, who contacted me with his fabulous find:

The majority are “Shatterproof, indoor Saftiplass by Lancaster products Co., 4030 Freeman Blvd, Redondo Beach California.” Others are labeled “CRYSTA-LITE Decorator panels by Manchester Products Co. 8966 Mason Ave., Chatsworth, California…. They have been sitting idle, stored flat, covered, and untouched for 30-40 years. These were never used, still with the original stickers, and maintain the same fresh, vivid colors as the day they were made.

Yup, they look pretty vivid, all right. Please note, though, that I played with the image files, adjusting exposures, dialing up the black, etc. Check with Dustin (more info before) to get a sense of true colors, which area always difficult to capture digitally…

Update: In photo above, you can see that Guy has one of these in his house, which I featured on the blog in 2010. It’s just like Dustin’s green guy, only orange. It seems to be being used as the translucent side to a bookcase/cubby. Cool!!!

Fantastic.

Dustin writes:

My father-in-law — who I will refer to as Yoda (consider me Luke) — is a picker in Central Pennsylvania. He called me one day (I’m the tech-savvy researcher) and asked if he should buy these panels. I asked him to send me a picture and I promptly dropped my phone and fell out of my chair.

As a fan of design (similar to an armchair quarterback) I realized these things were (1) very, very cool, and (2) a couple of searches led to the determination they are very rare. Further research determined that these were very popular in homes and restaurants from the 1940′s through the 1970′s, but the polystyrene panels have been out of production for decades.

I had him pull the treasure trove in an old Pennsylvania warehouse, where they have been sitting idle, stored flat, covered, and untouched for 30-40 years. These were never used, still with the original stickers, and maintain the same fresh, vivid colors as the day they were made.

The stack contains 19 or so patterns in a variety of colors, and we currently have multiples of each. They measure 6 ft. by 2 ft. and are approximately 1/8-inch thick. They are easy to cut with standard tools such as with a jigsaw, table saw, band saw, or circular saw, or they can be scored and snapped.

The majority are labeled “Shatterproof, indoor Saftiplass by Lancaster products Co., 4030 Freeman Blvd, Redondo Beach California.” Others are labeled “CRYSTA-LITE Decorator panels by Manchester Products Co. 8966 Mason Ave., Chatsworth, California.” Both companies went out of business long ago, and if you Google Manchester Products, you bring up an interesting story about the owners. [Pam takes the hint and investigates with the google: Yikes: In 1985, two brothers -- who co-own the Manchester Products business with their mother -- hire a killer to murder their parents... The "Ninja Murders."]

With the right lighting, the panels are breathtaking. They can be used as room dividers, restaurant booth privacy screens, made into lampshades, sun catchers, or to restore a vintage door or windows and more ideas I probably can’t wrap my head around.

The panels have made a trip to Austin, TX. Some have been sold, but we still have at least 170 of them in 19 of the 21 patterns we have pictured.

Prices range from $75 (‘cloud’ and ‘bottle’ pattern) to $125 (stain glass/intricate patterns). We’re asking $100 on the “psychedelic interwoven” pattern panels. We based pricing off of a number of factors:

Finding these is a challenge — the first buyer that contacted us has been looking for 13 years for these. His grandfather was a ear, nose, and throat doctor and had these hanging in his office. The gentleman still remembered them from when he was 12 years old (around 1970) and has been wanting to decorate his office with them but has been unable to find them until now.

The only ‘comps’ (comparable panels) we found was acryllic panels – even plain colored 6′ x 2′ panels run around $150-$200. When you get into the designs you’re talking several hundred dollars.

We asked an owner and good friend whose shop specializes in vintage architectural materials and his determination is that they would sell between $12-18 per square foot retail.

The one challenge is shipping: these things are delicate and large, so shipping really isn’t an option, therefore we need buyers to pick up (I’m about 10 miles north of Austin in Leander, Texas) and have enough room to lay these flat if they purchase a large amount (over 2 panels).

.

–> Readers (interested in buying any of these panels) can feel free to contact me at sitdropspeak@gmail.com.

Thank you, Dustin, for sending in this tip — so glad you found us. Hey, how did you find us, I ask? Dustin responds:

Hey Pam,

We found you through a lady who purchased all three of the Morocan pink and yellow panels. She suggested I let you know about them. Separately, I knew about your blog through researching some 60′s folding shower doors (I have 10 of them still stacked in their boxes in the garage, from the same place we got the panels).

I didn’t put two-and-two together until the lady made that suggestion. I’m sure glad I did! Thanks again for all your help and for promoting such an awesome style!

Hey, Dustin, Send me pics of those shower doors. We wanna see those, too. Wanna keep up with Yoda and Luke’s adventures, check out Dustin’s blog: Sit Drop Speak.

Texas: Go get these panels, stat.

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Mirror tiles from the 1970s — 12 designs

pam kueber — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 08:30:40 +0000

Really, I am such a contrarian, anti-authoritarian, pain-in-it, yes I am. If I have any sense whatsoever that the design powers-that-be believe something is *hideous*, I will go out of my way to find a way to say that it is fantastic. Sometimes I think I can cloud my own vision. But not in the case of: Mirror tiles from the 1970s. My vision is not clouded, it is clear: These are so much fun. Life is short. Have A LOT of fun. And if you Go Too Far with Decorating — Heck, It’s Only Decorating. I recently went on the hunt for vintage mirror tile, and here is what I found, along lots of artsy fartsy photos of two boxes of New Old Stock diamond coppertone mirror tiles that are now mine all mine *buwaha* or however you spell it evil laugh…

I got the idea to use mirror tiles when I began thinking about decorating ideas for my office/studio remodel. As regular readers know, I have become a bit obsessed with the 1970s. My office/studio will be My Hippy Place.

I don’t know exactly how mirror tiles entered my consciousness. For sure, I’ve seen quite a few of them, for example, in time capsule houses. Usually, they are discussed with derision. Definition of derision, from The Free Dictionary:

However, I thing that they are pretty darn cool. You can use as many or few as you like. They are DIY. They reflect light back into a room. They have texture. Why the heck not.

I originally went looking for gold vein mirror tile. The classique. However, I could not find any new. Well, correction: My glass guy here in Lenox, Carl at Lenox Glass, did find me some new. It was just what I was looking for, but OMG, it was $80 per tile. Yes: $80 per tile.

I also found some on craigslist — gold vein tiles, vintage, 44 pieces for $88 dollars, or something like that, in Cranston, Rhode Island. That’s a three-hour drive for me. I thought about it. But my tusch hurt just thinking about it. Update: They are still there, price is down to $1 a tile. That’s a great deal!

I searched ebay and etsy. Etsy – Bingo! – I found the little motherlode that I was looking for: Several styles of New Old Stock mirror tiles from seller cosasraras. There was a big stash uncovered that is now being unloaded.

Cosasraras has faux bois woodgrain mirror tiles (above). These were very tempting.

Cosasraras has black vein mirror tile.

She has mirror tiles with little diamonds outlined in white. There are two “colors” of mirror in this design: plain mirror inside white-painted diamonds, and coppertone mirror inside the white diamonds. I took a chance and ordered the coppertone. It’s kind of pinkish copper — the photos up higher and thumbnailed on the right are pretty true. I like my tiles a lot. They are weird.

Oh, cosasraras has scenics, too — like the sailing ship, above. Note how it is framed with the faux bois.

There are even Miro-esque scenes. Miro Mirro mirror tiles, hahaha. The come-hither poses on these boxes: priceless. Mirror tiles must have been 70s codes for … swingers? Cover your eyes, under-18s!

Airplane tiles. Ukelele. You gotta love the 70s. You gotta.

Repita: New Old Stock 1976 Mirror tile from cosasraras on etsy, still some left.

I also found some on the ebay (affiliate link) — different styles: gold vein, op art dot, choo choo, little bricks. Who knew there was so much creativity going on in mirror tiles back in the 1970s?

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Retro Renovation» decorating misc.

4 vintage modern tiles — pretty as a peacock

170 plastic Decorator Panels in 19 groovy patterns — New Old Stock for sale in Austin

“…I promptly dropped my phone and fell out of my chair” – Dustin, upon the discovery.

Mirror tiles from the 1970s — 12 designs

“…I promptly dropped my phone and fell
out of my chair” – Dustin, upon the discovery.