Retro Renovation

I am now the proud owner of a binder of large, vintage 1954 Armstrong advertising comps — created by Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, Inc., and signed off by Max Banzhaf in Floor Division National Advertisements. Pretty cool, huh?
Meanwhile - readers had been asking for more living room ideas — and I found some great [...]

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Portland Amy wrote to ask about paint colors and I requested more info — so that we can all continue our 50s voyeurism. Amy writes:
Here is the story on our house; it was custom built in 1953 in Portland, Oregon. We are fortunate enough to have the original blueprints. The man who had [...]

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Continuing the theme of the week, another great interior to scrutinize and learn from.

This 1952 living room dining room comes courtesy the interior designers at Armstrong Flooring. To be sure, this company had a massive influence via their advertising in establishing the postwar look. Seems like they were among the first to figure out that [...]

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I feel like I’ve been very focused on kitchens and bathrooms the past several months, so for the next several weeks I will be trying to spotlight a greater selection of 40s 50s and 60s living rooms, dining rooms and bedrooms.

Let’s start with this amazing living room dining room from 1952. The color combination [...]

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Femme 1 sends us our item of the day - coincidentally, from reader Ronn Ives’ shop, Futures Antiques. Femme1 says:
I’ve just been looking online at some of the older furniture sites I used to check. You might like this sofa. This is a great site–Futures– and the guy who runs it has been around a [...]

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I find it fascinating that primitive horse themes were so popular in the 50s and 60s. Why? To be sure, there was a sense of internationalism about modern interiors. Did these horse motifs evolve from Spain…or the prehistoric cave painting in Lascaux, France (at left) - as this 1959 interior (above) seems to clearly reference? [...]

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I’ve been holding off for a while on posting this incredible 1966 wood paneling, thinking I could find some today-sources for this stylish material. Click the images to enlarge and see the wonderful decorative detail. Alas, nothing on the internet. Does anyone have any other ideas…sources?

It’s so interesting - that this was so popular…then so [...]

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I love my home and everything in it. But when I saw this house. OMG. This is what they call a “storybook ranch.” I suppose, for all the bric-a-brac trim… the mimicking of a Hansel and Gretel cottage. You think we are trying to relive the past with our kitsch? We have nothing on these [...]

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click to enlarge both images
The smokey gray walls of the living room in a recent post on Chinese Ancestor paintings really struck me as gorgeous — and not something you’d really see a lot of today. The illustration above is from vintage materials - also really beautiful. It would be so easy to put this [...]

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It’s nice to see that furniture manufacturers are bringing back sofas and chairs that have more traditional scale and lines like those in the 1954 Simmons ad above and in the thumbnail.
By scale, I mean, not over-sized, like most of the sofas on the market today that are made for new construction home interiors. Today’s [...]

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