This is a RetroRenovation rerun originally published Nov. 9, 2008.

10. Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It’s not a lamp, but a “lamp”; not a woman, but a “woman.” To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater.

- Susan Sontag, Notes on “Camp”, 1964

Dan the Man at the Houston Architecture Info Forum recently linked to RetroRenovation.com with the following comment:

Here’s a neat blog on mid-century residential design. It tends towards the kitsch, but it recommends many resources and materials for appropriate renovations…

While I am truly grateful for the reco, I found myself reacting harshly at being called “kitsch” and the disparaging connotation. Hmmm. So what is kitsch…and should I care at being lumped in? I went over to Wikipedia to study etymology…

Of course, there was lots of discussion about avante-garde art and capitalist oppression of the masses… as expected. What really caught my attention, though, was this PostModern update, which to my mind,  confirms that this blog is not kitsch – it’s camp. Of this – I am proud!  Here’s more explanation for your Sunday Magazine reading. Warning: please caffeinate first, this is very “deep”:

With the emergence of Postmodernism in the 1980s, the borders between kitsch and high art became blurred again. One development was the approval of what is called “camp taste” – which can be related to but is not the same as Camp as a “gay sensibility.”^[2] Camp, in some circles, refers to an ironic appreciation of that which might otherwise be considered corny, such as singer/dancer Carmen Miranda with her tutti-frutti hats, or otherwise kitsch, such as popular culture events which are particularly dated or inappropriately serious, such as the low-budget science fiction movies of the 1950s and 60s. A hypothetical example from the world of painting would be a kitsch image of a deer by the lake. In order to make this Camp, one could paint a sign beside it, saying “No Swimming”. The majestical or romantic impression of a stately animal would be punctured through humour; the notion of an animal receiving a punishment for the breach of the rule is patently ludicrous. The original, serious sentimentality of the motif is neutralized, and thus it becomes Camp. Kitsch is never ironic. “Camp” is derived from the French slang term camper, which means “to pose in an exaggerated fashion.” Susan Sontag argued in her 1964 Notes on “Camp” that camp was an attraction to the human qualities which expressed themselves in “failed attempts at seriousness,” the qualities of having a particular and unique style and of reflecting the sensibilities of the era. It involved an aesthetic of artifice rather than of nature. Indeed, hard-line supporters of camp culture have long insisted that “camp is a lie that dares to tell the truth.”

More… on Susan Sontag and her role in all of this:

“Notes On “Camp”” is a well-known essay by Susan Sontag organized around 58 numbered theses. It was published in 1964 and was the author’s first contribution to the Partisan Review. The essay created a literary sensation and brought Sontag her first brush with intellectual notoriety. It was published in 1966 in book form in Sontag’s debut collection of essays, Against Interpretation (ISBN 0-87052-352-X).

The essay codified and mainstreamed the cultural connotations of the word camp, and identified camp’s evolution as a distinct aesthetic phenomenon.

Quotations

Indeed the essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. And Camp is esoteric — something of a private code, a badge of identity even, among small urban cliques.

9. Camp taste draws on a mostly unacknowledged truth of taste: the most refined form of sexual attractiveness (as well as the most refined form of sexual pleasure) consists in going against the grain of one’s sex. What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.

10. Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It’s not a lamp, but a “lamp”; not a woman, but a “woman.” To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater. [ Yes!]

18. One must distinguish between naïve and deliberate Camp. Pure Camp is always naïve. Camp which knows itself to be Camp (”camping”) is usually less satisfying.

41. The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious. More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex relation to “the serious.” One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious. ["Yes!"]

44. Camp proposes a comic vision of the world. But not a bitter or polemical comedy. If tragedy is an experience of hyperinvolvement, comedy is an experience of underinvolvement, of detachment.

[Update: Dan the Man actually saw this post and emailed me to say he kind of just used the term casually. No insult intended. In any case, it was fun to explore the difference between camp and kitsch...]

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Today is RetroRenovation.com’s second birthday. And on this occasion I would like to introduce something I’ve been noodling for the better part of the year — an all-new term that I have invented: “Mid-century Modest.” I first used the term at my home show talks in Eugene in March…and then again when I met with the wonderful Portland MCM League group for dinner right after.  I believe that author Cara Greenberg is credited with coining “mid-century modern,” in 1985, with her book of the same name. A mere 24 years later, let me introduce “Mid-century Modest” and along with it, the Mid-Century Modest Manifesto.

I think that we all pretty much know what “mid-century modern” design is all about, at least in its popular incarnation. There is an entire philosophy behind it, but in short, it’s typified today by sleek and futuristic designs like Saarinen tulip chairs, $6000 Eames lounges, and experimental-shaped, high-ceiling, loft-like contemporary homes. The irony is that while mid-century modern design came out a kind of communist “internationalist” ethic aiming to make housing more accessible to the masses, it can actually be out of reach. As you know, I like to call it “high falutin’ mid-century modern design” in recognition that authentic licensed designs are very expensive.

My new term, Mid-century Modest, recognizes the fact that while there may have been 1 million mid-century modern homes built in postwar America, there were about 29 million Mid-Century Modest homes. And, while Americans may have had a progressive social and economic outlook, they tended toward the conservative in their homes. In all these years, nothing quite says “stable and affluent” in the U.S. of A. like a center entrance Colonial. That’s why we see so many Early American elements both inside and outside our postwar homes. Finally, while some pundits today consider the vernacular mass-market postwar design all too “kitsch” and pretty much spit on the idea of “tract” houses and all they stood/stand for, I say: Let’s celebrate Mid-century Modest, too – because this era of American housing and all it encompassed were really quite fascinating and special.

So, that said, here is a first draft of my “Mid-Century Modest Manifesto”:

The Mid-Century Modest Manifesto

NO QUESTION, we love Mid-Century Modern homes,
the high falutin’ designer kind.
BUT IN POSTWAR AMERICA, while we built
maybe 1 million mid-century moderns –
we built some 29 million Mid-Century Modest homes.
MID-CENTURY MODEST:
Mainstream. Main Street. Mass produced. Middle Class homes.
ROYAL BARRY WILLS Cape Cods at one end of the architectural spectrum.
CLIFF MAY Ranches on the other.
AND OVER THE NEXT 30 YEARS –
a gazillion prosaic, vernacular melting-pot variations in between.
MID-CENTURY MODEST HOMES ARE: Small –
1,000 square feet for many years running.
“SMALL” TODAY– but to their owners starting in 1946,
they were the culmination of the American Dream.
Following years of economic Depression and WWII,
these little homes were an amazing gift.
HOW DO WE LOVE THEE, Mid-Century Modest homes?
Let us count the ways…

• Built with love and immense gratitude.
• Wonderful features – pastel bathrooms, fitted kitchens, livable layouts.
• Knotty pine paneling – installed by Gramps.
• Lots of ingenious Americana
  like Nutone exhaust fans, Hall-Mack Tow’lscopes, and Dishmasters.
• Wallpaper and pinch pleats and pull-down kitchen lights.
• Boomerang cabinet pulls and wagon wheel lights and braided rugs.
• Indoor plumbing.
• Unpretentious. Exuberant. The first taste of true material comfort
  for many millions of people.
• Our houses have stories…
  Stories about the beginning of a new American era still playing out today.
• Did I mention small? Yes. But small is — green.
• Small is quite often: “enough.”

THERE IS MUCH TO APPRECIATE in our Mid-Century Modest homes.
And certainly nothing to apologize for.
GRANITE countertops? Who needs ‘em, especially when they come with
a home equity loan that stresses our family finances beyond our limits.
What silliness. What Insanity.
SHHHH! Don’t tell anyone, but our Mid-Century Modest homes,
because they are so unpretentious by today’s standards,
can be much more affordable to buy and to renovate.
RETRO RENOVATION is very much about the “Re”:
Reduce. Re-Use. Recycle. Restore. Re-Store.
Returning to the source of “The American Dream”…
And in the process, re-thinking what we want it to mean for us today.
OH YEAH, and Retro style has a happiness-quotient that is off the charts.
WE LOVE our Mid-Century Modest homes
in all their glorious simplicity and optimism,
and cherish the opportunity to safeguard their history and heritage.
That’s the: Mid-Century Modest Manifesto.

Copyright © RetroRenovation.com 2009

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Oh my goodness, look at this incredible vintage Case vanity.

It is on craigslist and was spotted by Scathing Jane who has posted it on the Forum. The listing says that this sink top is 24″ x 56″.

Somewhere I have the add for this sink – with its wrought iron base. INCREDIBLE.

My new favorite of all time, this post now goes in “10 best bathrooms.” The set, including the tub and toilet, is listed for $1,100.

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These mint-in-box pink flamingo wall tiles from the Mosaic Tile Company may well be the most wonderful thing I have ever seen. They are for sale now at BungalowBill.com. Worth every penny of the $2,300 price. Here is what Bill says on his site:

This HUGE panel by the Mosaic Tile Company of Zanesville Ohio dates from 1949 and comes straight from an estate in Florida. These tiles were never installed. They have been packed safely away for 60 years, looking as new as when they came out of the factory. Traditionally a panel such as this was used as the focal point on the back wall over the tub and shower. But, if you can’t commit to installing this prize and leaving it for the next owner, you can always mount and frame it for moveable enjoyment. Your bathroom doesn’t even need to be pink!

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Susan peeks at us from the other side of her vintage, pink Jack 'n Jill bathroom. I am so jealous.

IT’S A PINK BATHROOM BONANZA. Here we have not only pink , but also the blog’s first Jack ‘n Jill bathroom. And — the adorable Susan (above), a first-time homeowner, to tell us all about the bathroom, and her ‘new’ 1962 home. Surprise surprise, her note includes this:

When we first bought the house I was not a fan of the bathrooms. However, thanks to your site I have realized how great a pink bathroom can be!

Susan writes:

My fiancé and I just purchased a 1962 split level in Northcrest, a subdivision outside of Atlanta.  When we tell people where we live many say, “Isn’t that where all those weird houses are?” We proudly say yes!  (For some really interesting history and a peek at the neighborhood check out www.northcrestmodern.com). We are truly, madly, deeply in love with our mid-century wonder! Here is our story:

Though Eric (my fiancé) and I both grew up in the area we never knew of Northcrest’s existence. A mid century enthusiast friend encouraged us to check it out. We fell in love with the neighborhood and began driving through several times a week. We were in no position to buy a home but that didn’t stop us from checking out every new home listing and every open house. We became total Northcrest stalkers and I’m sure the neighbors probably became concerned.

While looking in the windows of a property for sale Eric was approached by a man who had been driving by. He said he had a house for rent around the corner and would Eric like to see it? Of course Eric agreed. The guy led him around the corner to his recently vacated rental and showed him around. He told Eric that no one seemed interested in renting so he would also be willing to sell it since he was living on the other side of town and paying two mortgages. Eric loved it and a few days later on our regular stalker drive Eric took me by to see the house.  The owner just happened to be there (coincidence or fate?) cleaning a few things up and let me come in to look. I was smitten too!

Soon after our visit the owner called to ask if we would like a chance to buy the home before he hired a realtor and put it on the market. Being in no position yet to buy we declined and in February the house went up for sale.  In May the house went under contract. We were heartbroken and even stopped driving through the neighborhood for a while. It was just too depressing.  Later that month we found a realtor and began our house hunt in earnest. We looked plenty of houses in plenty of neighborhoods. While many were lovely and we tried really hard to like them none had that “this is it!” feeling like our Northcrest home. Then one day I got an excited call from Eric. He had just driven through Northcrest and had great news. Our house was no longer under contract and it was still for sale! It was like it had been waiting for us. We immediately called our realtors (who told us the house had actually been under contract twice), put in an offer and after much negotiating, which is a whole other story, the house was ours!

We closed on July 21st. It hasn’t been totally smooth sailing. Part of our negotiations with the seller was trying to figure out what to do about the plumbing. When our home was built copper piping was cheap and galvanized steel was the fancier way to go. Unfortunately steel pipes rust. We had to have all the plumbing in the house replaced all the way out to the street. It took 3 days of no water but we got it done! The dishwasher is old and at one point was draining into the crawl space. The oven thermostat doesn’t work right. The carpet was totally disgusting and the basement floor is covered in asbestos tiles. The exterior of the house is actually 3 different colors of grey because no one bothered to match the paint for touch ups. The best paint is on the front so it looked good for realtor pictures. However, all those not so great things are what made the house affordable!

We have beautiful tongue and groove pine ceilings, an awesome brick fireplace and wet bar in the den and totally great neighbors! The living room has a wall of windows looking out onto our front yard. The path to the neighborhood pool goes right next to our house. Since the house was not upgraded in any way it leaves plenty of room for awesome renovations! We are in the process of stripping (yes taking all the necessary lead paint precautions) the old paint off the kitchen cabinets and making new cabinet doors. [Pam adds this note: Way to go with environmental and safety precautions. Gold star.] (We are thinking of getting some snap on stainless counter edging. Take a look at the pictures and see what you think!) A new counter top is in order for the wet bar and we are considering taking down drywall a previous owner put up over an exposed brick wall. The downstairs bathroom is going to get new drywall and a new floor.

The Jack and Jill was to be the bathroom of the future! Many of the homes in our neighborhood have them (or had them. People tend to redo them). The bigger, more narrow side of the bathroom is the guest bath which is accessible from the hallway. The smaller one is attached to the master bedroom. We are pretty sure the star burst light fixtures are original. The tile is in sad shape but we think a good professional cleaning and sealing will make it almost new again. The ceilings are stained tongue and groove pine. I also threw in the picture of the outside of the house.

When we first bought the house I was not a fan of the bathrooms. However, thanks to your site I have realized how great a pink bathroom can be!

It’s all so exciting. I really couldn’t imagine being anywhere else!

Thank you so much for sharing, Susan. It’s great to hear your story. And it sounds like you know to buckle up, as renovation is almost always a bumpy ride. Also, I hope you don’t mind my calling you ‘adorable.’ I am quite much older than you, it’s one of the perks. Keep us apprised of your home-making shenanigans and continue to renovate safely.

Susan and Eric’s blog: Our Modern Mess.

P.S. I also added you to our 10 BEST BATHROOMS list. Woo hoo!

Update: Susan, Tikimama says you need vintage Jack ‘n Jill wall decor like this, from etsy Modtiki:

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Yes — we are all dedicated to Save The Pink Bathrooms — but that quest is just emblematic, of course. We love midcentury bathrooms of all colors – blue, yellow, pinky-beige, grey, green, salt n pepper… I recently spotted some great images from Tiki Lisa’s blue bathroom (after the jump), and it got me to thinking… Let’s pull together all our blue bathrooms for a comprehensive look at this classic midcentury color. 22 bathroom inspirations in all.

Above is Tiki Lisa’s bathroom faucet. I have not seen one quite like it, until now. I love her tile-in sink. And notice the tile, it appears to be the gold granite salt and pepper style. You can still get this today, folks.

Here’s another angle on Lisa’s wonderful blue sink and faucet. I’m all for crystal faucets if they have a nice solid hand feel, as the old ones often do.

And here’s Lisa’s coordinating toilet, set against vintage blue wallpaper. See more of Tiki Lisa’s photos on flickr, and on her blog Atomic Tea Party. Thanks, Lisa!

Meanwhile, here’s another new-to-the-blog vintage blue bathroom, 1963, in this home for sale by Uncle Jack. Notice that cute daisy wallpaper. I love the look of the vanity. And darn, I want to see the floor and toilet better. You can still get mirror-cabinet combo’s like these from Nutone.  See the listing via the lefthand column of VeryVintageVegas.com.

In another news update, one of our readers just wrote to say that she is buying this wonderful 1959-era American Standard sink and vanity, one of our favorite styles ever ever, and featured in a recent Retro Radar. See the complete 1959 suite here, in green. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the deal works out! Now… for some previously featured posts…

 

Above: One of the coolest blue bathrooms ever in this 1964 time capsule, so well designed and featuring all the latest gizmos. Click on the first image to start the slide show.

Luminous blue tub, toilet and sink from deabath.com.

Vintage blue fixtures in a grey bathroom…includes a great vintage American Olean tile set of fishes.

We love Cinderella bathtubs.

50s and 60s bathrooms used to have laminate countertops in styles like this. Swoon.

We choose shower curtains for Amy’s blue…well, aqua…early 60s bathroom.

Light blue and medium blue paired in an affordable and easy-to-replicate vintage style tile design.

Feeling groovy in this mid mod bathroom from Chile. Red punches up blue so beautifully.

One of our favorite longtime readers, Palm Springs Stephan, gutted his condo bathroom and replaced it with this wonderful retro renovation.

Alice’s blue bathroom tile, after she’s cleaned the grout with Zep.

A Las Vegas time capsule bathroom. Be sure to see this post for the great Moe lighting in the dining room.

Michael’s very cool bathroom, Worthington, Ohio. Great tile and a wall-mount toilet — we haven’t seen many of these toilets yet, except in literature from the period. Very, very cool.

How much do we love Alice’s bathroom (and kitchen and whole house) in Richmond, Va. Let us count the ways, it’s nearly Perfect!

Anthropologie bath towels will fit right into a vintage blue bathroom, original or retro renovation.

Are blue bathrooms getting your attention yet? Scantily clad genies may help: 1956 Eljer ad.

More advertising inspiration: 1953 Kohler bathroom with two tones of blue tile.

Sinks I saw on ebay. Most excellent for a 60s “Romany Spartan” style bathroom retro renovation.

Here’s tile that would look great with the sinks. Again, very Romany Spartan-inspired.

Did I mention that when I renovated my three 1951 bathrooms I made one of them blue? It’s probably the favorite one in the family – very cheery, classic, too. My field tile came from Olympia – who have now discontinued this Maple Leaf tiles. But this color, essentially a ‘heron blue’ or ‘robin’s egg blue’, is available now by other large brands. Good news – there’s almost nothing more affordable than thsi 4×4″ field tile… and the look is spot-on for retro renovations. Update you interiors to be sympathetic to the original styling and period of your home — and the results will surely have a more timeless appeal.

Do you want to renovate or create a vintage-style blue bathroom of your very own? You can find most all the retro resources catalogued on my Bathroom Fast & Easy page here.

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WOW, THIS IS AN AMAZING TREASURE TROVE: An online archive of 46 years of Aladdin Home Sales Catalogs, courtesy of Central Michigan University and its Clarke Historical Library. I’m serious: Complete catalogs: Page through for hours and watch the history of middle-class housing styles in the first half of the American 20th century unfold. The catalogs were the principal marketing method for the houses…. So also you get all kinds of little detail that paints a picture of how people lived, what they considered when looking for a house… See the dramatic shifts during the Depression and wartimes, for example. They are little social history books.  Aladdin’s were kit houses… manufactured houses like the famous Sears’  models. These kinds of homes are EVERYWHERE across America.

The series starts in 1908, with cottages and $98 hunting lodges and one house, at about $600. As the years progress we see bungalows, capes and Dutch Colonials…barracks during WWII…on into the 50s. The images here are from ‘54, the last year for catalogs posted, but the bio says Aladdin, which was based in Bay City, Mich., manufactured homes until 1981.

Here’s some history about the firm:

• Begun in 1906 by two brothers, Otto and William Sovereign, the family-owned firm continued to manufacture houses until 1981. Over the firm’s long history it sold over 75,000 homes to both individual and corporate customers.

• The records of the Aladdin Company were donated to the Clarke Historical Library in 1996. The almost complete run of company catalogs, full set of sales records, over 15,000 post-World War II architectural drawings, and various other company records create an extraordinary historical resource.

• The Aladdin Company records are open for use by the public, having been arranged and described through a grant made by the National Endowment for the Humanities. (Mount Pleasant, by the way, is on the far western side of the state, just north of I-94 where it starts to bend around the Lake. Full-text copies of the annual sales catalogs were scanned through a grant by the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs.

Many thanks to all these great folks! I for one cannot wait to start wading through every single catalog. I love love love this every-person kind of house…I am so excited! My guilty secret, though: I seriously thought about not posting this story, afraid I’d never get you back, like, you’ll be Alice fallen down the rabbit hole into retro-wonderland. But there. I’ve gone and done it anyway.

View the website and catalogs here. … I’ll miss you all.

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The post about Madison Sarah and her hunt for a 50s or 60s home drew lots of comments, including a lovely note from Sumac Sue, aka Judi, of Lexington, Kentucky. Her comments were really moving, so I asked her if I could make a post out of them – and asked if she could send pictures to go with. She kindly did, and even added some more info at my request. A long post – but well worth the time to read and think about. Sumac Sue is a former newspaper reporter – so the girl can turn a phrase! Maybe other readers have similar stories about their neighborhoods that they would like to share? Send in your stories and your “walking tour” photos and I’d be happy to make this a regular feature. Thank you, Judi (Sumac Sue), for getting this started!

With so much emphasis on gizmos and gadgets and other facets or retro interior decorating, I really hadn’t thought much about how simple the facades are on most mid-century homes. I find our house, and the houses in our neighborhood of modest, mostly one-story brick ranches, to be sort of sturdy and cute, like freckle-faced boys. It’s a look I find appealing.

But, if someone like Madison Sarah wants a bit more oomph, then maybe she could try an approach such as looking for a house with a really pronounced modern style, such as Anne and Gary’s house, which has been mentioned on this site. Sure, it has some flatness to it, but, it has angles and overhangs and lots of glass, which makes it cool.

If Madison Sarah can’t find a house like that, then, my only other suggestion is to try to think of the mid-century houses not as a look, but, as a way of life. Sounds cliched, I know, but, we have found that living in our ‘59 ranch, in our ‘59 era neighborhood, to be really pleasant.

We weren’t really looking for a mid-century house when we found this one. We were looking for a house that was well built, of good materials, one that would be pretty easy to maintain, and one that was in a neighborhood that would be a pleasant place to walk with our dog in the evenings. And, we had a tight budget, but we wanted at least 1.5 bathrooms. So, we found our house in a nice neighborhood of 1,000 to 1,500 square-foot houses, most with carports or garages. Some have basements, but ours has a roomy, dry crawlspace — either way, they are all easy to get under to work on plumbing, the furnace, etc. (A previous house had virtually no crawlspace, and we had to scoot on our stomachs in the damp dirt. No more of that!) Houses this size are pretty easy to care for, and the utilities aren’t outrageous.

Like many such mid-century neighborhoods, ours includes a shopping area with a grocery store, bank, post office, and some other stores. We have enjoyed being able to walk to this shopping area, and now that gas prices have risen so much, we like it even more.

I can’t speak for other such neighborhoods, but ours is really stable. People buy these houses and hold onto them. We still have four people on our little street who are the original owners of their houses! They are all in their 80s. We bought our house last summer from the original owner, who was 86. We joke that these houses are good for your health, because people live so long in them.

But, maybe it is no joke — they really are nice places to live. We are in our 50s, and there are other middle-aged people on the street, and there are a few young couples with kids. The ones we have met have said the same thing as us — they moved here because they were looking for a well-built house. They also say they didn’t want to buy a cheaply built new house way out on the edge of town.

Our neighborhood is called Gardenside — doesn’t that just sound like a nice place to live? Madison Sarah, I hope you find a nice place to live, too.

I know I’ve gushed on about our neighborhood like a real estate agent with too many houses to unload. The thing I want to stress is, like you, we really weren’t looking for a mid-century house, but it has worked out really well for us, much better than expected.

We once lived in a quaint 1910 era frame house, but it was hard to maintain, and closer to downtown and the university, so traffic was terrible. We then bought some land in the country with a mobile home on it. We wanted to build a farmhouse or cabin. But traffic was terrible there too! All of those other city people moving to the country just like us, causing so much traffic on the winding rural roads. We just couldn’t commit to building a house there and putting up with the traffic forever. It seemed pretty nutty — so wasteful of time and resources. When Wayne changed jobs and his commute got even longer, that’s when we decided to move back into town.

I had once lived in a 1970s era suburb, and it was OK. I admit, we were a bit like Madison Sarah when we started looking at houses in the suburbs. We thought of them as being sort of boring. But the main thing we wanted was a well-built house — after living in an elderly cottage, and then a mobile home, we wanted a house that didn’t have something breaking every other day! A mid-century house fit the bill. And you know, we have not found one other house in the whole neighborhood just like ours. So, it’s really not boring, it’s unique!

I just wanted to let Madison Sarah know that living in a mid-century house was more than just about the facade of one particular house — at least that is what I am finding out. We love living here not just because of our particular house, but because the whole neighborhood is a nice place to be. Our house, and the entire neighborhood, is built on a scale that seems so liveable.

When we walk our dog, in a few blocks we get onto some streets of bigger houses, from about 1,800 to 3,000 square feet. (I was a bit incorrect when I said our neighborhood was 1,000 to 1,500 sf houses — that’s the size of most of the houses on the streets right around our house. But there are many larger houses within the Gardenside neighborhood.) These larger houses, ranches, split levels, Cape Cods, and two-story Colonials, were built in the late 50s to late 60s. We have crushes on several of these beauties. They still are built on a scale that seems right.

THEN we can walk into a neighborhood of brand new homes — some over 6,000 square feet, with half-million to million-dollar price tags. We feel like the Monty Python knights approaching a castle when we venture into that neighborhood! We always are happy to walk back to our street.

Hope this extra information is helpful, and doesn’t bog you down. I know you are busy…. knowing you also have family, career, and your house to tend to. So, I am happy to pitch in with some material for you. Maybe you could start a semi-regular neighborhoods feature, and others can send in photos of their communities. I think it would be a hit. But you know, we love it all, whatever you do!

I hope I got the right descriptions with the right photos — I’m having to hurry because I need to go get some pine mulch from a neighbor who offered it to me. Another reason it is nice to live here. I think because the place is on a nice scale, people actually see each other and visit and share things.

Judi

This post originally ran on April 28, 2008

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THE 1964 SPLIT-LEVEL TIME CAPSULE first shown yesterday also had two great bathrooms. The full bath upstairs is a beautiful robin’s egg blue, all 4×4″ field tiles, with cheerful flowery liner tiles. There is a separate bathtub and the shower. The shower door is a true classic, and notice the terrazzo floor pan, the light, and the tile on the diagonal on the ceiling.

And there’s more: A laundry chute built into a storage cubby… and the fold-down Hall-Mack scale holder below. The laminate countertop on the dual vanity is surely GE Textolite, from the “Twilight” series . And, the owner’s daughter told me that the Nutone exhaust fan/light also had a built-humidistat that turned the fan on and off automatically when the room became too humid. Finally, there was a hidden door to the master suite, along with a door to the hall. This might have been the best bathroom ever in this history of the retro-universe. Again – not pretentious, but so well considered and well built. Click through for the slide show – 15 images in all.

 

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THE ESTATE SALE ON FRIDAY was a jackpot — the 1964, single-owner split level house was in gorgeous condition. What I really liked about it was that it was a very middle class, unpretentious house – but it had features that were clearly chosen for their high quality and craftsmanship. It was timeless in the true sense that everything about the house can endure. Oh lordy, I hope that the new owners understand what they have in hand! Today, two slide shows: The first of an awesome midcentury mailbox, recessed into the roman marble brick of the exterior. I know lots of readers will be so envious of this feature, I’ve never seen anything like it yet. And second, a fabulous time capsule kitchen — it includes two-tone cabinetry, a great little breakfast counter with original stools, and yellow GE appliances with gorgeous design features. One of my new favorites ever — like this house. 27 photos in all.

To start: Here’s the mailbox. Fabulous! Click on the first image to enlarge, then proceed through the slide show.

 

 

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