Retro Renovation

Merry Mint-in-Box on eBay

pam kueber — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:16:07 +0000

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Steven’s Mondrian kitchen

pam kueber — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:59:40 +0000

Those of you in modern homes, remember to consider a Mondrian-style kitchen if you need to renovate. This one – from Steven’s 1957 Alcoa Aluminum house in Rochester, N.Y. — is original. Well, the part in the foreground is. He needed to replace the cabinets and backsplash along the back wall, and did so in complementary style. The original Mondrians are laminate-over-wood. In the back, Steven combined black-painted wood base cabinets, and blue-painted vintage steel wall cabinets. If you have trouble choosing a color — hey, what a solution. Click on the photo above to see Steven’s entire house, on his flickr photo stream. And click here to see my other posts showing Mondrian kitchens.

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Steven updates his 1957 Alcoa Aluminum House

pam kueber — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:00:24 +0000

Steven, Michael and the pup is Bobby.

Rochester Steven has completed some drop dead gorgeous updates to his 1957 Alcoa Aluminum house, and shares the details and images. This is the third story on these late-1950s “demonstration” houses. We first featured a time capsule for sale in Wisconsin. I think that’s how Steven found this blog, and we featured his house in New York state, along with the home’s original brochure, just a few weeks later. There were only 23 of these houses built — and Steven, Michael and Bobby are amazing caretakers. This house will knock you off your chair — it’s worthy of Architectural Digest.

Steven writes:

Pam, There are three areas that we have addressed in the past several months:

1. Restored the house back to the original color of purple(the front anyway, have to work on the back next spring). It was painted brown some years ago, most likely due to the unsightly fading over the years of the purple that we have seen on a couple other Alcoa houses. We removed one of the aluminum panel pieces from the garage and retrieved the color from the un-weathered side of it.

2. Partially restored the kitchen. When the kitchen was gutted and remodeled years ago the upper metal cabinets were installed in the storage area of the garage. We had them painted the light blue that you see now at an auto shop and reinstalled them. I think that the Auto Body painting worked out great. Especially when it is metal. It was a bit of a pain to cart them all over there!!! Since we only had the original upper cabinets we went with some simple black faced cabinets to complete the lower ones with white Corian for for the counter. We also reconfigured the layout of the kitchen to more reflect the original kitchen in the brochure. The bottom cabinets are made out of wood with black lacquer paint and aluminum pulls… they were purchased at IKEA and are quite inexpensive. The tiles are new tiles with a vintage feel and were purchased locally. We selected the color of both the back splash tiles and the cabinets so that they relate nicely to the multi-colored ["Mondrian"-style] cabinets [shown just below] that face the family room

(The “Mondrian” cabinets are original to the house. I believe that all of the Aloca houses that were built had these unless another option was specified. They are wood with Formica facing.)

3. Family Room/lounge area has been furnished with many great finds from local shops and online. Still somewhat of a work in progress……….

We were able to see another Alcoa house that was located in Pittsburgh this fall when we went down to see Fallingwater. We got out of the car and were looking at it and the owner saw us, greeted us and invited us in for a tour, What a treat!!!!!! It was so interesting to see the subtle differences between our home and his.

Woah. Thank you, Steven. This is fantastic. Understatement. What a marvelous place you have created. And a purple house! Who woulda thunk it. LOVE LOVE LOVE. I am for sure coming to visit next summer. Perhaps you can adopt me.

Readers, to get to more of Steven’s photos, available on his flickr stream, click on any of the photos in this post.

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California Kathy’s vintage shelf edging

pam kueber — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:00:41 +0000

After the post on where to find shelf edging, California Kathy wrote to show some in action. This is wonderful stuff for open shelves, glass cupboards, and as Kathy shows — for showing off collections of vintage bowls and dinnerware:

Hi Pam, California Kathy here. Just wanted to show you the upper portion of my kitchen china hutch with its shelf edging. I scored it on eBay a while ago and couldn’t be happier with how it looks! We’ve been doing a few things to our 1949 Calinfornia ranch kitchen and I’ll send you some pics as soon as we finish up a couple more easy things. Course the “easy” things are the ones that take the longest sometimes! Thanks for all you do! – Kathy

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1,000 Save The Pink Bathrooms photos

pam kueber — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:00:12 +0000

Berry of My Life In Sequins contributed the 1,000th photo to our flickr Save The Pink Bathrooms pool. She titled one of her photo, “new apartment.” I asked her for the story and she wrote:

Hi Pam! My apartment building was built in the 50’s and everything has been kept exactly like it was back then. They have 3 different bathroom tile colors — pink, blue and seafoam green. When I found out I was getting a pink bathroom I was pretty excited. It’s so silly that it puts a smile on my face every time I walk in! Taking pictures in there makes me giggle, so the pictures tend out to be upbeat and catch me at my girliest. – Berry

Berry’s blog says that she loves Ikea, zombies, and music. I am getting her address so that I can send her a little prize for her 1,000th photo in the pool. Hmmm, what shall I find in my humongous stash o’ retro for her? Stay tuned. Thank you, Berry!

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Kissin’ don’t last, Good cookin’ do

pam kueber — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:59:26 +0000

Spotted on etsy, with the darling note — “chippy but cute.” $5 from vintagebutterfly94.

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Where to find shelf edging

pam kueber — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:00:59 +0000

Carrie writes:

Pam,

I was wondering if you have ever done any research on Shelf Edging and if so where could I get some. I don’t think that I ever mentioned that the previous owner had placed shelf edging in the linen closet and also in certain cabinets in the kitchen. Since I have lived in my house for almost a year now the shelf edging is starting to tear and I would like to have some more on hand when I am ready to put more up.

.

Any information that you have would be greatly appreciated. Always remember that you are doing a wonderful job in making Retro Renovation what is has become. I appreciate more and more the smalls details of my house that everyone else would take for granted. I sent you some pictures of the shelf edging in my cabinets I hope they help.

Carrie

Thanks for the question and for your lovely words of support, Carrie. This was a fun one to research. From what I can tell looking online, there were four waves of shelf edging design:

In the “early days” I am betting the major name making this was Meyercord. They are also known for their furniture and cabinet decals. The paper shelf edging was, I am quite sure, a way for women to dress up their farmhouse and apartment kitchen shelves without having to go to the expense of renovating.
In the postwar era, the big name seems to have been Royledge also marketed as Roylies and as Roylcraft. I also see some Betty Brite out there. You should also note that the edging came either as “just edging” or as edging attached to white shelf paper – but all still in one piece.
In the 60s, I am seeing plastic, pleated / ruffled , self-adhesive shelf edging from Contact. I like this idea a lot. As you demonstrate with your experience – that paper is going to tear in any high-use area. Also, the adhesive is pretty nifty. Otherwise, I am thinking that housewives earlier put the edging down with thumbtacks.
Today’s limited options “new”.

Where to get shelf edging and shelf paper?

Betty Brite "Edge 'n Lining" shelf paper from RetroRubbish. 12" deep, 15' wide, $10. Click on the image to go to the listing.

Etsy seems to be a great source. The going price for a 15′ strip seems be $5 and up. Search terms: shelf edging, shelf paper, Royledge, Roylies, Meyercord, Betty Brite, Vintage Contact Paper

You should also watch ebay. – I see only two sources. There is an Asian company making vinyl, self-adhesive lace style edging.

New #1 — I found a company in Scotland — Diana Forrester — selling gorgeous fabric shelf edging embroidered in France.

cotton and linen embroidered shelf edging from diana forrester
New #2 — And a company that sells vinyl, pre-pasted, lace style edging.
Finally, if you are handy, you could also make paper edging yourself out of wallpaper (new or vintage.) Create a decorative edge with scrapbooking scissors that you can find at Target; this is going to take a very steady hand, though. And, unlike the vintage edging – which is white where it sits on the shelf itself – your wallpaper-edging is going to be visible on the shelf, too. This may not be desirable. Trying to seam the decorative paper to a white piece of shelf paper may not work either as such a seam would be vulnerable to tearing.

This was a fun question to reseach, Carrie. Good luck!

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Merry Mint-in-Box Madness

pam kueber — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:09:47 +0000

Some great stuff in here for your holiday gifting: A paper hostess dress, a chartreuse-and-green cake serving set, faux Beatles cake toppers, and just what Everyone needs: Giant Sexton fork-and-spoon set.

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Get a Gravatar

pam kueber — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:00:39 +0000

If you comment regularly, I highly recommend that you get yourself a Gravatar — a “globally recognized avatar.” This is a small image that you choose to represent you when you make comments on any blog or in a Forum. The software sees where you post your email address (required by most blogs) and then serves up the gravatar you have chosen. Here’s the website, it’s free, and pretty easy. Remember at the end to “confirm” the image that you have selected. If you are at a loss for an avatar – you can go to this site and create a Mad Men character that looks like you.

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Vintage 60s wall hanging

pam kueber — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:00:16 +0000

Of course, I would love a vintage 60s wall hanging of a house. It occurs to me that during my life, all I ever doodled were: Houses. I have a very deep rooted pathology. This is another treasure that I purchased from the fabulous estate sale time capsule. The photo above shows it handing the home’s entry way, so welcoming. Click through for a close up.

I am not sure yet where this will go in my home. But it will, I love it so.

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