THANKS GO OUT TO JOAN (I *think*) for finding this new resource (other one here) for recessed porcelain ceramic bathroom soap dishes, shelves, towel bars and toilet paper holders. The manufacturer is HCP Industries, and they make these pieces in 33 colors, many of them great for a midcentury bathroom retro renovation. Click through for [...]

WHEN I WAS RENOVATING my three bathrooms, I searched high and low for recessed soap dishes like this. I finally found them at a small Ohio Company, Apple Creek. (Separate post to come at some point.) But now, SableMable has also spotted this online site, Eclectic Ware, which seems to carry a big lineup of [...]

Another recessed fixture aimed to torture Speedway Ron. Or, bankrupt him! Image: vintage GE.

Speedway Ron has now developed an intense need to acquire every small appliance ever made that was recessed directly into the wall. To go with all his steel kitchens and now, he tells me, 4 vintage refrigerators in his possession:
Pam, again I blame you…I was pretty happy living my life and not knowing that Chambers [...]

The recessed lights throughout my 1951 colonial-traditional ranch are all in square housings. I also have two recessed lights on the stairs to the basement that are longer rectangles. From my trips to estate sales, I think that square lighting was much more common than round cans in the postwar era, although round was used.

I [...]