READER STEPHANIE sent in photos of her wonderful vintage stove — an O’Keefe and Merritt newly restored by Antique Stove Heaven. Doesn’t it look great with her vintage chrome crackle ice vinyl and laminate dinette. I just wanna pull up a chair and have a cuppa with her right this very minute. Heck yeah there is more →Stephanie’s vintage O’Keefe and Merritt stove
Posted by: • August 13, 2009
READER STEPHANIE sent in photos of her wonderful vintage stove — an O’Keefe and Merritt newly restored by Antique Stove Heaven. Doesn’t it look great with her vintage chrome crackle ice vinyl and laminate dinette. I just wanna pull up a chair and have a cuppa with her right this very minute. Heck yeah there is more →The midcentury flower of choice: red geraniums
Posted by: • July 8, 2009
Longtime readers may recognize this photo, it’s one of my favorite images of idealized 50s family life ever. And ooooh, I like that colonial-modern kitchen, too! But look, it also includes pots of red geraniums on the window sill. In my detail-focused time travels back into retroworld, I have most definitively noticed a trend to include red geraniums in postwar kitchen designs. I have a few theories why: 1) Geraniums are big and bold – in synch with the times. 2) They are middle class… egalitarian. 3) They need sun, and we were California-livin’. 4) They look really good with cool colors like aqua and robin’s egg blue. 5) They also play into the patriotic sensibilities of the time. I run a flickr group called Midcentury Modern Red Geraniums - take a look at about 50 images in all. The majority of them come from flickr friend American Vintage Home, who has quite an online archive of vintage photography. Thank, you American Vintage!
Can I use stainless steel snap-on edging to make a curve? Not easily. Use butcher block or switch to aluminum tee molding
Posted by: • October 15, 2008
I just got off the phone with George from New York Metals – purveyors of the stainless steel edging to true to 40s 50s and 60s kitchen countertops.
The recent question on the table has been: How to bend my preferred “Snap-On Molding” (in photo above) for rounded edges – be they quarter-round cubbies or 180-degree/half-circle peninsula or snack bars. The news is ‘bad’ – but with solutions – George says:
Traditional style wallpaper for your retro foyer or dining room – surround yourself in Roses
Posted by: • December 13, 2007
I was so enamored of the Rose Red and Pink wallpaper in yesterday’s 1956 room, that I went hunting for modern day proxies. This “Brentwood Rose” damask pattern would look very inviting in a foyer or dining room — rooms where this kind of cheerful flamboyance would not be overwhelming because of the measured amount of time you typically spend in these spaces.
While I was e-shopping I also found some beautiful nearby colors — a veritable “berry bowl” of choices. All of these designs are all from Thibaut, whose wallpaper I really like. And they have a great website, loads of fun to play with. The other company that also impresses me, for traditional styles of high quality, is Sanderson.
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