John at deabath.com reports that they remain hard at work on saving the 50’s fixtures.  He recently pulled this vintage blue set of 1956 Standard Sanitary Works fixtures out of a home doing a remodel. Isn’t the blue just luminously lovely? 1950s blue bathroom fixtures.

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We pause from this week’s 1948 historical retrospective for: A product recommendation! I am letting a little secret out of the bag, readers: J.C.Penney is a great store (and catalog and website) for many things retro. As in: If it’s a place grandma would shop for home decor – we like it! J.C.P., wanna advertise on the blog? It really truly is a good fit!

I love these curlicue bath rugs, for example. They are very vintage looking…  I really prefer the latex back so that the rugs are “sticky” to the floor… You can get matchy-matchy pieces for everything including the all-important toilet cover!… And they come in a number of colors including ta da pink blush. You know, I also like the fact that they come in large 5×8 and 6×9 sizes. Don’t we all remember putting those down in the winter – after cutting them to fit our bathrooms perfectly? Yes, they get disgusting – but only if you don’t wash them. There are a variety of other rug sets available at J.C.Penney, and bath towels, too. And of course, there’s always The Greatest Two Day Sale EVER going on….!

link: JCP bath rugs

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Russell the Engineer found a new source for great plumbing parts. I’ll do more on Locke Plumbing soon. But to start, if anyone is gutting their tub/shower and wants a new faucet and shower head, this Delta model seems like a great find. It’s only $79. I love the shape. And crystal-plastic handles have even grown on me. This line has been discontinued — further proof we want it! — so there’s not much stock left.

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From Nancy’s yellow 50s bathrooms

Maryland Nancy has completed the retro renovation of her 50s bathroom – and it’s spectacular. Nancy gutted two small, worn bathrooms to create one larger guest bath. She was intent on maintaining the mid mod feel – and incorporated original yellow fixtures. I recall at one point, she emailed me that she had finally chosen her tile colors – and was so happy that the blog gave her confidence to embrace color. This bathroom is a testament to take some chances! Nancy, you have a beautiful eye, way to go!
Nancy writes:

Pam-  Thought I would send you some pictures of our new bathroom (we combined 2 half baths).  We are very pleased & everyone that has seen it thinks it looks just like our other bathrooms.  We can’t have a better compliment!  Still looking for that perfect chenille rug & scales.  The lighting of the camera doesn’t allow true color but I hope you can tell what it looks like.  So pleased w/ the tile selection & the different patterned floor.  Please notice the great lights over the sink & in shower area- one of your ebay finds!  Great & I love them!  I like the Vera hand towel & monogrammed towel ( actually from the previous owner’s- haven’t gotten it copied yet).

All of the worry & concern over details are not apparent but I guess made for a good final results… I tried to use everything that I possibly could that was original.  The yellow sink & toilet were in one of the original baths.  The tile is Moonbeam & Crisp Linen (Dal tile) & the floor is the Square Random Biscuit.  The before pictures are very hard to tell what is what- not a very large space.
Readers, notice how Nancy used the two tile colors to great effect — e.g. Moonbeam behind the sink and as a trim color, Crisp Lemon elsewhere. The brick / rug / woodbeam are a perfect color complement to the yellow. And, I love the bird prints – terrific graphic punch!

I asked Nancy about the great little tiled shelf next to the sink:

That was kind of funny (looking back).  I told my young painter (who had never done this large a project & was doing everything) that the boomerang shape was very big back then.  Thought we could maybe do that.  When I came home he had taken the ironing board & cut out a top.  He had tiled it & everything!  It looked like I could go straight from the washing machine to the counter top & get my ironing done.  I labored over whether to tell him how much it was bothering me.  I got up the nerve & he was relieved because he hated it too.  The previous bath has that dressing area (w/ the great Formica top) & this bath needed to have someplace for guests to put their things when showering…  I had thought it would be much larger- then we ran in to the brick wall (literally) which housed the incinerator in a closet on the other side.  So, that is the story of the little counter.  I wanted to use both of the tiles we had used on the walls.

Thanks so much for all of your help with this project!

Nancy

(you can click on slide show to view much larger images)

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So where else can you come to swoon over beautiful toilets (without a hangover being involved)!

Truly, when I was renovating my three bathrooms, I searched and searched for a retro style toilet. Most everything out there was “Victorian on steroids.” I swear – I could name ANY and EVERY toilet made in America by make and model on sight. It was really rather impressive, I was quite proud, I wanted a gold star.  I ended up with a milquetoast Kohler Wellworth.

Oh what I would give for three Crane Criterions JUST LIKE THIS.

This one is available now in deabath.com’s stash. Not cheap – but Fabulous! Here’s what they have to say about this particular model:

1951 Crane Criterion Elongated Close-coupled Toilet

A rare find! Supplied with the original saddle seat, this toilet just screams modernism. This was Crane’s top-of-the-line for 1951, and was only found custom, high-end homes . 12” rough, 3” waste, will fit most newer applications.. There is a crack, it’s been repaired and it’s not visible. (bottom of tank) This one will not last!
OT08910 Crane Criterion toilet 1095.00

Oh, and when I come back to my next life — I want to be the person who names toilets. I will do a whole riff on that soon!

And how about pairing it with this late 50s Crane Diana sink:

1950s Crane Diana console sink

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Here’s a great retro bathroom in Chile, courtesy Nebulaskin/Pilar Castro E on flickr. 70s, I think — but timeless, don’t you agree? And look at the cute teeny tub! Thank you, Pilar, for permission!

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Palm Springs Stephan finished his bathroom – it looks great! – and sends us this complete report, which includes a couple of new sources that I for one need to check out:

Dear Pam,

Your posting regarding sink legs reminded me that I needed to send to you some photos of my bathroom, now that the remodel of it is complete and the wonderful sink legs you sent to me are installed.

I am including a few “before” photos as well as a few “during” photos, in addition to the “after” photos. I will split them up into several emails.

The bathroom started out with a hideous mottled green tile and green fixtures in a shade that reminded me of a hospital from the past … in a bad way. It was sickening. And much as I love metal cabinetry, the existing “Vani-Lav” made the room feel smaller and more cramped than it already was. And the 1970s acryclic countertop with molded-in sink was awful. It all had to go.

So I gutted the entire thing, to the wall studs and sub-flooring. And I did this while already living in the condo! I do not recommend that, as one must then rely on the kindness of neighbors for showering and serious toilet matters and empty paint cans for less serious relief. And if one is as unlucky as I was and the contractor suffers a stroke during the project … actually keeling over IN the bathroom while installing concrete backer-board! … the whole process can get delayed far longer than expected. I was without a functioning bathroom for over a month.

I wanted desperately to do the bathroom in classic 1950s true pink, not “rose blush” or one of those beigey-pinks that were common in the 1970s. I searched for about three months without finding fixtures in a true pink, however. So I instead settled on a great matched American Standard set in blue posted on eBay by City-Girl-In-The-Country, a wonderful dealer in Antrim, New Hampshire (citygirlinthecountry.com). The set was date stamped: the toilet was manufactured on 11 June 1958, and the cast iron tub on 25 March 1958. Since my condo building was constructed in the summer of 1958 and I was keen to do an authentic restoration, the dates were perfect. The set cost $400, with an additional $800 to ship it in two wooden crates from New Hampshire to Palm Springs.

Removing the existing tub and installing the new one in such a small space was a MAJOR chore, one that I do not recommend to any but the most adventurous. But while removing the old one, we found newspapers from 1958 that had been stuffed into the wall for some unknown reason. That was entertaining!

The tile is a combination of two brands. The walls are Dal-Tile 4×4-inch high-gloss glazed porcelain in Arctic White with 6-inch black trim pieces. The floor is in a pattern that one of your contributors had in her all-original 1950s bathroom, and she had sent in photos just in time for me to duplicate the pattern in my own bath. The Ocean Blue and Black tiles are 1×1-inch Dal-Tile Keystone Color-Body porcelain, while the white ones are 4×4-inch Interceramic matte glazed ceramic tiles. The floor grout is Polyblend Sanded in a color that I mixed myself from two standard colors, Captain’s Blue and White, to match the fixtures.

The ceramic accessories, including the three soap dishes, toothbrush holder, and toilet roll holder, all came from Eclectic-Ware.com. They matched the Dal-Tile Arctic White perfectly and are authentic 1950s shapes.

You were kind enough to locate a set of sink legs and attached towel bars at a local Re-Store for under $20 and send them to me. I had them re-chromed at Palm Springs Plating for about $400. And while that may seem pricey, they did an outstanding job of removing the pitting and restoring them to “like-new” condition. I was and am very pleased with them, and they generate lots of comments, mostly gasps and dropped jaws and “OMG, I remember those from when I was a kid!”

The other hardware … tub/shower faucet and handles, shower head, and hand-held shower attachment … are Kohler’s Memoirs Classic line. Solid, heavy, and well made, but far more expensive than I would have liked. But the line has matching accessories … for a price! … so I was able to get a matching wall-mounted towel bar and glass shelf for above the toilet. Caution when buying Kohler hardware: the stems will not adapt to non-Kohler valves. I had to replace the tub/shower valve within the wall before I could install the Memoirs hardware, at a total cost of over $800 for just the valves and new copper piping. The actual Memoirs hardware, includuing matching towel bar and glass shelf, came to over $1600.

The mirrored cabinet above the sink is another eBay “find.” It was in mint condition and did not require any restoration, and it was inexpensive. The shelves along each side provided a great display space for some of my 1950s toiletries, all purchased on eBay, of course.

The light fixture above the mirror came out of the apartment I had just moved out of. The landlord there wanted to remodel and modernize the bath, removing all traces of 1950s design and replacing it with modern beige cultured stone (sacrilege!). So I “appropriated” the light fixture when I moved out, with his permission.

The other decorations and accessories, including the pink Detecto bath scale and chenille bath rug and toilet lid cover set are from eBay, of course. The Irmi children’s step-stool is from my own childhood. “Wash Hands And Face And Do It Well, When You Step On This Carousel.” The Palm Springs poster is a modern reproduction that is sold here in PS, giclee on tin, of a poster from the 1950s. It features tourists in and around a swimming pool with the legend “California’s Hot Spot! Palm Springs. Discover a new life … vibrant, gay, relaxed … Plan to visit California’s Desert Shangri-La!” Because I ended up with blue fixtures, I decided to design the bath around the poster. The photo above the toilet, another eBay treasure, is an original 1950s American Models Guild black-and-white of two physique models perched on the side of a swimming pool with aluminum lawn furniture visible in the background. I’m still looking for more poolside photos from the 1950s, but they are rare and unexpectedly expensive when they do appear on eBay.

The project took longer than I expected and cost far more than I had anticipated and budgeted, but the end result is much better than I could have imagined. I am really very happy with my little 1958 bathroom.

Stephan

So I also quizzed Stephan on the hunks in the photo above the toilette. Could those be naked-nudies? Stephan advises:

Yes, they are naked men, posed without the “boy bits” showing. The photo is an original from the late 1950s or very early 1960s, back when physique magazines served prurient interests under the guise of “art” or “physical culture.” The legal catch was that no genitalia could be shown. If you want to get some idea of the variety of such photos and magazines available in the 1950s, do an eBay search under the keywords “vintage beefcake photo” or “vintage physique.”

Oh how I love retro renovation, there is always more to learn around every corner… or in this case, behind every bathroom door. Thanks, PSS, you are the best!

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After Zep

Before ZEP

How to clean old grout in retro bathroom floor tiles? Sleeping Bee Alice plays the role of Queen of Clean. Thanks, Alice, very impressive. I do want to caution – as I have been doing cleaning research, too — to be very careful about what you use on the glazed tile itself. That glazed finish can come off, even with a scotch brite pad, so treat it very carefully. More on tile cleaning to come.

Read on for Alice’s solution (pun!) —>

Hello Pam,

I’ve made a discovery that perhaps some of your readers could benefit from.  You’ll recall the blue tiles in my bathroom (the ones PSS wanted to duplicate).  I had scrubbed the grout with every cleaner imaginable and then was easily convinced when someone told me that the grout in this bathroom wasn’t actually white, it was “bisque”.  However, just recently a friend asked if she could try a little product on them to see if she could brighten them and voila!, we actually do have white grout!  I have attached the photos so you can see the before and after difference.  One hour and half a bottle of Zep (that’s the name of the product, available at Home Depot) later, and I have a blue and white bathroom – not blue and bisque!

Hope this is useful to your readers.  What a great site RR is…thanks for keeping up the good work.

-Alice

p.s. Lest you think that I am a neat freak or something, since all of my questions to you have been about cleaning, that’s just the phase we are in of our move in process to our mid-century home. Really, it cracks my husband up to think there is a group of people out there that might have the impression that I’m all about cleaning

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Glamorlux Nancy sends in this beautiful retro bathroom hardware set — which got away from her in an ebay auction a year ago. MIB — good stuff.

Hi Pam,

Thanks so much for featuring our bathroom! We were “tickled pink” (har, har) to see our little bathroom on the  World Wide Web!

I’ve been meaning to tell you:  These starburst “Star Line Housewares, Inc.” bathroom accessories were up for bid on eBay over a year ago.  I was outbid on them and have been kicking myself ever since for not putting down a higher bid. Wouldn’t it be amazing if some modern company like Rejuvenation repro-ed these?! Here is the tumbler/toothbrush holder, soap dish, double robe hook, tissue holder and towel ring.

I’m ashamed to say that I only bid $102, and they went for the next highest bid. When I saw I had been outbid, I actually shed tears – which I’d never done before or since over an eBay auction. I sorta became obsessed with them (you always want “the one that got away”), and even emailed the high bidder, asking her to sell them to me at a nice profit. She was very sweet, but declined. She’s restoring the bathroom in her 50’s ranch house (she was also redoing a pink kitchen). Hey, maybe she visits your blog, and can show us pictures of her wonderful, perfect vintage bathroom with the starburst accessories in place! Grrrrrrr…

Thanks, Nancy. Alas. Rejuvenation, are you watching?

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