Today is the 3rd anniversary of RetroRenovation.com. To mark the date, I thought I’d tell the story of exactly how the blog got started.
The why and wherefore of the blog, you may have heard already. I am a decorating obsessed woman. My first married house was a 1912 colonial revival in Michigan. My husband and I did some cosmetic renovations to it… and in the process, I learned about the wisdom of historic preservation and renovating a home in synch with its original design aesthetic. But, we had to move, and ended up my present house, a 1951 “coolonial” colonial-ranch. The house desperately needed bathroom and kitchen renovations — the rooms were literally falling apart. But when I went to try to “renovate it in synch with its original design aesthetic”, I had a gawdawful time finding the resources to do so. This was around early 2003. I wanted 50s style tiles and sinks and faucets and such — but they were really really hard to find.
Fortunately (I think) I am a reporter at heart, darn stubborn about finding answers once I go looking. So along with the help of my husband, I tracked down everything I needed… including a ginormous set of vintage Geneva steel kitchen cabinets, original finish, to install in my kitchen. It was this hunt for the cabinets — which took me FIVE years, I am not kidding — that got me really sucked into the whole retro design world vortex. As I watched for cabinets on ebay (this was really even before craigslist took off super bigtime) I also started seeing old kitchen cabinet catalogs and the like — and started buying them. I studied them hard to soak up all the details of vintage kitchen design so that when I finally found mine, I would be ready.
When I finally finished the projects, I thought it would be a shame just to let all that good info go to waste. In addition, I am a corporate communications professional by trade… and this wacky new communication medium called a “blog” was really taking off. So kind of as a gift, but also as an experiment in a career adjacency, I started my first blog. Yes – there was a blog before RetroRenovation.com. My first blog was 50sstyle.blogspot.com. My first post was in Jan. 2006 — so in that sense, my blogging career is really nearly 5 years old.
The original blog was kind of “cheep and easy.” blogspot.com is the google platform. You can literally get one of these up in 10 minutes or less. I didn’t blog daily. I kind of dabbled. And I didn’t have much traffic at all.
Okay. Now the story of the catalytic moment. Around August 2007, a crew from Old House Interiors magazine came to take photos of my kitchen for a story. I had pitched the story to a local writer I knew of, who wrote articles for OHI. They bit right away. This story was a real turning point for the blog, but not for reasons you might immediately guess. The photographer was a very talented guy named Kit Latham. He was quite the perfectionist and was inspired by my kitchen, so he spent like 8 hours at my house making pictures of it. We talked a lot all day. And it was during our jabbering that I mentioned my blog, 50sstyle.blogspot.com, and of course, how interested I was in the whole period and what I had learned about it yadda yadda yadda. Kit, as it turns out, is also quite the web wizard. He also knew a lot about WordPress, the open source blogging platform, which also was new-ish. He listened with great interest to me and all my enthusiasm and knowledge, and told me that in fact, I had all the elements for a great and successful blog. However, he suggested that I move my entire blog off of blogspot and onto WordPress for a variety of SEO and other technical reasons, and that also, I get a real blog name with a dot-com in it.
I didn’t immediately jump at the idea. I didn’t know how much time and money I wanted to invest in the experiment. Because, yes, the move meant that “cheap and easy” days would be over — there are many more complexities to moving to a dot-com environment and a WordPress installation compared to playing on blogspot.
Ultimately, though, I decided to make the move and give a bona fide blog a try. I did some research and noodled it, and decided on a new blog name: RetroRenovation.com. I chose the name because it literally means that instead of “up”-dating your house with latest, greatest, trendiest feature, you instead “back”-date it to look like it might have looked in the past. It’s a term that I had seen used once maybe twice in an article, but it had by no means entered the wider design lexicon. (I tend to think – because of the influence of my blog – that it now definitely has.) Once I had the name and had set up my first server account, we were ready to roll. So, on Oct. 26, 2007, we moved my blogspot material over to WordPress and the new url. At that time, I also decided to advance the experiment by blogging daily, rather than sporadically. I was kind of interested in seeing if I could turn people into addicts. Has it worked?
You can the Old House Interiors story that “started it all” here.
Amy Hill says
I came to your blog originally because of a comment on the Old House Web Forums. Yours is the best resource for mid century & post war homes. I am hooked! It’s not just the advice and the stories, it’s the total atmosphere of acceptance for the underappreciated little houses built to provide basic shelter for many. These homes are worth saving and restoring. Thank you for all you do, and wishing you more years of continued success!
vintigchik says
LOVE IT!!
Jeanne says
Addict here. 🙂 I guess it worked. Thanks so much and here’s to your continued success with the blog!
And your readers are a great, interesting group of people as well.
maryann says
How fabulous! Your kitchen is just stunning Pam! Even though I’ve seen it before, I could looks at it a trillon times!
Happy Anniversary RetroRenovation! Thanks for the hard work and tons of inspiration!
Alice says
Finding your blog the night we were considering purchasing our new 1957 home provided one bit of important detail that encouraged us to proceed. Your site, it’s participants and you are an important part of our journey as we lovingly refresh our home. Thank you Pam for a job well-done.
Martha says
Yes, Pam. Congratulations! It worked, I come to it on a daily basis. Please don’t stop!! Thank you.
Gavin Hastings says
And we are all very lucky and thankful.
Best wishes for your continued success.
Sandie Sinatra says
Yes, Pam, it worked and IS working still!! Many congrats on your 3rd (5th?) Anniversary! This is my favorite site and I come to it daily. I hope you never decide it’s too much and end it. I think you are in a mega vortex now, and CAN’T stop! Thanks for all of your hard work!!! 🙂
Jenny says
We bought our 1956 ranch in April of this year and I found your blog while looking for information about the style of house, as I knew right away that I wanted to bring it back to its glory. I have read RetroRenovations every day since. You have given me great ideas, important resources and have managed to connect like-minded folks worldwide who have a keen interest in preserving their homes. I’d say it’s working! Thanks for all the hard work and just know that you are most appreciated.
Tina says
Yes… it has worked! My name is Tina and I’m a RetroRenovation.com addict.
FRANK says
Hi . . . Tina . . .
Gavin Hastings says
…Funny….