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3 midcentury home design products we wish they’d bring back NOW

pam kueber - Updated: August 10, 2021

Retro Renovation stopped publishing in 2021; these stories remain for historical information, as potential continued resources, and for archival purposes.

3-mcm-products-to-bring-back2014 was a great year for reissues of classic midcentury product designs.  Still, there are three very basic products — I’m trying not to be greedy — that I would love to see brought back to the market, mass produced for cost, quality and availability. My list is based on seven years of blogging about midcentury modest and modern homes, hearing about what Retro Renovators need and have been excited about whenever the products come up. 

1. Glitter laminate:

gold sparkle laminateThe absolutely positively #1 item on my list is glitter laminate.

Update, March 2018: Susan has brought this back! See the complete story here.

Made with deco paper — with real glitter inclusions, just like they were starting around 1950 all the way through the early 2000s — yes, this stuff was available for more than 50 years, non-stop. Today, this deco paper is still available — I have personally seen where it is made! Laminate manufacturers: I won’t even be greedy and ask for different colorways. Just give us a white (check the historic examples to get the rightish white) with gold glitter. The white field glitter laminate will solve for MULTITUDES of Retro Renovator kitchens and bathrooms.

Alas — this neeeeds to be a production laminate — it can’t be digital special-order run.  As far as I know, the metal glitter cannot be replicated with current on-demand digital printers. That means this must be done with paper with real glitter inclusions. Laminate manufacturers must buy minimum (lotsa) size rolls of the deco paper… once they make the laminate, the sheets must be stored flat, in climate-controlled warehouses… and then there’s the whole marketing machine to get it out to the public. Note, I also tend to think that laminates made with deco paper (on a rotogravure press or as in the case of sparkle laminate, with real inclusions) are nicer looking — the ink saturation will be more intense… AND production laminates are much less expensive than on-demand digital prints because they are mass produced.

Pretty please with sprinkles on top: Will some laminate manufacturer take a big gulp and take a market risk on this? We’ll buy it! Maybe there are enough of us!

vintage-Wilsonart-White-gold-satellite
Gold Satellite had crackles in it. Cool. Super cool. But I just show this for a close up of the glitter. If we can have ONE design, just give us plain glitter, sans crackles.

 .
2. Double-bowl, dual-drainboard, metal-rimmed, cast-iron kitchen sink:

vintage-drainboard-sink-kohler-1940s

vintage-drainboard-sink-in-1940s-kohler-kitchenNumber two on my list: A double-sink, double-drainboard, hudee-rimmed, porcelain-on-cast-iron kitchen sink. The photos above show vintage Kohler sinks from our story about 16 vintage Kohler kitchen sinks.

kohler drainboard sink

And above: A 1956 ad for the Kohler “Clearfield” sink — now we know its name. Thanks to ebay seller splittinimagecards for giving us permission to show this photo of this ad for sale, we love having it for our archive.

Note, we love the hudee-rimmed Kohler’s Delafield sink currently available today — it’s a go-to recommendation for a replacement kitchen sink. But oh dear Kohler, can we have a design with drainboards?

Hey, I’d even settle for a double bowl with one drainboard. OR, a single bowl with one or two drainboards. Must have the metal rim, though!

3. Armstrong #5352:

armstrong 5352

armstrong 5352
From a 1963 catalog in my personal collection. Some of the other colorways, which I pretty sure varied over time. Lookie the one with the pink!!!!

Armstrong Floors, can we have #5352 — believed to be the most popular flooring of all time — back, please? Unbelievable: This floor was made from at least 1935 through to the mid-1990s — 60-some years!

This classic rich brick red color would be fine if we can have only one color. But if you can do other colors, how about something light and creamy (predominantly warm, rather than cool)?

armstrong linoleum 5352
Armstrong #5352 started off as an embossed linoleum. We’ve spotted it in catalogs as early as 1935…
Armstrong-5352-linoleum
… As manufacturing techniques and the market changed, the floor was printed on vinyl. We have a reader who worked in the flooring department at Sears and said it was sold there through the mid-1990s.

Note: I am not saying Armstrong #5352 floor should be paired with a glitter-on-white laminate countertop. To me, the brick red screams “put me in a warm cozy midcentury modest kitchen” with a rich-colored countertop. But maybe I’d pair glitter laminate with a light, creamy colorway of the floor.

Updated: Like in Lori’s kitchen, photo below, thanks, Lori! Well, she says that floor originally had green squares, but they’ve faded with use. Still, you get the idea of how a monochrome meet-up between a beige 5352 floor and the glitter laminate could look:

glitter laminate with armstrong 5352 beige

And another update:

vintage flooringReader Jan provided this photo (above) and the history:

Re: the Armstrong Brick flooring among the things we’d like to come back – I found this photo of the side porch at my grandmother’s house. This photo was taken in the late 1950s. My mom can’t remember when this floor was put down – she was born in 1934 and just always remembers it being there. I remember that it was a green colorway -very pretty! (The dogs are Come Here on the bench, Buster in the middle and Kilts on the right – Kilts was a full Scottish terrier and mom to the other two, who were “accidents” with a neighborhood dog – before spaying and neutering was the right thing to do!)

Thanks, Jan!

Some historical images from our files:

armstrong linoleum 1935Armstrong 5352 in a bathroom design, 1956

What do you think of my list, readers?
I’m wary of pushing our luck by being *too greedy*…
but for the “next wave” of we-wannas, what else?

 

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167 comments

Comments

  1. Wendy M. says

    I would LOVE the option of glitter laminate! My husband continually suggests that our original countertops may need to be replaced (an idea I pooh-pooh every time.) If glitter laminate was available, though, I might be able to get on board with the idea! 🙂

  2. Carrie says

    Oh, the glitter laminate. That would be amazing. My best friend Jamie had pink counters with gold specs in the house he rented. I tried to get them from the owner, and offered to replace with new. Alas, it was a no go.

  3. CAT says

    Yes, please, the laminate. We’ve been in the process of renovating our MCM bathroom that had beautiful turquoise glitter counter tops. I would have kept them forever, if the bathtub area wasn’t literally falling apart tile by tile and the countertops weren’t losing their sheen. It has been SO hard to find a countertop that wasn’t trying too hard like granite, fake granite, etc. etc. This white with gold glitter would have solved ALL my problems.

  4. Courtney says

    I absolutely covet the Frigidaire Flair with the little “drawer” of burners that you pull out and the double oven up top with doors that slide up. (Pretty sure you have featured one of these on here before, and I think they had one on Bewitched?)

    My first encounter with one was in a building material thrift type place and I have been in love ever since.

    • Roberta says

      These are frequently available on Craigslist, if you really want one. You can set up a notification in Craigslist to send you listings of things you’re searching for.

    • Lisa9000 says

      I was lucky enough to find the single oven Flair in my area and bought it. It was in perfect operating condition except for a burned out light bulb. The oven is awesome and I love the drawer to “put away” the burners when not in use. I have a narrow kitchen and it really does help. I’m still searching for the wider two oven version in my area to trade up!

      • John says

        There is a single and double oven Flair on the Craigslist in the Seattle area, just FYI! I wish I had the kitchen for either one!

    • sandy says

      Putting the burners away is convenient, but it can also be a safety hazard. My husband’s grandmother suffered from dementia, and she put them away while they were on. The house didn’t burn down because she wasn’t home alone, but it’s not too hard to see why this model may have gone out of production.

      • Amanda chaik says

        I was just reading advertising literature on the put away burners, and at least one brand (GE? I forget) was made so that they could be put away hot, and they had an auto off switch in the case of putting them away while still on. So some manufacturers were aware of the safety issues with this type of burner.

    • CarolK says

      Not only did Samantha have a Frigidaire Flair in her kitchen on Bewitched, but Trudy Campbell did too in her kitchen in Cos Cob on Mad Men.

      Wasn’t there another range that was similar to the Flair, at least in that it had upper ovens?

  5. Jay says

    Can I have an AMEN? AMEN!!

    I’ll take the laminate and the flooring.
    I’ve always been partial to the vinyl flooring that mimicked brick, slate and stone. I guess I’ll settle for glitter laminate but I really want satellite.

    When you wish upon a star…….

  6. midmichigan says

    Great list of priorities, Pam. All that stuff was widely popular in the MCM era. I’d pony up for the laminate and flooring for sure.

  8. tulsatammy says

    I have the glitter laminate behind my stove in my kitchen. I sadly have the feeling that it was the countertop, too, before the previous owner installed a 1990’s gray pre-fabricated laminate countertop that is downright u*** [edited]. If it comes back on the market, I would definitely consider using it.

  10. Roundhouse Sarah says

    Can we add decorative concrete blocks with cut-outs? Is there a specific name for these bricks? I love them so much…