Retro Renovation

Remodel & decorate in Mid Century Style

Home / Exterior

My Medallion Home Live Better Electrically doorbell — oh happy day (and night)

pam kueber - Updated: September 8, 2020

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

Lookie what just came up for sale on ebay: >> New Old Stock Electric Living Doorbell for sale on Ebay <<(affiliate link)

Medallioan-Home-Living-Better-Electrically-1Lookie what’s new at my house: A “Medallion Home – Live Better Electrically” doorbell! The bell even stays lighted! Dear Husband LOVES it!

After 65 years, the plastic push-button on our original doorbell kinda caved in and disintegrated. When DH went to look at the issue, I remembered I had bought this NOS doorbell a whiiiiiiile ago. I kernoodled a bit re: where had I stashed it. And in about three tries, I found it. It hooked right up to the existing doorbell wires, easy peasy.

Seriously. My husband LOVES it.

He gazes lovingly every time we drive up to the house in the dark.

He wanted to make sure I. Did. Not. Throw. Out. The. Box.

As if.

Medallioan-Home-Living-Better-Electrically-2The Medallion Home Live Better Electrically campaign was A Thing, back in the day. But I am so busy working on my speech for Las Vegas that I have not a minute to go find links that explain it. Can you help, dear readers? If you find any good stories, can you post the links in a comment?

Medallioan-Home-Living-Better-Electrically-3Anyone else have memorabilia of this campaign? Or — something original on your house from it?

Ding dong!

Reader Interactions

Comments are closed. 

70 comments

Comments

  1. Jane says

    I have one of these on the 1968 Florida ranch house I bought as a foreclosure and am restoring. It isn’t as shiny and bright as yours! Mine is copper, and reoxidized the first time I cleaned. The second time, I finished with a quick coat of clear spray on enamel, which has kept the copper shine.

    Switching from oil furnaces to electric was a big deal “back in the day.”

  2. Jay says

    Pam, spiffy door bell. I wish I had more room for a swanky door bell but the door trim is narrow between the door and the brick. I always thought the illuminated buttons added a cool factor.

    • Kathi says

      Ugh! We have a similar problem on our 50s ranch. The current doorbell isn’t original and is all crammed in at an angle on a narrow piece of trim. Our exterior is brick too, so reworking the situation is going to take some work, but it’s definitely on the “to do” list. I had a super crush on the starburst options on Rejuvenation until I figured out that fitting one on our door frame wasn’t logistically possible. 🙁

  3. Robin, NV says

    My house has three doorbells. Front door, back door, side door. Only the front door works. I like to imagine that back in the day, the original owner could expect visitors from all directions. She was a schoolteacher and from stories my neighbor tells me, the house was a hub for the neighborhood kids.

    • Jay says

      Interesting, perhaps one of the doors had its own separate bell. Usually door chimes can be utilzed for two doors. Instead of ding dong, you get either ding or dong so that you knew which of the two doors to answer.

    • Tess says

      I am so in love with that doorbell, Pam! And yes, lighted ones are the only way to go– when did they ever *stop* making them lighted by default?

      I love the feature houses used to have, where the front/back/side doors had different chimes, so when the doorbell rang, you knew which way to scurry.

      Anyone know if that’s still an available feature on today’s electric doorbells?

      • Patrick says

        No doorbell on my 1920’s house. There was no electricity when it was built. I love to hear people rap their knuckles after looking for the bell. I wonder how many young people have never seen a house without a door bell an have no idea what to do. They probably get out their phone and call to announce their arrival.

    • Carolyn says

      I revisited teh smecc site and clicked on this:
      http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0063xf
      a LA Times article from 2001 about how the all-electric homes were adversely affecting then-present-day owners. One line jangled:
      “In the 1950s, when the all-electric home-building campaign was launched, the process of making electricity was not as efficient as it is today…”
      Wha?, that doesn’t make sense!
      Commenters to the article suggested it could be retro-fitted with solar panels. Today, except with heat and maybe water, aren’t our homes about 90% electric?
      I kind of can’t wait for the weekend when more posters chime in!

    • Jay says

      Well thanks, that was interesting! You do live better electrically until the power goes out, which happens to me frequently. I bet it’s because the builder installed Westinghouse appliances instead of GE, after all; it was a GE promotion. Interesting, you could not claim all electric if you did not have electric heat. If I had that here in the Mid-Atlantic area I would freeze. Back in the day, it was cheap to install and operate; not so cheap these days.

      • Mary Elizabeth says

        Electric heat in the Northeast? Been there, done that in my old condo. Before all new windows, extra insulation, and installation of a pellet stove, the cost of which had skyrocketed to $600 in the 1990s.

        • Adrian Stroud says

          Yes I had all electric heat in my old house in CT. It was astronomical to heat.

  9. Janet in ME says

    Pam, love your doorbell! I would also love to get into your stash! My father sold GE appliances “back in the day” and was always going to seminars put on by the electric company in conjunction with GE. I do recall they had “Reddy Kilowatt”, a stick figure promoting all electric everything. I have no idea if this was regional/New England, or national. I don’t know that I have any of the promotional stuff around, but I do recall the Reddy Kilowatt thing was a big deal. I wonder when he retired?!