No Pattern Required

By Sablemable aka Jan

Who can say anything bad about MCM bathroom fixtures?  All those brightly colored fixtures with matching or coordinating ceramic tiled walls that makes our MCM  homes so special.

Crane has been around for about 160 years and has acquired American Standard and Eljer.   Here are some of their classic fixtures from 1952.

First off, the color chart.   Starting on the left and going down the columns are Pale Jade; Citrus Yellow; Persian Red; Shell Pink; India Ivory; Sun Tan; French Gray and Sky Blue.

Our favorite sink from the Criterion Group.

The Diana Group in Pale Jade.

Now I know this blog has the most intelligent readers and would know what that little green sink attached to the wall was for, but I, your trusty composer is not that smart.  I thought it was a child’s sink.  Wrong!!!!!  It’s Crane’s oral hygiene lavatory from their Drexel Group!  There’s not a lot of information about these dental lavatories, however, at www.vintageplumbing.com, a customer asked the what and what for of these sinks.  It was believed that one should not brush one’s teeth in the same basin where one washes one’s hands, thus, the dental lavatory was born.  According to Vintage Plumbing, these sinks were seen mostly in homes of the well-to-do.  I adore them!

Who has original Crane or other companies’ fixtures in their homes?  If you have photos, send them to me and I’ll do a follow-up post!

By RetroRuth

Okay, so Tom and I have a deal when it comes to movie rentals.  We see something he likes, and then we see something I like.  It works out pretty well this way, both for seeing good movies and for the good of our marriage.  We both tend to pick out a couple stinkers, and once in a while get a really good one we both like.

The Right Stuff met all of our criteria. A good story, science-y, a good cast, good dialogue and AND it had 1950′s and 1960′s sets and clothing. Sc-ore.

(Okay, I am going to show you some awesome scenes now, which belong to the movie The Right Stuff and not to me or this website. DO NOT reproduce these, but feel free to link back.)

Pretty sweet, huh?  It was a good movie, too.  It is based on a book of the same name by Tom Wolfe, which follows the 7 original astronauts in the United States. A good pick if you like history, science, space and, most importantly, mid-century clothing and furniture. Fun times!

Part of the Cocoa Beach scenes.

A little men’s fashion.

The scenes inside of the wives’ homes were especially fun.  And the dresses!

Apron alert!

Love this shot.

Inside NASA, with all the required science-y stuff; big buttons, levers and TV screens in the console.

Kitchen and vintage mixmaster!

An emotional scene.  A cool shelf.

I adore this lavender dress!

So, I hope these shots have peaked your interest in the movie. If you have seen the movie before, let us know what you thought of it. If you haven’t, add it to your Netflix right now!

By RetroRuth

Well, hello there readers!  Not expecting me today, were you??  Well, I BEGGED Sablemable to give me a shot at this week’s WYBMN because I stumbled on a honey of a gem of a fun find. 

A Lustron home for sale in in Hays, Kansas! This gorgeous pre-fab home is ultra-mid-century modern, if that is even a term, which I am pretty sure it is now.

This cute baby is for sale by Steve.  It has two bedrooms, one bathroom and he is asking $85,000.  The fun site he created for the home is here, and you should check it out.  Not only does he have more pics of the house, but information on the Lustron line and some sweet vintage pictures. And I couldn’t resist posting a few of the more adorable bits here on this site.

A little bit of background on this one.  The Lustron homes were created by Carl Strandlund, a Swedish-born designer living in the US.  His vision was to create a mass-produced house made entirely of steel.  The Lustron homes were produced in Ohio from 1948-1951, when the company went bankrupt.  Only 2,500 homes were produced by the company, which makes this fun home even more unique. 

The house was described in a 2008 exhibit of the history of pre-fabricated homes in the US  in MOMA:

[The home] consisted of a concrete foundation and steel skeleton frame topped by trusses. All internal divisions are pre-fabricated modular units that double as shelving, cabinetry, closets, dressers and vanities, and the exterior is clad in porcelain-enameled steel panels.  The entire house was designed to pack flat for arrival on a Lustron truck. Assembly took approximately eight days with half-dozen workers.

So, after that fun intro, here is Steve’s house.  And his ultra-awesome collection of mid-century furniture and accents. Great job, Steve!

Close-up of the exterior.

The living room.  Notice the metal walls!

The dining room.  That view kills me, and I adore the light.

You know I love a cute kitchen!

Master bedroom.

A vanity to die for.

Guest room.

Another view of the guest room, so we can appreciate the coolness of the linens and the hotness of that Thermos collection. Love it.

So, anyone decided to move to Hays yet??? Be sure to check out Steve’s site for more pictures and a ton more information on Lustron.  Thanks, Steve!!

By RetroRuth

I had an amazing weekend.  Tom’s parents were up visiting, and we packed every single minute of the weekend full with activities.  Not that I mind at all, it was a ton of fun!  But I must say, the best activity was the tour at the Alden B. Dow Home and Studio.

I have featured a few Alden B. Down houses on the site, such as this home in Saginaw Township, the Calvin Campbell House and this house down the street from us.  If you want to learn more about Alden B. Down and his designs, you can visit the Home and Studio website or make the trip and attend the tour yourself.  It is more than worth it, trust me.

Unfortunately, photographs of the inside of the house where not allowed on the tour.  It is probably a good thing, because all of my dear, faithful readers would have DIED if I showed them to you.  I am not kidding here.  Tom and I had to keep each other propped up during the tour, because we were both on the verge of fainting the entire time.  Even heroic, stoic Tom leaned over and breathed in my ear “Oh my Goooooooooooooooooooood,” like a little schoolgirl when we were sitting in the Bertoia/Knoll furniture on the screened porch.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

You must come and see the tour.  All of you reading this. All. Of. You.  Not only is the house spectacular in and of itself (and on the Historic Register since 1989), but the tour is a very unique experience.  Per the wishes of Alden Dow and his wife, there are no velvet ropes, or closed off rooms, or docents shaking fingers at you saying, “No, no, don’t touch.” It is a completely interactive tour.  Completely.  I traced my fingers along the painted murals, scuffed my feet in the mosaic-like carpet in the “family” room, leaned against world-map wallpaper, rested in Eames chairs when I got light-headed and secretly hugged a grass-green tiled bathroom wall when no one was looking.  It was completely interactive.  Completely.  Our friendly tour guides must have thought I was insane as I staggered around from room to room, sitting in every chair, touching the George Nelson lights and being the very last one to leave the kitchen with its white Geneva cabinets.  For a lover of Mid-Century, it was a Mecca.  I saw and TOUCHED things that I may otherwise have never seen in my lifetime, let alone afford for my own home.  I SAT on works of art.  It was amazing.   Some of the highlights included:

A complete set of white Geneva cabinets in the kitchen, with such innovations as a blender INSIDE the countertop and a microwave built into the cabinets.  They looked exactly like the cabinets in my kitchen. Exactly, except for the color.

The floor of the Dow kitchen was a pebbled yellow linolieum.  It was very pretty.

The bathrooms of the home all had white Crane sinks with chrome legs and chrome towel bars on the side.  The bathrooms were blue, green and brown. The tile on the walls went from floor to ceiling, and the tiles on the floor were white.  They looked like the bathrooms from the Saginaw Township home, except without the wooden accents.

I saw at least two George Nelson ceiling fixtures.  One was the classic saucer lamp, which I touched.

The chairs we sat in were numerous, and have become sort of a soft blur of amazingly cool seating in my mind.  But the ones that still stand out are:

Bertoia Bird Chairs

Photo from AllModern 

Two white Arne Jacobsen Swan chairs.

Photo from FritzHansen.com

Of course, the classic Eames Lounge Chair. There were two of them, in fact.  Tom and I both sat in one, and sighed.

Photo from StyleCrave.com.

Bliss.

But the most informative part, and the part of the home where I would love to spend more time, is the Archive room.  Thousands of design plans, stories and vintage photography lay dormant in a brightly painted room in the house.  They are open to the public by appointment so I can play to my heart’s content, but the challenge will be trying to bring the information to all you lovely readers.  Will I be able to?  Will you get to see decades of amazing Midwestern Modern designs??? 

Give me some feedback and leave some comments on your thoughts about having some of the Alden B. Dow archive on the blog.  I want to convince them to let me show you some amazing houses!

By RetroRuth

Wow!  My friend Kathryn and I recently stumbled on the most amazing estate sale.  Unfortunately, everything was priced a little too rich for us, but we sure did have a great time digging through boxes of stuff and taking pictures. A lot of pictures!  Check out the slideshow below of over 40 pictures of the house.  It had some great, colorful combos, and lots of really interesting pieces to drool over!

By RetroRuth

Well, I am excited!  We have started our summer renovating on the house.  Maybe renovating is too strong of a word.  We have started our “refreshing” of the house and Tom and I did a ton of stuff this weekend and had a lot of fun.  Mostly we dug in the dirt in our garden, hacking out years of overgrown plants and enormous bushes to make way for the new fruit vines and bushes Tom got me for my birthday.  But we still had some time to head out to Bay City to shop around for the house. 

This mint green toilet has a pink cap!!!  This cutie was already sold, but we also saw a small gray sink that I forgot to take a picture of.  I love these old colored fixtures.  I was trying to talk Tom into working a few of them into our garden, but he seems to think that would look trashy.  What do you guys think?

Anyway, so we were on the hunt yesterday for house furnishings, and came across a few possibilities for a kitchen table.

Gray cracked-ice formica.  We would have to get new chairs, but the table was in great condition.

A Hey-Wake table, but it was refinished poorly.

Or a giant tulip table!  The padding would have to be peeled off the chairs.

I really love the Formica one, but Tom wasn’t as excited.  He wants a reproduction table with boomerang Formica, so we will have to discuss.

Oh, and then there was this room!

Whoa.  Lots of choices here!  But now that we are picking things, I just can’t seem to find anything that is just perfect.

Oh, except for this:

Our new Sputnik fixture!!!  Holy god!!! 

I am so excited about this one.  We found it at Americana in Bay City and just love it.  It is the perfect size for our entryway. It has 24 arms, which I think is great!  Oh, and it does have all the bulbs, we just removed some to store it safely.

More, better pictures are coming soon!  What about you guys?  Find anything amazing this weekend! Let us know!

Thanks, Jan!  These Better Homes and Gardens books are always such fun.  They sometimes go over the top, but I always love looking at them!

This week’s post is about the furnishings and decor of 1967.  Although the late Sixties are not one of my favorite times of Mid-Century Modern, I keep an open mind.

The pictures I’ve chosen is from Better Homes & Gardens Home Furnishings and Ideas Magazine of 1967.  You’ll see where colors become vivid, fabrics and draperies are heavy, darker woods are used and the trend is Mediterranean mixed with Modern, Colonial and “Early Orange Crate.”

Wow!  Who needs a morning caffeine jolt when you can get jump-started with an in-your-face shot of bold color!

 The headboard in this picture was made from the sides of a discarded bentwood rocker.  MCM fans do something similar by searching, finding, buying and recycling unwanted furnishings and decor into our homes.

Notice the modern coffee table in the midst of Queen Anne furniture and African statues.

Rugs and carpeting are colorful, plush and shaggy.

The heavy fabrics and dark woods are the complete opposite of the bold colors.  One could easily curl up on the sofa and fall asleep

This picture combines bold colors, patio furniture (the coffee table) and artificial grass (grass?) for the area rug.

The bright colors and mish-mosh of elements are a far cry of the simplicity of modern style. 

What are your thoughts, gang?

I should extend that title to “Make Me Realize I Have Yet Another Project To Finish”.

So, the new craft room has been coming along pretty well.  I am mostly just arranging furniture now and starting to move some of the big tables and things into place.  I have to pick out my carpet still and I also have to wash some storage shelves with bleach water, but I decided to do some of the fun decorating before that just for the heck of it.

I pulled some vintage curtains out that I had picked up at the local Salvation Army without any real plan of where they might go.  Now I had something to do with them. I just had to figure out which set I wanted.

The windows in the craft room have this strange hardware over them.

There are three of these circles on the ceiling above every window in the basement.  One on either side of the window, and then one in the middle.  I have never seen window hardware like this before, but I assume there was a rod or something that went through the little bracket, and then you were able to hang a curtain on it.  If anyone out there knows exactly how to do it, let me know.

I made do with threading a string through it so I could hang the pleat hooks on it, since both sets of curtains I bought had hooks.  Then I just had to make a choice.  The shorter set with the green and blue ovals.

Or the long blue and whites with the pyramids.

Here you can see the difference in a side by side comparison.  The shorter ones are all wrinkley from being trapped in a bag for so long.  You have to excuse them.

So, after much discussing with Tom, I decided on the longer pyramid drapes.  Only to realize something after they were up.

One side is significantly shorter than the other.

After a few minutes of swearing, I started to set up my sewing machine table.  I suppose bleaching the shelves can wait…

So, I have been thinking a lot about all of the naked walls in our house, and what the heck I am going to do about them.  Pictures are a must, of course, but I was also thinking along the lines of some great decorative shelves covered with curios and little ceramic figures. 

Sara’s post about refinishing her shadowboxes was a great inspiration for this, and if you haven’t read it yet you should check it out.

So, I have started shopping online (since it is too cold to garage sale here) and have some up with some shelf picks on Ebay that I love!  Enjoy!

Okay, so minimal progress on the new craft room this week, but I am hoping I can drag Tom to the local carpet shop and check out some carpet remnants today.  I had a really good suggestion from a reader last week to check out floating flooring (Thanks, Tim!)  but because of the room’s size it would take over $1000 to put new flooring in it, even if I got the cheap stuff.  Which, I didn’t want.  I wanted cork. Which was even more expensive.

Anyway, so I decided a nice carpet remnant held down by some heavy furniture would be the way to go.  They are reasonably cheap, and in a few years when we replace the whole basement floor, I won’t feel like I wasted any money.

Oh, I also took some pictures of the actual room, finally!

I hope you can get an idea of how big the room is from the shot.  It is really big. And mostly filled with Tom’s stuff.  And yes, that is a drawing looking up Tom’s nose in the background.  He was pretty crazy when he used to paint.  We need to get a bunch of his paintings framed so we can hang them up in our house.  But maybe not that one.

The other side of the room.  That big entertainment center was left over from the previous owner.  I am thinking about spraypainting it or something and using it as storage for the craft room.  I just have to figure out a way to get paint to stick to laminate.

And here are some more vintage rec rooms, for inspiration!

Love the floor!

I ADORE that sculpture.  I need it in my entryway!

Again, awesome flooring.

Love it! 

I just…wow.  Can I get this room? Please?  Anyone?  Look at those chairs!!!!