No Pattern Required

By RetroRuth

Finally!!  I know I have been promising to post pictures of the new basement floor for a while, and I have finally had time to sit down, edit photos and pick out some good ones. 

Everyone will be happy to know that ALL of the nasty, gross carpeting is GONE from the basement. Huzzah! And it has been replaced with Armstrong VCT tile in red and black.

Let’s take a look, shall we???

Down the stairs aaaaaaaand….

Ta-Da!!!  What do you think? Too crazy?  We messed around with a lot of patterns and color combinations before coming up with this.  First, we decided on the pattern, which was inspired by Tom’s grandparent’s basement.

Here is Tom’s little sister playing shuffleboard in his grandparent’s house. 

I know, I know, we really should have gotten the shuffleboard. 

We then threw color ideas around, wanting to go with something that wouldn’t impact resale too much, and at the same time be the retro basement we longed for.

In the end, we just decided to bite the bullet, forget about resale and go with the red and black we really wanted.  And I think it ended up looking pretty good!  Next up, paint on the walls, and new Formica for the countertops.

The carpet was also pulled out of my sewing room, thank goodness!  I went with a nice neutral gray in this room.  It looks like of institutional now, but my accent color is going to be turquoise, and the walls will all be painted gray in the near future.  More pictures of this coming soon!

And here is Midnight enjoying the new floor!!! At first, the cats didn’t care for the new floor, one of them even refused to walk on the red squares and hopped from black to black across the floor.  But they have all settled in now, and love the coolness of the floor compared to the hot, sticky summer upstairs.

Did anyone else just finish a big summer project??? Let us know!

By Sara In AZ

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Who amongst us caught the Mad Men episode “The Rejected”  on August 15th or “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword” on August 22? Well, I did and I was floored by what I saw! My Sunbeam clock! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Here is a picture from “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword” and it shows the clock right between Peggy and Joan.

Picture from video clip on http://www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/

I bought this clock a few years ago at an Estate sale, and it is the same clock Joan has in her office!!!

Totally bizarre!

Here is a close up of the hands, I think they are so cool.

This clock is really interesting because you can hang it vertically or horizontally. Here are the instructions on the back.

Here is a close up of the Sunbeam label.

And, finally, here is the clock hanging in it’s natural habitat – on the wall above my one armed couch!

Please remember to vote for Eartha Kitsch in the Kozy Shack Contest! Please spread the word if you can, we need to get Eartha’s votes up! Click HERE for the link. Thanks y’all!

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 Sara In AZ

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OK, are y’all ready for Part 2 in the block series? Here goes!

Here are 2 different variations on a ‘Diamond’ type block pattern.

Here is a fancy “H” type design. These are actually at my In-Laws house!

When I first saw this one I thought “Diamond” pattern, then I thought no, “Circles”.  No “Diamond”. No “Circles”. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

It’s whatever you want it to be!

Don’t y’all just love this fancy “Circle/Diamond” type pattern!

These “Flower” type blocks are actually on a Church right by my house.

These geometric type blocks are the cats meow! *Meow Meow*

Here are some lovely “Starburst’ blocks! Soooo awesome!

I have to say that these next decorative blocks are my favorite pattern yet!  So kitschy, yet so MCM. I have never seen them on another house around here besides this one, so I wonder if they were custom? Me really loves!

And, lastly, I had to show you this city building in Mesa that is COVERED in decorative block! And when I say covered, I really do mean covered. The block is all over the front and back of the building! So totally cool! You can kind of see some windows behind the block.

Here is a close up of the block.

I know there are a zillion more block patterns out there. When Mike and I go on another block recon mission I will be sure to snap more pics!

Please remember to vote for Eartha Kitsch in the Kozy Shack Contest! Please spread the word if you can, we need to get Eartha’s votes up! Click HERE for the link. Thanks y’all!

By Sara In AZ

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OK, let’s get the bad part out of the way first. I hate to tell y’all about misfortune in the MCM world, and I know there might be a few tears shed by what I am about to tell ya – esp. by Annie B. who has a special fondness for concrete screen block. But just know that I feel as badly as y’all do about this. There is a house in my neighborhood with this AWESOME full wall of decorative concrete screen block surrounding the front door and porch area in the front. Mike and I would always pass by and admire the block because it really added something special to the house, it made it stand out from the others. Recently we saw the house go up for sale and unfortunately a flipper bought it. We fretted that they may knock down the wall because, well because it is different. I watched the house and when the flippers put the house back up for sale the block was still there. Whew…… And then I passed by about 2 weeks later and half the wall had been taken down. I about threw myself on the ground and almost had a tantrum right there! I quick looked in the alley hoping they had dumped them there and then I could haul them all back to my house, but nothing was there. Bummer. They must have taken them all down and brought them to the dump immediately. Double bummer. In my own little dream world I hope the screen block that was taken away is in a much happier place now!

Decorative Screen Block Heaven perhaps???

Here is a before picture of the house.

And here is the dreaded after.

Here is the block from the inside of the half wall. You can see the cool plus sign type design.

Are y’all throwing a tantrum like I did? I know, I know. Sara is here for y’all – now, now it is gonna be OK. Poor little screen block.

OK, glad that is out of the way!  I thought it would be fun to go around Phoenix and try to find as many different types of decorative concrete screen block as we could. We have concrete screen block out the wazoo here, especially in the older areas built in the 1950s, 1960s and into the 1970s! We do LOVE our concrete fencing around here!

Check out this kind of ‘Reverse Plus Sign’ type of block.

And who does not love the wagon wheel? I do!

And here is the double wagon wheel, so it actually looks like a wagon wheel. Weeeeeeeeee!

I like to think of this one as a type of hourglass design with a diamond in the middle.

Here is a cool fancy X type design.

I totally love the circle block!

And do y’all remember this house that was for sale a while back here in AZ? It has the same awesome circle block, as pictured above, fencing in the whole courtyard! Be still my heart!

Here are some more circle blocks  just on a smaller scale. Me loves!

And lastly, this ultra cool block in sort of a  lightning bolt pattern. I love how the design of all the blocks together makes either an X or O pattern depending on how you look at it. Really awesome block!

Stay tuned y’all! More Decorative Concrete Screen Block on Thursday!

Please remember to vote for Eartha Kitsch in the Kozy Shack Contest! Please spread the word if you can, we need to get Eartha’s votes up! Click HERE for the link. Thanks y’all!

By RetroRuth

Happy Monday!  I thought I would cheer everyone up on this most-dreaded day with a cheerful picture of a fun door escutcheon that I lust after to an insane degree.

Tom and I saw this home the other weekend while we were trying to find a garage sale.  From the street, it just looks like a regular, awesome mid-century house with a peachy-pink door.  But upon closer inspection…

Oh yes.  A starburst escutcheon.  I started pointed and squealing when I saw it.  This picture was taken after Tom had me bundled back into the car so no one who he works with could see us.  This neighborhood also had another great house with a boomarang escutcheon which I tried to take pictures of.  For some reason, Tom was driving really fast and they didn’t turn out. Dang!  Oh well, you guys will see it when I sneak into that neighborhood tomorrow night and steal it for our house.

Kidding, kidding!  I would never steal. Stealing is bad. Remember that, Kids At Home, stealing=bad.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need dig my black shirt and vintage black headscarf out of the closet.

By Sara In AZ

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So I am sure y’all have just been on the edge of your seats wondering, “Which fabric did Sara choose?”

Was it the wool boucle? No.

Was it the ice blue one? No.

Was it this Chartreuse one? No.

It WAS this chartreuse fabric that I picked for the one armed couch and the little bandido! The last one on the list. I know a lot of y’all liked the above chartreuse better, but the scanned picture below does not really convey the texture of my fabric very well.  So read on and see why I picked this fabric – and you can also see better pictures of the texture below too!

I really could not find anything in a teal color that had the texture I was looking for. So, I went for the chartreuse green color. I really liked the wool boucle fabric, but the color was all wrong for me. I guess I wanted a color that was a bit more out there – if you know what I mean. I was going back and forth between the 2 chartreuse fabrics, but I finally settled on the last one because it actually had a bit more texture and it was a much heavier weight upholstery fabric, so I thought it would hold up a lot better over time.

I tried in vain to find my fabric listed somewhere on the web so I could give y’all a link, but no such luck. It is made by a company called Marcovaldo. The pattern is ‘Madrid’ and the color is ‘Fig’. The fabric is a Viscose/Poly/Cotton blend. The fabric was $16.50 a yard from Mesa Sales, so I was happy with that price. It was A LOT better than $60 a yard anyway.

I was kind of worried that I would not like my fabric after I ordered it. I mean, I only saw a little  square of it in the sample book. I was worried the big bolt of fabric would look different somehow, or the color would be off. But not to worry, when the fabric arrived I liked even more! Whew!!!

So I rang up Austen, the wonder upholsterer, and he said “Bring them on over!” A few weeks later here is what I had.

Wait a minute! Do y’all know I have not had one victim, err, client for my lovely turquoise hair dryer yet!

Y’all aren’t scared, are you? Look at the lovely couch you could be sitting on while getting your hair done!

How will Sara’s Hair*A*Rama ever stay in business?

Here is the little Bandido!

Here are some pictures with the flash off so you can get a better idea of the detail. Though the true color is more like the pictures above with the flash on – more chartreuse, not light green at all.

I told Austen I wanted these couches done EXACTLY the same way as they were before – all the cording, all the buttons, all the channels of the back – everything. I think he did a really great job! He even added some cording on the back, that was not there before, just to make it look a bit more polished! Thanks Austen!

Here are some close up pictures of the texture.

These were also with the flash off.

One other thing I did was sand down all the little legs to the natural color and spray them with a wood lacquer. For some weird reason all of the legs were different colors. Some were natural maple, some were reddish stained, and some were brown stained. Hmmmmm???  I thought leaving them the natural color was the easiest thing.

So, that is it! What do y’all think?

Oh no, George has already found the couches! At least she doesn’t have claws – whew!

She is winking at y’all. *Wink*Wink*

Please remember to vote for Eartha Kitsch in the Kozy Shack Contest! Please spread the word if you can, we need to get Eartha’s votes up! Click HERE for the link. Thanks y’all!

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 Sara In AZ

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OK, so I finally have my one armed couch and his little friend.

Maybe I should call the little loveseat ‘Bandido’ or something?

But now I am on the quest for upholstery fabric, specifically vintage upholstery fabric. Remember when I told y’all about finding the vintage pink upholstery fabric for my swivel chair, well the couches were really what I was looking for fabric for.

I REALLLLLLY wanted Frieze fabric in the worst way. So bad, I could feel it in the pit of my stomach – like little gremlins gnawing away at me ‘Get Frieze, get Frieze’. I searched high. I searched low. I searched in the middle. This stuff is nowhere to be found! I e-mailed fabric stores that have been in business foreverrrr and they did not have it. I contacted fabric people around here – Frieze, What? I contacted  SMS Auto Fabrics in Oregon and they actually did have some teal Frieze, but only 9 yards and at $60 a yard! EEPS! I needed 20 yards, so that would not work. But, hey, if anyone out there needs 9 yards you know where to go!

If anyone out there has bolts of old Frieze – hold onto it for dear life, that stuff is worth more than gold!

I also had very stern warnings from all the upholsterers I was getting quotes from about using old fabric. They said almost all the old Frieze is rubber backed, which could turn very brittle over time. So picture that you have just gotten your couches reupholstered in this lovely old Frieze and you go to sit down on it for the very first time and *********RRRRRRIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPP********!!!! No thanks! I am not saying you could not find vintage fabric to use for your project, I did for my pink swivel chair – but that fabric was not rubber backed. You may want to inquire, before buying old Frieze fabric, how it has been stored. Especially if you are paying a high price for it. So, I gave up my dream of having the old Frieze and sought out something new with a retro twist.

We wound up at Mesa Sales where they not only sell upholstery fabric, but flooring and a bunch of other things too! This place was a wonderland of fabrics! We cruised up and down aisle upon aisle of bolts of fabric that you could buy right then and there. But we did not really see anything on the bolts that would work for our little couches. So we wound up with all the fabric sample books. They only had about 800,000 sample books to go through. No problem right!  I hoped the books  had something that would work for us! So Mike and I hunkered down and went through as many books as we could to try to find our special fabric. We did not emerge for days……they had to send in food and water to us…….but we came out victorious!

My only requirements for the new fabric was that I really wanted some kind of texture to it and I wanted a color that looked 50s! I really wanted to stay with the teal/aqua color, but I also like chartreuse. I knew I was not going to find anything like the old Frieze, so I just had to keep an open mind. 

Here are some of the fabric swatches that we brought home so we could see what the samples looked like against the couches.

This was a sample that SMS sent to me because they thought I would like the pattern, and because it was teal/aqua. But, no that is not gonna work darlins’!

Here is another teal/aqua sample SMS sent to me but this was was more like carpet. So, no again.

Here is the teal Frieze they have 9 yards of. I liked it, but there was not enough fabric for me. Bummer.

Here is a chartreuse fabric, but not quite the right one for me.

I liked the teal/aqua color of this fabric, but the texture was off for me.

This fabric had a pattern, but this just was not right. Not the right color, not the right pattern. 

I kind of liked this ice blue fabric, maybe this one???????

I thought this one could be a possibility???????

This wool boucle had a really nice feel to it! Hmmmmmmm?

Chartreuse again. Me likes Chartreuse!

So, which one did I pick??? Can you stand to wait a whole week to find out???

Stay tuned for the last installment of my couch mini-series on Thursday, August 19th to find out y’all!

And, please remember to vote for Eartha Kitsch in the Kozy Shack Contest! Please spread the word if you can, we need to get Eartha’s votes up! Click HERE for the link. Thanks y’all!