No Pattern Required

By RetroRuth

I found the cutest salt and pepper shakers while out thrifting recently, an adorable little mouse and his piece of cheese. I decided to name the mouse Jeffie.  He just kind of looks like a Jeffie, you know?

Jeffie and his cheese are a nested set of S&P shakers from Lefton.  And no, I did not recognize them.  Jeffie was considerate enough to come with a label on his little backside.

I was drawn to this set because of Jeffie’s enormous eyes, and the fact that he is kicking through a piece of cheese!

Ooooooo…three dimensional!

For now, Jeffie is hanging out with my Harlequin collection in the big china cabinet.  But I hope to find a shadowbox for him and his cheese soon!

What do you think, Sara??  Would Jeffie and George be good friends???

Tell us what great stuff you found this weekend, guys!  We would love to rejoice with you!

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!

I know that redirecting your traffic is a big no-no in blogger world, but for those of you who haven’t read it yet, go over to Retro Renovation and check out Pam’s fantastic and ultra-detailed post on vintage metal kitchen cabinets, you will be glad you did!!!

Our 1956 Steel Geneva Cabinets

By the way, in her article Pam recommends VCT tile on the floor for a 1950′s kitchen.  If you haven’t seen pictures of our kitchen before, here it is before the VCT tile:

And here it is after!

Pretty big difference, huh????

Ohhh! You know we love to see restoration and period renovation on this site!  Everyone give a big hello to Ron, who recently sent me some amazing pictures of his “new” mid-century house.

Ron needs a little help with his kitchen cabinets, and I so I decided to share his story with all of you!

Ron writes:

In terms of color, the sky is really the limit for you! With your neutral countertops and the fact that you are getting a new floor, you could probably paint your cabinets any color you wanted.  I can’t speak for everyone, but I adore having colored cabinets instead of white.  But I love the white cabinets in my laundry room just as much as their blue kitchen cousins.

My parents recently bought a small house on a lake in Woodruff, Wisconsin.  It is really cute, in a retirement community and they love it.  And the best part is, they have a yellow 1970s bathroom. Pictures of that are coming up later this week.

In the meantime, here is pictures of the Wood’s Cafe, which is right down the street from my parent’s new place.

Pretty neat, isn’t it?  This cute little mom and pop cafe has been owned by the same family since 1963, and while the inside isn’t exactly the same as it once was, it is pretty close.

Here is a picture of the cafe from the 1960′s.  Don’t you just love it???

And here is the cafe today.

The floor has changed somewhat, but the counter is pretty much the same, which is the great part. 

The two cute guys are Tom, of course, and my Dad, who was really excited to find a place where he could get good corned beef hash for breakfast before a fishing trip.

Here is the AMAZING Formica on the counter.  Tom was dying over this and I can’t blame him.  I would give my eyeteeth to be able to put this in our kitchen right now!

Another shot of the counter and the great barstools.

Our food, nice and hot!  Looks good, doesn’t it?  And I adore the vintage plates! The pancakes were super good, by the way and had real butter on them.  I love Wisconsin.

So, if you come up to Northern Wisconsin, make sure you stop by the Woods Cafe in Woodruff, especially if you are crazy about vintage!

So, it is time that I start posting about some of the stuff Tom and I have been doing this fall!  During our trip to the UP,  Tom and I went to the Keweenaw Peninsula and stayed at the Laurium Manor Inn.   Well, actually we stayed at the Victorian Hall B&B, which is part of the Laurium Manor Inn’s little group of houses they have in their bed and breakfast empire.  The houses are all really, really cool with tons of great period detail.  Unfortunately, the period they are in is Victorian, which doesn’t really work for this blog, but it is still spectacular to stay there even if the renovations are ongoing and everything isn’t quite restored yet.  One of the most unique parts of the house, which I can’t resist showing here, is the ELEPHANT HIDE wallpaper from the dining room in the Laurium Inn.

Creepy, huh?  It was up in the dining room, so I had plenty of time to study it while we were eating breakfast. Bleh.

Anyway, the Laurium Inn was all Victorian, but the Victorian Hall had one section that didn’t fit in.  The kitchen had been redone in the 1960′s, and the owners hadn’t had time to refurbish it yet so Tom and I got to see it in its 1960′s glory.

Nice cabinets, don’t you think?  The hardware is unfortunate, but they were going for Victorian, so I will cut them some slack.

Original wall oven.  Does anyone know they exact date of this color?? 

The original stove, for a period touch in the kitchen.

And here is an Art Deco light that was in the Butler’s Pantry.  I ADORED this, so I had to include a picture.

Hope everyone is having a great Friday!!

Check out the fabulous new dishes!!  Tom and I got these from my parents for our anniversary which is coming up on Thanksgiving Day.

They say on the bottom: Mikasa Elite Narumi Calibou. From what I can find out, this is from the time when Mikasa was primarily an importer.  This pattern was produced by the Narumi company in Japan and imported into the United States in the 1960′s.   My parents picked up this set for $25 at a flea market this summer.  My mom said she bought it for two reasons, the first because it is blue, but the second reason was that she couldn’t walk away from the salt and pepper shakers.  I can’t blame her, they are pretty fabulous and I am very excited about the gift.  They aren’t exactly the same blue as my kitchen, but I still LOVE them and the pattern. Oh, and my parents!

So, I was digging through all of pamphlets and instructional manuals the former owner of our house had left behind for us and looking for the directions on how to operate the record player in the basement.  Seriously. I remember using a record player when I was little, but the model that is hooked up in the basement goes far beyond a simple record player. 

In any case, not only did I find the instructions for the record player, but a ton of other interesting instruction manuals as well. Including the original installation instructions that came with our blue Geneva kitchen cabinets.  I need to do a bunch of scanning before I upload the others, but here is the cabinet instructions. Enjoy!

So, hubby and I have just purchased a 1956 brick ranch home in Michigan, and afterwards found out that we were some of the luckiest people on the planet. When we first walked into the house, we were shocked at how vintage and fun everything looked. There were marble accent’s everywhere, a lot of original light fixtures and tons and tons of built-ins.  But what floored me the most was the spectacular kitchen!  It was full of the original metal cabinets from when the house was built, and I fell completely in love with it. Within days we had an accepted offer – and a completely new style that we didn’t even know existed!

Mid-Century Modern.

And now, everything we do is influenced by it. And why shouldn’t it be?  Our house is a picture-perfect vintage testament to how quirky and fun the 1950′s were, and how all of those great ideas shouldn’t be changed out or thrown away for something modern, but saved. By starting this blog, I will try to follow what my husband and I consider to be an important part of our lives now: restoring our vintage home.

The first thing was, of course, our fabulous kitchen. The first place we looked for information on where to start our restoration was the internet. A quick google of “Vintage 50′s Paint Colors” let us to www.retrorenovation.com , and all of Pam’s great advice. So much information can be found there! We found our paint palette in a snap (Sherwin Williams Suburban Modern Palette) and had some great leads on how to replace the filthy carpet in the kitchen and dining area. And it was something we had never even thought of: commercial flooring.

We ended up going with Armstrong’s Standard Excelon Imperial Texture  in Blue Cloud and Soft Cool Gray. It looks fantastic, as you can see from the picture.

If you are interested in more pictures of our kitchen, check out my flickr photostream. Also, Pam recently did an entry about our house and kitchen here. Please check it out!