No Pattern Required

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

Ahhhh. I can’t even begin to tell you how satisfied I am with the subject of this post.  The 1980′s lighting that is scattered around our ranch is something that bugs us like crazy. We have slowly begun finding period-appropriate vintage lights for most of the areas, including a fantastic Sputnik for the entryway, but the perfect kitchen light continues to elude us.

But we decided we didn’t care to wait anymore.

This is Tom staring hatefully at the lamp that has hung in our kitchen for the last year and a half.  I, personally, hate this light.  I know Tom does.  Look at him, staring at it. It is very Victorian-ice-cream parlor, while we are going for cool-atomic-kitchen.  Not quite the same vibe.

So, we decided we were going to switch it out for a cheap mid-mod substitute until we can get our hands on the real deal. Here is Tom, pretending like he knows nothing about changing a lamp. Which is ridiculous because he has totally changed like, three lights. Two without any of my Dad’s help.

I am kidding, he does a great job. 

See, look at how well he is changing the light while I stand off to the side, not helping at all. Unless taking pictures and criticizing is helping. In which case, I was a great help.

The light we decided to use was an inexpensive, classic style we bought at Lowe’s last weekend.  This stainless steel pendant was cheap at $35 and fits our style. 

See, here is Tom’s fine wiring  job!

Attaching the top.

Ta-da! Finished!  It isn’t perfect, by any means, but it is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than the pink wheat light.  Oh, and the kitten cages kind of dominate the background. Little brats! Hopefully the last few will find good homes soon.

Umm…anyone want a kitten???

Today I am showing another cute house in Saginaw, but remember the cavat from last week, everyone.  Don’t get too excited, there are no jobs in Saginaw.

This house is a really cute three bedroom ranch that was built in 1954.  It is about 1200 square feet and the cost is $72,900.  Once again, that is not a typo.

Cute original kitchen cabinets.  I love the shutter doors on the uppers.  I have found that is a cabinet around here.

Every mid-century house needs a little knotty pine.

Cute peach bathroom that reminds me a lot of our master bathroom. Wish they had a better picture of the floor!

This picture is a little dark, but that looks like a black asbestos tile floor and there is a cute french provincial vanity under those boxes!

And, to top it all off, a little screen porch!

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.

Pink is the name of this game in this awesome 1967 time capsule for sale right now in Midland.  Pink counter in kitchen, pink bedroom and, oh yeah, TWO pink and blue bathrooms.  I think I feel faint. Sable, are you with me??

Anyway, the house is just under 2000 square feet with four bedrooms and two bathrooms.  They are only asking $109,900 because according to them it needs “TLC”.   Of course, I totally, totally love it.

Wait…let me catch my breath.  Those are terrible pictures of those bathrooms, I am sure they are much better than those pictures.

The only thing is…what is the deal with the oven in the kitchen??? Is it just sitting on the countertop?

Eh, who cares. I’ll take it!

As I mentioned in my previous post about the Woods Cafe, my parents recently bought a little house on a lake in Woodruff, Wisconsin in a retirement community.  I was really excited for them because they have been wanting to move up there for years, but also because the place was built in the early 1970′s and has never been updated.

“You will love it!”  my mom squealed over the phone, “there is even a yellow toilet in the bathroom!”

“Really?  Sounds awesome.  Take some pictures for me.”

“I will.  But your father wants to take them out.”

“No way!  Tell him no.”

I could hear my mom, muffled, as she turned to talk to my dad. “She says you can’t take out the toilet,” and a quiet, ”Oh crap,” in the background.

My mom came back on the phone.  “Your father said ‘Oh, crap’.”

I rolled my eyes.  “Yeah, Mom.  I heard him.”

But I think my dad is starting to warm up to the yellow fixtures.  He even found a yellow toilet seat to replace the white one that was on their when they bought the place, so I think I might have him convinced!

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!!

The adorable mermaids in Sara’s Goodwill guest post on Tuesday has had me scanning the internet for some little mermaids and fish of my own!  I saw some super cute vintage wall plaques on Ebay, so I thought I would share them with you.

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!