The Pacesetter House of 1951

Vintage Ad Browser

This Pacesetter House of 1951 is setting the pace a little bit too fast for me. Because a fireplace is supposed to be relaxing to sit by, right? And to me, this looks a little too much like a test pattern.

I used to really like the test pattern – when I was about three. Yes, back in 1965 I used to love getting up a little bit before 6am, which was when Sunrise Semester came on, and watch the test pattern. For those of you too young to have savored this amazing visual treat, the test pattern was black and white geometric stuff that TV stations showed on your screen when they were off the air. Yes, even the TV stations used to clock off and sleep for a few hours every night, back then.

designobserver.

The test-pattern tiles aside, what also bothers me here is the grey carpeting on the ceiling. It looks like the room is standing on its head, so to speak. Maybe that’s just me, though. I wish we could see the rest of this Pacesetter house. Imagine what the bathroom tiles must be like! I love the coffee table and the sofa, though.

What do you think?

Saved By The Bell Jar

It’s so annoying when things go off or get stale, isn’t it? Moldy old bread, or last week’s gelatin salad thing that no one really wanted to ever look at again, never mind eat.

But honestly. Have you ever considered what to do if Grandfather’s watch started getting a little stale?

Not to mention all the “cake ornaments, keepsakes and treasures” you probably have lying around the house (if you’re anything like me, you have a kitchen drawer full of them).

The answer is simple: stick them all under lovely DuPont Lucite domes.

The amazing DuPont Lucite dome is equally useful, as you can see, in keeping little Jimmy fresh, too. Just tell him it’s a Space Patrol Commander helmet, and he’ll be almost as compliant as Grandfather’s watch.

From Vintage Ads at LiveJournal.

The Giant Telephones

We noticed them right away.

How could we not, they were five times the size of anything else in the house. I don’t know where they came from, but one day there were three giant telephones living at our house. Really! My brother said they were from the Planet Gigantus, where everything is really, really big. And Dad laughed at first and said they’d grown up big and strong because they ate up all their canned green beans, but he was kidding. I think.

Our regular phone must have got scared, because it was gone the morning after the Giant Telephones appeared. I guess it ran away. My brother said one it got eaten, but I can’t imagine how.

The big yellow one took over the kitchen. It watched Mom carefully. Sometimes we thought it wanted to try cooking something. Mom told us they were the newest fad in home decor, although they did take up – well, an awful lot of space.

The white one was my favorite. It decided to stay in the den, I guess it liked TV. It didn’t cause too much trouble. It was polite and didn’t stand in front of the screen – well, not too often, anyway. Only when it didn’t like the show Dad had picked out. And it only rang when there was a scary movie on and it got a little upset.

But the blue one was temperamental. It was a real princess phone – the Bell of the ball  – so only the boudoir would do. It used to sidle over to the bed and stare at anyone who dared to get in it, as if they were trespassing. It rang shrilly every time it wanted to sit at the vanity table. When it did, you’d better not be in the way! And you have no idea how hard it is to put lipstick on a rotary dial. Besides, even if you do – it’s still just a phone.

[Many thanks to Millie Motts.]

The Pop Art Fresca Pillow

The key to jazzing up any room: Pop Art Fresca pillows. Also Tootsie Roll and Sylvania Flashcube pillows. (Flashcubes, children, are what we used to use on cameras back in 1969, when this offer appeared, when taking indoor photos. They were actual cubes that you stuck on top of the camera.)

Three things I love about this picture are:

1. The incredible skyscraper hair on the model.
2. The assumption that we all have Faux Louis the Something rooms in our houses.
3. That a Fresca pillow and its friends are going to make the Faux Louis room look groovy and modern: “they’ll make any room of yours contemporary.”

But this seems unlikely, doesn’t it? The model is not happy about it, in any case.

[From Life, February 21, 1969.]

A Little Sweater For A Can

You appreciate what Comet – or Dutch Cleanser – or whatever you favorite is – does for you. It is full of greenish gritty stuff that sticks to a  sponge and helps you have fun scrubbing the bathtub. And – well, it’s almost time for the holidays. Time to show a little appreciation for the little helpers in your life. Right?

Hence, the Crocheted Cleanser Cover.

This is from a 1964 book called 101 Things To Make For Fun Or Money.This probably comes under the “For Fun” category. If you had to choose. Although I am not sure how much fun you will have. That is hard to say. Perhaps they mean that the can will have fun wearing it. Or that people who see what you’ve been up to will have fun talking about you after they go home. One of those things, anyway.

So if you happen to have a bunch of Comet cans sitting around and you want them to look lovely, this is the pattern for you! It certainly will brighten up that under-the-sink cabinet.Or perhaps you will like these covers so much you will display all the Comet and Dutch Cleanser cans on a knick-knack shelf.

I suppose you could also make covers for the cans in your kitchen, too. And the frozen orange juice cans. With heavy wool yarn, of course, because it’s cold in the freezer!

More Books: The 1930s Home and The 1940s Home

The 1930s Home
by Greg Stevenson
Oxford: Shire Publications, 2009
40 pp.



The 1940s Home
by Paul Evans and Peter Doyle
Oxford: Shire Publications, 2009
48 pp.

These two informative books, companions to The 1950s Home which I reviewed here last week (the link is at the end of this review), give the retro enthusiast a comprehensive look at the British home in the middle decades of the 20th century. Lavishly illustrated with photographs, ephemera and wonderful period advertisements, all three of these books take one through a good overview of British architectural design, house construction, furnishings and decor, and gardens. 

The 1930s house, whether a suburban villa, a Moderne bungalow or a “Tudorbethan” mock-historical semi, was a charming blend of old and new styles which still holds up well in today’s housing market. Houses were built in quantity for new home-owners who took advantage of good mortgages and good prices. The homes reflected the smaller, servantless households of the 1930s, with fitted kitchens and well-lit, efficient spaces.

The 1940s was, of course, a decade dominated by wartime shortages and hardships. So it is no surprise that a good part of The 1940s House is dedicated to discussing items such as bomb shelters, blackout curtains, and the simple, modern and rather attractive Utility furniture which the British householder could purchase with ration coupons. Though, as Evans and Doyle point out, the 1940s are often remembered as a drab, dull period in house decor and design, this is not entirely so. Shortages forced designers to create furnishings and kitchenware from interesting materials- such as aluminum and plastics. The streamlined look of decor presaged the modern, forward-looking ideals of 1950s design.

I very much enjoyed reading all three of these books and would recommend them to anyone interested in the history of mid-20th century British homes. Stevenson also lists “Places To Visit’ and a short bibliography at the end of The 1930s House, which is most helpful. My review of The 1950s House is here, and all of these books may be ordered from Shire Books.

Under The Bamboo and Fake Orange Tree

The Thursday Thirteen turns crafty as we discover what 13 things you will have to do if you want your bathroom to look like this one. This eye-popping space is from Decorating For Under $100 (1971), from the decor wizards over at Better Homes and Gardens. Not, you will note, Better Homes and Bathrooms.

1. Make a striped awning from a shower curtain.

2. Oh, and you’d better make a roofing structure under it. You can pretend you are in a hut on a tropical island, that just happens to have a bathtub for a floor.

3. Now paint some really long dowels yellow. They are going to be bamboo tree trunks!

4. These are special bamboo trees that bear oranges.  Special, fake ones. So you will also have to make many, many fake oranges.

5. Oh, don’t worry, it is very easy! Just take lots of styrofoam balls. Then put loads of messy papier mache all over them. Leave them to dry – I guess you’ll have to hang them up somehow. And then spray-paint them orange and hang them from the fake bamboo tree by paper clips.

6. If there are trees, there must be leaves. You have to have leaves! These are made from “two layers of velvet adhesive-backed paper.” No problem, I’m sure you can just pop down to the store and get some of that.

7. Next, you will embroider leaves and flowers on the rug. That’s what Better Homes and Gardens says you have to do!

8. Oh, and also you will embroider the toilet-seat cover. Yes, you will too, if you want a trendy 1970s look (don’t answer that).

9. The guest soaps have to look like mini oranges. Please shop endlessly until you find some. The guests, of course, must never use them: (a) because they are guest soaps and (b) because it will take you many months to find orange ones.

10. “Flowers on shelf were a craft project.” Yes, I’m sure they were. Courtesy of the nearest kindergarten.

11. The tissue holder is a shoebox covered in fur that was shed by the Cookie Monster. I’m not sure how you’re going to collect it, but maybe you know someone at Channel 13 (oh look, another Thursday 13!). The Cookie Monster Tissue Box  is on that yellow shelf unit at the right. It is very shaggy (the box, not the shelf).

12. You can leave the brown and beige tiles alone. Yes, you really don’t have to paint them orange. You have done enough.

13. Now, take a long hard look at what you have done. You will think that maybe – just maybe – it is time to redecorate. Again.

Book Review: The 1950s Home

I am so pleased to have the opportunity to review several books from Shire Books, here and also at The Virtual Dime Museum, in the weeks to come. Here is the first:

Sophie Leighton
The 1950s Home
Oxford: Shire Publications, 2009
56 pp.

Among the wonders exhibited at the 1955 Daily Mail Ideal Home Show in Britain was a living room fitted with sliding doors, behind which were tucked two bunk beds. This perfectly modern invention that made a virtue of necessity, typified the British philosophy of home-making and decorating in the 1950s.

The end of World War II in 1945 and of rationing in the early 1950s allowed for massive social change and growth in that decade. Sophie Leighton, a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, writes about this change in house design and furnishings, decor and gardens with precision and clarity. She notes the transition to smaller, cleverly utilized spaces, clean ‘modern’ lines in furniture, and multi-purpose gardens. She illustrates her points with wonderful old ads which themselves typify the bright, streamlined look of ‘modern’ decor. The black and white photographs are evocative, too – especially those of the new council houses and flats, which look both new and bleak.

The 1950s saw a new emphasis on light and clean spaces in homes. Homes tended to be smaller than in earlier eras, and rooms were used for several purposes as opposed to, say, a dining room in a Victorian house used only for dining. Open-plan houses were designed with efficiency and variety of purpose in mind.

Housing shortages after the war led to the construction of council houses and flats, as well as pre-fabs made of such odd materials as steel and asbestos cement sheeting. Furniture and decor took on a minimalist, sleek look. Most families, though, mixed their older pieces with the new – just as we do now. Most people could not afford to entirely modernize their homes. The improvements they did make were supported by the new magazines which explained decor and DIY, such as Practical Householder.

In The 1950s Home, Leighton packs a great deal of information into a small book, beautifully – just as the interior designers and architects of the 1950s did when creating the homes of that era.

Over the Disturbing Rainbow of Colors

“The water closet that flushes politely…In a rainbow of colors!”

“Whispering flush does not disturb your peace of mind!”

******
Somewhere over the rainbow
In a fake night sky
There’s a toilet that sparkles
Just like an adman’s eye.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Pink or blue
Toilets flush so politely
Like Emily Post would do.

Someday I’ll read a magazine
Where toilet fixtures do not gleam,
Remind me
Of things I do not want to know
About where certain items go.
This ad can’t find me -

Somewhere over the rainbow
Ads will show
Dish soap, lipstick and cupcakes,
Not things that overflow.

If I could just avert my eyes -
I wonder why they ran this ad, oh why?

******
Can you believe I actually – ahem – sang this out loud to make sure it worked? I sang softly though, so’s not to alarm anyone in earshot.

******
Oh, and the ad is from the wonderful, wonderful site Retro Ads and Graphics.

******
And many thanks to my new pal Georgina at Olive Juice (and she is such an amazing writer, you must go and read now!) for the Your Blog Is Fabulous award!

Stripes and Wagon Wheels

It’s 1971 and you want to redecorate the living room. Well, here’s a great idea from decorator/romance novelist* Barbara Taylor Bradford:

Stripes and postmodern wagon wheels.

Lots of stripes. Lots of wagon wheels. You can make those out of jumbo spaghetti and pink hula hoops. And you probably have lots of those lying around the house, anyway, right?

Add a few zebra pillows and wobbly white plastic tables from the back porch and you’re all set.

Bradford calls this “a handsome room with masculine overtones….suggest[ing] movement and contrast…without distracting the eye.” I don’t know about you but I actually find it a little – distracting.

From Bradford’s book Easy Steps to Successful Decorating, which is filled with pictures like this.

* Actually, Bradford’s first novel, A Woman of Substance, did not come out until 1979. Prior to that she was primarily known as a decorating and fashion expert. She wrote a column called “Designing Woman” and had written two other books, The Complete Encyclopedia of Homemaking and Decorating To Please Him.