Yesterday was a “Murphy’s Law” kind of day. In Southern California, it never rains here in the summer. We usually have a long dry season from May to November. I bet you can see where this post is going…We were confident that we would be okay temporarily storing the furniture from our kitchen and the new cabinets for the laundry room/ mudroom/ office outside for a week while the rooms were gutted down to the subfloor of 1 x 6…
Last week I had to stop vacillating and finally make a decision in order to buy the retro colored tile for our mid century bathroom renovation and begin tiling. When it comes to making any kind of big ticket purchase or long term decisions, I ponder over them for days, weeks, or even months, rather than easily choosing. Tile fits under both of those categories. It didn’t help that the tile manufacturer, B & W Tile, had plenty of different…
Preserving the Look of Our 1940s House In remodeling and decorating, we try to respect the original character of our 1944 mid century home, and for our housing track, as well as most California homes from the 1920s to the 1960s, ceramic tile surfaces and counter tops were all the rage when they were first built. It has been frustrating that there are so few sources on TV and the web for preserving or recreating retro designs or original vintage…
My kids sometimes consider my preference for vintage decorating, totally uncool. Plus, if I was single, I would surely become “a crazy cat lady.” I have dropped numerous unsubtle hints over the last year that I would like a “Kit Cat” clock. It combines my love for cats with my passion for retro details in our home. I first pointed one out to the kids when they were watching the movie “Cats and Dogs: Revenge of Kitty Galore.” Lucky for…
I have to give my husband’s best friend’s grandma a big thank you when I see her. Back in the 1940s and 1950s, after she and her husband bought their home, she created a scrapbook full of clippings of home decorating ideas she liked. It has hundreds of either black and white or color images from a variety of old magazines and catalogs, everything from cute kitchen nooks, to furniture, to baby nurseries. Sadly, about 5 years ago, her home…
Keeping a Victory Garden and having home produced eggs are really old traditions, and not some new fad. Here is an old patriotic propaganda / wartime advertisement from 1918. Apparently, Uncle Sam expected everyone to all have backyard flocks of hens and raise chickens. If we still followed Uncle Sam’s recommendation, my family should have 8 chickens! To see more patriotic propaganda, war garden, victory garden, women’s land army, and more vintage posters from the early 1900’s , here is…