MCM Outdoor Touches

Whenever we drive around or walk around, I am always on the lookout for MCM homes and MCM outdoor items. This past week, as we walked the dogs, I noticed several MCM outdoor items in our neighborhood and I thought I would share them on the blog.

I am always on the lookout at rummages and estate sales for outdoor lighting. I love the old styles of lighting. It just seems like they don't make fun designs anymore. Here is a great outdoor light. It even has a place for the flagpole.




Here are three examples of some vintage screen doors. I just love the aluminium leaf one.









I think garage doors back in the day were much more interesting. Here is one that has some small diamonds on them. Just enough to be tasteful and totally retro.




Next time you take a ride or a walk make sure to check out any MCM touches in your neighborhood. I would love to hear about what you find.

Rebecca

Heavenly Living Room Set

My husband collects vintage postcards and occasionally when we look for cards we run across furniture store post cards. This is one of the nicest furniture sets I have ever seen on a postcard. To me it looks like they used a hotel room for the backdrop. The colors are aqua and coral with a light ash finish.

The postcard is for Sun City Furniture based in St. Petersburg, Fl. It says on the back "Florida's most beautiful furniture for luxury, comfort and distinctive style". I can say this would have been a set I would have proudly displayed in my home. What a heavenly set!

Vintage Lightingpalooza

One of the things I really love about collecting and living vintage is the fun and cool lighting of the time. Last weekend we had a lightingpalooza. We found a set of great lamps and an awesome single lamp both at the same dealer on the same day. He had so many great lamps it was hard to choose but we managed to get down to these three.

The pair of lamps we got have figural bottoms and nice barrel fiberglass shades. This set in in excellent condition. They were made by the Continental Art company. They are black and white with small dots of pink and aqua on them. Could they be any more fifties? We have placed these in the living room along with our pink frieze couch and planter based glass tables. We have some pictures for the wall that I think will work and will fill in the space once we get them up.





The second find was this awesome bullet planter type lamp. I have never seen one like it. I love bullet planters so this light was a real find. The fiberglass is white and in good shape. The legs and finial are wood painted black. We put this in the corner on our Heywood Wakefield corner bookcase. The lighting it throws is great especially with it being in the corner.





Happy Hunting!

Rebecca

Rockin $80 Couch

The excitement has been building as the weather has improved just enough and the ads for estate sales and garage sales start to pick up. In the Madison area, it seems many of the church sales start in March and April. I have been to a couple and boy they were crowded and busy.

I want to feature two recent finds. One I got at the church sale. It is an awesome vintage Thermador space heater. It is in great condition and works. I picked it up for $2.50. It had the original price sticker on it. It sold for $13.95.



The second wonderful find was at a thrift store. It is this great vintage couch. It is green and chocolate brown. The original fabric is in wonderful condition. The cushions will need new foam but it is great and very comfortable. It has a nice high back which is great for us tall folks. I really like how the fabric is presented on the back of the couch. I am not sure I have seen that before. The only thing that would have made it better would have been a matching chair!!



There is just nothing like a great find at a great price. The blood is pumping and the excitement builds. Then when you get it home and just love it, that is the icing on the cake.

I wish everyone a successful hunting season . . . on your mark, get set, go!

Rebecca

Crazy Atomic Car

Cabin fever has hit us here in Madison, so Dave and I played the "Where are we going" game today. To play the game I listed the numbers 1-10 on a sheet of paper. Then I had him pick numbers from one to ten in random order but he could only use each number once. Then he had to pick a direction, left, right or straight to go after each number. What we ended up with was a road map and we really don't know where we were going. For example, we had to turn right from our street, drive 3 miles, turn left, drive 6 miles turn right, etc. It was quite fun and we saw some nice sites along the way.

We ended up driving mostly through WI farmland but did drive through a small town called Belleville. We saw a great old Ford Neon sign there.



We passed some very pretty snowy sites on a sunny day.




But best of all we ran across this crazy atomic car. It was just around a bend on the side of an outbuilding. From what we can tell it was drivable at some point. There was one seat in the front and a steering wheel. They painted the tires silver to match the car. I love the antenna on top. It looks like you have to enter it from the top. Could it be based on a Camaro? The steering wheel and the front end might suggest that. Notice the funky lights on it as well. Hopefully some day we can find out more about this crazy atomic car.






Our road map lead us to our final destination which put us in Oregon, WI. We found this great little mod beauty shop. I really love the lines on this building.




We had such a great day and saw such unexpected things. What fun!
Rebecca

Vintage Motel Signs

This past Sunday we took a trip up to the Wisconsin Dells. The Dells is a tourist area about one hour north of Madison. It has some beautiful natural scenery but also some great Mid Century Modern scenery. There are quite a few motels that are still there that were popular in the 50's/60's. I am sure due to development we have lost many great motels but there are still some to look at and celebrate.



This sign is cool but does not do justice to the really cool motel rooms. See picture below.



There are some regular motel rooms on part of this property but near the main road is this set of rooms. The design is SO cool. Each room has a silhouette of an Indian head behind the room number. It looks like they are redoing the rooms here but we could not really tell in what way.



The international motel was on the edge of town. Unfortunately it is up for sale.



I love the little top on the top of the Gables sign. The doors on this hotel are all the same aqua that is in the sign.



The Top Hat motel is down a side street off the main drag. Again the use of aqua.



This was one of our favorite signs. The condition is wonderful. The motel itself was great. It is made of a beautiful lannon stone - see below. There were these great light fixtures as well. I would say the motel was on at least 3-4 acres. It was very spread out with a pool.




I have more motels to share, so stay tuned!
Rebecca

Kodachrome Slide Website

There is a guy in California that collects old Kodachrome Slides from the 50s to the 70s. He has a show he does and has actually written a couple of books. If you are familiar with Kodachrome you know the quality can be quite amazing. His name is Charles Phoenix and I would suggest a visit to his website. He also has a slide of the week e-mail list you can get on.

www.charlesphoenix.com

Happy viewing.

Rebecca