MidCentury Baltimore

Youngstown Sink Base + Drain Board Sink In Baltimore and AMAZING Gen Electric Set

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 10:06:00 -0400

Youngstown Sink Base + Drain Board Sink In Baltimore and AMAZING Gen Electric Set

I HAD to share this one! On a hunt to procure a wall hung pink sink for my bathroom today at Second Chance here in Baltimore, I ran into the retro renovators kitchen equivalent of gold: a Youngstown sink base plus drainboard sink as well as an AMAZING set of Rimini Blue and Harvest Gold General Electric steel cabinets that I have also included pictures of here. Somebody needs to buy those cabinets asap, install them and then tell us all about it so we can see them in their full glory.

The General Electric Set, complete with vintage dishwasher! Wowza!

And the Youngstown, of course:

Mid-Century Entryway Revamp, Part 1

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 16:55:00 -0400

Today I started the hardest part of my entry way revamp project, otherwise known as making-the-front-door-shine-like-the-diamond-that-it-is. Over the past two years I have been slowly dialing up the retro feel of my entryway:

Installed new house numbers that’re in that retro-tastic font found in many textbooks, encyclopedias and other reference materials from that era.The house numbers I got are available at Home Depot, they’re cheap and super-snappy. Here’s an example of the font as seen from The Ocean World Of Jacques Cousteau series:
Put up a new mailbox to match the letters. It’s more modern than mid-century, but it works. Available at Chiasso.
Replaced banged up original porch light with an awesome pin-hole hour glass light from Rejuvenation. Look! It’s so much fun at night.

The next step? Resuscitating the custom fit front door for many more years of usefulness. My front door is orignal to the house. I have deduced this fact by uncovering the following clues:

It’s unusual and highly custom dimensions. I have never seen a prefab door this size and neither have I ever seen an used door at The Loading Dock or Second Chance that is the right fit.
A few of the other homes in the neighborhood with the same architectural style have an original single panel door with a sheet of wood vaneer. Theirs are all in much better shape than mine and some have not been painted over. Mine is puckering, has been painted on and has bits of the panelling coming completely off.
The original doors in the neighborhood also have some awesome escutcheons. You can see where there was once an escutcheon installed on my front door.

With the help of my Dad, I have decided to keep the original door (for many of the reasons listed above) and to restore it. I also chose to restore instead of dropping $600-1,000 to have a new custom door made and installed (F- that).

Back to today. I am working on Step One: sand and prime the door to take Minwax Wood Hardener so that I can resolve the puckering happening in the vaneer.

In upcoming posts I will report on the following steps: Step Two will involve cutting out and replacing pieces of beyond-restoration vaneer/panelling and the torn up bottom of the door. Step 3 will involve applying Minwax Stainable Wood Putty, drying it, and then sanding it. Step 4 will involve fixing the weather stripping on the bottom of the door. In Step 5 I will prime and paint (yay, I can’t wait). In Step Six I will install a new door knob and escutcheon to complete the look. Even though I am deeply attracted to the Atlas Door Set over at Rejuvenation, I am going to get the Ariel Door Set.

Bathroom Blues

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 10:20:30 -0400

My bathroom is blue. Literally. I feel that I am lucky to have a, mostly intact, vintage blue bathroom. But it does have the blues, so to speak, and I am on a quest to bring it some love and happiness.

Here’s a pic of its basic bones (that’s my Dad practicing mandolin a few days after I moved in).

I have fantastic original tile floors. The toilet and tub are blue. The bath tile is blue. All fabulous, right? Wrong.

Here’s the deal: First off, I have extensive water damage on the shower surround walls due to shoddy building construction practices (and by the way, all my neighbors are dealing with the same ‘ol crapola) so I need to completely rehab the bathroom. The blue tile cannot be salvaged. I know this because when I gutted the shower surround in my matching pink master bath during Snowpocalypse 2010, the tile would come out (no matter how gentle I was) all gummed up, nasty, chipped, etc. Due to the original shoddy construction, the tile was really not salvageable (major bummer). That said, I have no expectations of keeping the blue tiles around the shower.

Second, the bathroom vanity has got to go. There is nothing wrong with it per say, but it’s definitely dated to, say, now and doesn’t complement the style of the rest of the house. Unless of course I was going for modern French Provincial? Nope. The medicine cabinets are standard box store and the lights are (yawn) boring.

So, what to do? I’ve been poring over old pics taken from vintage design advertisements and magazines that other enthusiasts on the internet have posted on their sites. It’s all very exciting, but I am honestly overwhelmed by all the unknowns. In particular, I am stuck on how to design the bathroom vanity area. What type of lighting do I want? One light or two? What type of medicine cabinet or just a large mirror flush with the wall? Less storage than I have now, or more? The questions just go on in a dizzying fashion like that, so in an effort to bring myself some focus I am going to focus for a bit on the things I do know.

Here are the few things I know:

I went out to Second Chance a few days ago, with my infinitely patient girlfriend, and found an original Hall Mack cosmetic box for only $10.

The sliding doors are F-ed, but that’s okay because I am going to get a sheet of this stuff to make new doors and a privacy panel to somehow hang in the shower window.

I have decided to tile my shower walls with white subway tile and dark brown grout in a manner inspired by this bathroom:

I have also decided that the wall on the left, just behind the door is going to be paneled in horizontal wooden panelling. Like the stuff shown here:

And here:

I am finding myself very attracted to these reproduction sconces made by Rejuvenation Lighting in Portland, Oregon. They’re called the Gemini and I love them.

I’m thinking two would look nice not quite flanking a mirror, but rather installed on the mirror close to the edges.

I also know that I want a blue sink set into the vanity counter top, complete with a Hudee ring.

For information on finding out what the heck is the deal with Hudee rings, click here to see Pam Kueber’s Retrorenovation piece on Hudee rings.

It would be super fabulous to find a vintage vanity at some place like Second Chance, The Loading Dock, or Chesapeake ReStore.

My ulitmate dream would be to find one that I can saw the bottom off of and place some of these hairpin legs on it. Click here for where to buy.

I think this will look really nice because it will allow the eye to keep traveling along the fantastic vintage blue floor tile and create a feeling of open space. I pray that the Retro Decorating Gods will smile upon me…

Obviously, this is a work in progress and am in the midst of a process. I will keep readers updated as I move along, make decisions, and find more design inspiration.

For Sale: 1958 Semi-Time Capsule House

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:42:00 -0500

Listen up folks, this one has its original lighting, bathrooms, wood panelling, rumpus room, and kitchen cabinets! Yes, yes, yes!

For Sale: A Bit of 1955 Awesomeness

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:33:55 -0500

I only wish there were more pictures. Ah, fantastic.

For Sale: 1957 Modernist Home with Sunroom

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:29:16 -0500

Great house. I discovered this little neighborhood off of Kelly Ave in Mt. Washington the other day. I oohed and aahhed a lot. One of ‘em is for sale. I really dig the sunroom.

For Sale: 1967 House in the Woods

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:23:45 -0500

Gorgeous house in the woods. This house looks like it has original pinch-pleat curtains, built ins, sunk in living room, fantastic stone and wood work. Great views of the forest. Gotta love it.

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5911-Bonnie-View-Dr-Baltimore-MD-21209/36593140_zpid/

Mid-Century Hearths, Wood Stoves and Chimneys

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:56:00 -0500

Originally, it wasn’t my plan to install a hearth behind my wood stove (for a past piece about why I decided to install a wood stove to heat my home see here), but as time has passed I have found that the wall behind the stove has gotten smudged with soot and banged up by logs. Clearly it’s time to act on protecting the wall behind it.

In order to figure out how I want it to look, I dove head first into some vintage Better Homes and Gardens in search of some authentic mid-century hearth designs. In honor of my home’s provenance, these pictures all came from Better Homes and Gardens circa 1959.

I’m leading with a picture of my favorite hearth/fireplace design that I found in Better Homes and Gardens. I wonder if this fireplace is still functioning today, because it is very very cool and just a little over the top.

Here’s a picture of my wood stove and hearth as it currently stands:

I have to tell readers that to the right of the stove, we are in the midst of installing floating bookshelves on some standards and brackets. The shelves will completely fill the space to the right.

Here are the pictures of mid-century hearths that I have taken from Better Homes and Gardens, 1959.

The built in shelving here is awfully nifty! The hearth goes up to a slanted ceiling like mine will.

Oh, those great long brick or slate pieces from that era. Wish I could get my hands on some.

We had one of these in my parents’ first house (The Citation model):

I totally love this wood stove design. It would be sweet if Woodstock Soapstone made stoves that had a more modern look to them like this one has.

* A note about Woodstock Soapstone stoves: when looking for a wood stove, I saw many, many stoves that were much cheaper and/or more modern-looking than the one I decided to buy from Woodstock. The reasons that Woodstock Soapstone prevailed are:

1. The stove is made predominately out of large panels of soapstone. This allows the heat to completely soak the stone with heat and to radiate out slowly and efficiently. There is none of that clangy harsh heat radiating off these stoves, and because the stone absorbs heat, it means that hours after a fire has gone out, it is still radiating heat.

2. Woodstock’s stoves are all equipped with a catalytic combuster, which means that they create more heat and produce less pollution as the combuster reburns the smoke coming off the burning wood. At times, it seems to double its heat output.

As energy efficiency and environmental stewardship are high on my list of priorities, functionality won out over cost and fashion on this one.

This looks like they’ve used plain old cinder block, but it looks so warm and inviting paired with all that wood and views of trees through the glass.

More cinder block. I think.

Combination of brick and sheets of wood vaneer. Very nifty.

More of that yummy long brick action. This one goes all the way up, complete with built in planter.

This is not a picture of a hearth, but I like the use of perpendicular wood panelling to create the upward movement to the high ceiling.

Again, not a hearth, but I was really into the use of glass bricks in this plain brick wall. Neato combination of differing materials and a great way to bring in nice punches of natural light and keep all that brick from looking so oppressive and check out how the light shines of that spiffy red vinyl floor!

Long brick again. This one looks like it has fireplace as room divider. I’ve always liked that look.

More wood panelling on the fireplace wall. Check out that awesome hanging set of lights. Swanky.

Cozy living room with more of those long slate pieces.

I had to put this one in simply because of that great copper hourglass lamp.

She loves her wood panelling. She likes how it draws her guests eyes up. Her husband had nothing to do with this design, she did it all herself.

Interesting combination of panelling and slate.

More panelling.

Mid-century mix of different shaped stones on this hearth.

Again, this is not a hearth, but I really like the use of the stones behind the refrigerator. It’s very organic-looking and classic, but still working in this mid-century home.

As for what I’d like to do, I’d really like to focus on using salvaged materials. Here’s what I have so far: some leftover bricks original to the house and lots of hearth-sized rocks that I’ve unearthed around the house while gardening (I have about four milk crates worth of rocks). I’d especially like to incorporate things organic to my house and little plot of land. I can easily acquire more bricks and things like wood panelling from Second Chance, The Loading Dock, or the Chesapeake Habitat For Humanity ReStore. The question is: how do I bring all of these things together to create a hearth and mantle behind the stove that will reflect a mid-century design style that blends well with the architectural style of my home while using these salvaged materials?

Many years ago, I came across some porch columns and outdoor walls on some beautiful Arts and Crafts Greene and Greene homes in California that combined stone and brick.

I was attracted to the mix of the industrial and symmetrical brick with the organic feel of the stones. Is it possible to combine these two different materials together in order to create a more mid-century and not overly organic design? Below is a picture of what another person has created by mixing the two mediums for their hearth:

This combination creates an almost Hobbit-like whimsy that is earthy and kind of magical, but as we saw from the pictures of hearth design found in Better Homes and Gardens one of the most important design aspects to the mid-century aesthetic is unbroken long lines. In mid-century design the lines flow either horizontally or flow upwards towards the sky. Both suggest flight and the space travel. Uniform materials and flowing lines are used to create this affect. Yet, in mid-century design we do also find the mixing of organic and non-organic. Nobody seems to do this better than George Nakashima:

Also, we can find the mixture of the organic and inorganic in pieces like this Rosenthal Netter vase:

We also so the mixing of the inorganic cinder block with the warm wood of house beams and views of trees. We also saw some folks taking an essentially classic design approach to stone and using it in their mid-century home.

My design ideas as of right now are to build a hearth with a mix of stone and brick to a height of about 4 feet with a mantle of some sort and to then place wood panelling at the same same width as the hearth pad all the way up to the ceiling. I’m really not certain about how to put the stone and brick together. Any design ideas are more than welcome.

Aldo Londi and Bitossi for Rosenthal Netter

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:34:00 -0500

My sister and I went rooting around in a local thrift store last week. While there, I came across this vase and have since found out through a little research that it was designed by Aldo Londi, made in Italy by Bitossi, and imported to the States by Rosenthal Netter. What a great thrift store find!

In particular, Aldo Londi is known for his Rimini Blue pottery. Retrorenovation takes note here. Also, I found a great website by a collector that really helped me to identify my piece.

A Note On Burning Wood For Heat

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:53:00 -0500

Last year, a good friend of mine asked me why I had decided to install a wood-burning stove in my home for use as a heater. Knowing that I tend toward green practices, she wanted to know: is burning wood for heat better for the environment than using electricity or natural gas? Like many other environmental better than or worse than questions there is simply no straight answer.

Let me give you an example. When I worked at Whole Foods Market as a Green Mission Specialist we were constantly faced with the issue of how to greenify the disposable one-time-use cutlery in our cafes. In the Stores where we had compost access, the answer seemed to be compostable plant-based plastics. Easy, right? We thought so too, until we demanded a compostable plant-based cutlery that was both non-GMO certified, sturdy, and would actually break down in an industrial composting facility. At that point in time, we found there is simply no product that meets all of those standards. So, we still mostly use plain-old plastic cutlery in most Stores. Some Stores have opted to offer reusable cutlery, but that is often unwieldy for Stores in terms of cost, volume, and labor. Heating has a similarly convoluted and complicated story.

In a college class on Environmental Policy, we read The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies, in which, author Richard Heinberg discusses peak oil production and our over-dependence on a precious resource that is going fast. Oil used to be cheap, plentiful, and ignorance was bliss as far as global warming is concerned, so it became ubiquitous in our society—it powered a lot of stuff. Nowadays we’re starting to “wise up” and hearing a different tune. Over and over, on the news we hear about how the cost of energy is going up (many of us feel this cost in our homes too). We hear about energy conservation, and we even hear about the need to diversify our energy. This is because there is no one “silver bullet” that will completely fill all the needs that oil was once able to cover all on it’s own. It was in Heinberg’s work that I was first introduced to the concept of energy diversification. Energy diversification coupled with energy efficiency is the future.

With that said, I have done some energy efficiency upgrades in my home. I installed new insulated windows in place of the old single panel aluminum pieces of crap from the 50’s. We also put down insulation in the attic (a horrible job to ever have to do, but totally worth it), but we were still paying out the nose for our natural gas heating.

A wood stove seemed like a great solution and was something I had been planning to install in the house since the get-go anyway. We had a wood stove growing up and my parents heated a large portion of our house with it. My partner’s mom heats her house with a wood stove as well. My house is pretty small so I knew a wood stove would totally keep the house well-heated. So, I went for it and installed a wood-burning stove.

To answer my friend’s original question, burning wood for heat has both its environmental benefits and drawbacks, and like compostable cutlery the issue is simply not cut and dry (no wood-burning pun intended). Burning wood releases significant amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, adding to the other green house gases released by natural gas heaters, internal combustion engines, landfills, etc. So, in that respect it’s kind of a wash. But it is different in one respect. I like the way Woodstock Soapstone Company explains it:

Using wood as a fuel is also good for the atmosphere because it helps to reduce the build-up in greenhouse gas emissions. Trees go through a natural cycle of growth and decay. And, whether they are burned or are slowly oxidized as they rot on the forest floor, there is a balance between the carbon taken from the atmosphere by trees as they grow and that which is released once they die. Therefore, the use of wood recycles the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — unlike the use of oil or coal, which reintroduces long buried carbon into the atmosphere. Also, unlike coal or fuel oil, wood releases little acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere.

On the plus side, wood is a renewable resource, again Woodstock Soapstone explains:

Solar power, wind power, and wood energy are all renewable resources. They can be used without depleting the earth’s natural resources. A well-managed forest can be a sustainable, renewable source of energy that will help us reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the amount of oil, gas, and coal that we burn for heat.

Sound woodlot management yields firewood as a byproduct of thinning out non-lumber grade trees. If allowed, nature will replace what we use. This means that, with care, we will never run out of firewood.

With all that said, I chose to install a wood stove for several other reasons. Some of these are geared towards my environmental sensibilities and some towards my desired lifestyle:

1. Lower energy costs. We cull most of our wood from downed trees. With the exception of our labor, it’s free. Before the wood stove we were spending about $360 a month heating the house during the winter, equalling about $2160 in bills to BGE for the six months a year we used the furnace. By comparison, a cord of wood costs about $200. We use about four cords of wood per winter, equalling about $800. The total savings are kind of mind-boggling at $1360 (that’s a mortgage payment) per year. The Stove has paid for itself in one and a half years.

2. Having a fire is romantic. Everybody knows this. There are not many things more comforting during the winter than feeling all cozy next to a warm hearth and fire. I believe humans are probably genetically hardwired to enjoy all the sensations associated with a nice hearth fire: heat, smell, visual and sound.

3. Energy diversification and connection to the earth. I feel that I am part of the solution, not part of the problem. It allows me to have more control over my energy consumption. I am directly responsible for heating my home. I am viscerally aware of how much energy I am consuming as I am directly involved in the cutting and schlepping of wood and its eventual feeding into the stove. I feel more connected to nature and more grateful for all the things present on our planet that allow us to live comfortably.

4. Rugged independence. Nothing is more American than rugged independence and stubborn DIYism. I am dependent on no one else and I can do it for myself.

There are some other hidden benefits that I have found along the way. I get more exercise and I spend more time outside during the winter. Sometimes the idea of going outside to cut wood is a very uninviting prospect, but I am invigorated when I get out there and start splitting logs. Doing hard exercise outside on a cold day feels good!

Chopping wood does wonders for self-esteem. This is probably especially true for women. We’re often told we can’t do certain things because we’re too weak, too feminine, etc. So, going outside and cutting up some wood with a maul makes you feel powerful.

It gives me something productive to do. I have a theory that people are hardwired to want to feel useful and productive. I believe that a lot of depression and other societal ills are caused by people either ignoring their primal urges to be useful and instead choose to be lazy and watch TV, or because they do not have anything useful with which to occupy themselves. I often think to myself, as I am building a fire, tending the fire or cutting wood that I am glad to have something to do, as it is better than sitting on my ass doing nothing useful. Note: not that relaxation is bad, but nothing feels better than relaxing after feeling like you’ve had an useful, productive day.

In conclusion, burning wood for heat is better for the environment in some ways and bad in others. It has some great cost benefits and some other value-added benefits that are not readily apparent. I leave it to you to decide what you think.

1953 Box House #2=Tres Adorable Here’s #2. This one is...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:38:00 -0500

1953 Box House #2=Tres Adorable

Here’s #2. This one is listed at $215,000, the other at $219,000. I’d love to see inside these two gems. This one is the one that seems to have more of it’s original charms. The bar is enough to sway me. Dare I call the basement a rumpus room?

1953 Box House #1=Tres Adorable Seriously cute little box houses...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:35:00 -0500

1953 Box House #1=Tres Adorable

Seriously cute little box houses complete with flat roof. There are two of these for sale in this little development. Both have their original knotty pine basements, although this one, aka #1, looks like it’s had a recent rehab/update and it seems to be missing a lot of its original features, but it looks to be in great condition. Check out #2 for some looks at original kitchen cabinets and a knotty pine basement complete with a retro custom bar! Totes amazing.

What's Hall Mack?

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:14:00 -0500

What's Hall Mack?:

I’ve really gotten into these bath accessories. Mainly due to Pam Kueber and her awesome site devoted to midcentury renovation, which I’ve been poring over looking for bathroom design inspiration, I’ve discovered the name of those delightful chrome recessed soap holders, toothbrush holders, cubbies, and medicine cabinets that I didn’t know I HAD to have until now. (BTW, if you need to find anything, and I mean ANYTHING, for a retro reno you’re doing, her wealth of information is treasure trove worth obsessing over).

Fantastic Split Level Two Story in Mt. Washington. I’ve...

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:30:00 -0500

Fantastic Split Level Two Story in Mt. Washington.

I’ve been drooling over this little development since I moved in. Now one of them is for sale. I e-mailed the realtor for a possible look-see. Is it wrong to waste a realtor’s time just to look at and record its midcentury aesthetic?

Since I’m in the midst of designing a plan to restore my barely functioning bathrooms, I’m super interested in seeing its bathrooms. People love to rip out and update bathrooms (kitchens are also highly susceptible to this phenomenon), but it looks like this one may have some of it’s original bathroom features still intact.