Mid-Century Modern Home with Kids

My wife is away for the weekend. I got a trip to Portland so she gets a trip to New York, it's only fair.

Perhaps it's just the timing, but this photo of a mid-century modern home before and after kids is hitting a little close to home (the mid-century home).

Especially the ugly blanket draped over the lovely mid-century sofa so it doesn't get any more apple juice stains on it. Not that I would know anything about that.

Source.

Mid-Century Drinks

I've been thinking recently that our mid-century house should have a classic mid-century drink that we serve when we have guests. Knowing myself, I knew it had to be easy – two, maybe three, ingredients. I also wanted to use organic ingredients if I could. I am in Austin after all. So I went on a hunt for classic mid-century drinks and I found a few great sources.

This 1950s Fleischmann's Mixer's Manual, this 1959 How to Make 32 Popular Drinks by Southern Comfort and this Mad Men cocktail guide.

Looking all these mid-century drink manuals over and walking the aisles of my local liquor store to see what my organic liquor options are (vodka and nothing else) I landed on one drink: The Moscow Mule.

It's a bit obscure, which I like. If a home is going to have a signature cocktail, it should be memorable and maybe something the guests have never had before. And it's easy to make: ginger beer, lime juice and vodka. And it can then be dressed up with some mint and/or a slice of lime.

My kind of drink. If you stop by, you might find us on the front patio sipping one.

Broyhill Sculptra Catalog and Original Packaging

In case you missed it, Retro Renovation recently tracked down some of the original Broyhill Brasilia and Broyhill Sculptra catalogs. If you're a fan of either collection, you should check it out. They have the only image of a Sculptra cigarette table that I've ever seen, other than the drawing in the Broyhill Sculptra brochure.

And in other vintage Broyhill furniture news, this little gem of an image popped up on craigslist.

It might just look like a boring brown box and it is, but it a boring brown Broyhill Premier Sculptra box. It's the only one I've ever seen. Probably because most people don't keep furniture boxes for over half a century.

DIY Mid-Century Modern House Numbers

A while back I was stolling through a mid-century neighborhood in Austin and noticed this modern address plaque.

I instantly recognized the numbers as Distinctions numbers, but I'd never seen them mounted on a board like that. It got me to thinking, "that looks pretty amazing and pretty easy to do."

So I started cooking up my own DIY mid-century modern house numbers. And I was right, making this modern address number plaque above is super easy. And the finished product looks great. Here's how to make your very own mid-century modern house number kit.

1. Head to Home Depot and buy whatever Distinctions modern address numbers you need.

2. While you're there, buy a board to use as the address plaque. I used a 1" x 6". It's thin, which gives it a nice modern look, and the Distinctions address numbers are about 5" tall, so it gives you a little room above and below, but still keeps it nice and tight. The length will depend on how many numbers and which numbers you have. Ours is 11.5" long.

3. Paint the board. We went with the same color as our trim because we already have a door that pops. But any mid-century modern exterior paint color would work. Depending on the wood quality, you might need a few coats.

4. Layout and attach the numbers. There's a template and instructions in the Distinctions package for doing this. We totally ignored the template and eyeballed it. We also super glued the numbers instead of using the posts that come with Distinctions numbers. We wanted the modern house numbers to be flush to the board. If you do the same, just make sure to use glue that adheres to painted wood and metal.

5. Figure out how you're going to attach it to your house. You could simply nail it if you have wood siding. If you have brick like me, things get a little tricky. You could use an industrial adhesive/caulk or drill into the brick. But that seemed like a lot of work, so I attached a couple of hooks to the top and bought a bit of chain.

6. Then I put a few hooks in the wood ceiling above the porch and hung the address plaque from them.

And here's what our new mid-century modern house numbers look like.

I'm really happy with how they turned out. I think they look great next to our Crestview Door. And even on the Behr Antique Tin gray, they're really easy to see from the street.

Mid-Century Furniture Store (in 1965)

Over on Mid-Century Modern Freak they posted two photographs of furniture store in 1965 that make me want to time travel.

My guess is you could get any of the items with a solid print instead of the floral, but even if you couldn't I would buy the entire store.