Our Town Austin in the '50s

The Texas Archive of the Moving Image has a great (albeit long) video called Our Town Austin that showcases Austin in the 1950s, which you can watch here. 

It's a step back in time that highlights some of Austin's great landmarks: South Congress, Barton Springs, UT, State Theater, the moonlight towers and more. And there's a bunch of advertising for Austin businesses mixed in because this was the '50s and that's how you got a film like this paid for back then. It's great, and sometimes sad, to see the amount of changes that have happened in our town over the past decades.

Vintage Pumpkin Candy Bucket and Carafe

I hit an estate sale in Allandale this weekend and came away with two good finds. First, this vintage pirate jack-o-lantern with a mustache pumpkin candy bucket.

It's your standard plastic pumpkin candy bucket, except 100 times better because it has both an eye patch and a handlebar mustache. It's missing the handle, but we needed a bowl to store the Halloween candy we hand out, so this will be perfect. Or we might just put it in the window.

Second, this mid-century coffee carafe.

I'm kind of a sucker for starbursts these days and this baby's got them in spades.

There were some other interesting mid-century pieces there, but we don't have any more room for chairs or other random furniture, like a magazine racks. But it leads me to believe that the best plan for estate sales is to stick to mid-century neighborhoods in Austin, the number of good mid-century items increases greatly in these areas.

Reader Question: Unknown Mid-Century Rope Dining Set

 

 Tom wrote in asking me about a mid-century wicker dining set:

Recently I came across this dining room set, but I don't know much about it. I don't even know if it's mid-century or not, but it just looks quirkey oddly cool. Do you know anything about this design?
Tom

Between the design and use of rope, it definitely seems like a mid-century set (rope in furniture was picking up in popularity in the early to mid '50s), but I've never seen this particular dining room set.

Anyone in internet land know something about this set of mid-century table and chairs?

Mid-Century Art: Matt Mills

I'm not sure I'd hang an image of mid-century furniture over that exact piece of mid-century furniture, but that art of Matt Mills would make a pretty nice addition anywhere else in a mid-century modern home.

Mid-Century Austin Homes: 7706 Lazy Lane

This is a fairly typical house in the Crestview neighborhood in Austin – as you might notice when the cameraman does a spin in the front yard. And it's why anyone looking for a mid-century home in Austin should probably start in Crestview. Many of the mid-century homes there still have much of their original look and details. They might need a little love and some fresh paint, but the bones are strong and with a little work you can have the atomic ranch of your dreams.