Exterior Mid-Century Color Palette

Here’s some truly inspiring authentic mid-century paint colors for ranch homes. These “approved” mid-century paint color schemes come from Beatrice West for ranch homes in a PM housing development. I can’t find any additional info about PM, but I was able to track down a bit about Beatrice West.

Google News has a few clippings:

Selected as one of America’s outstanding women in the First Edition of Who’s Who of American Women, Beatrice West is a color consultant and designer of wide achievements. 

She is a color consultant and color stylist for home furnishings and building products, plus interior designer for commercial, institutional and residential clients. 

Architecturally trained at the University of Texas, Miss West has received nation-wide acclaim for aesthetic advancement of the American home. She is a pioneer in the color planning of mass housing developments and has color styled more than a million and a half homes.

And an article where Beatrice West “authorizes” rich mid-century modern paint colors for modern homes. The mid-century modern colors she specially calls out are spruce blue, soft canary, pumpkin, driftwood gray and light pink. 

For the body of a mid-century home, she suggests pebble, gray, driftwood and spruce blue because they are “long-lasting body colors that fit almost any surrounding.” For accent colors she suggests limiting to shutters, window boxes and doors and making them brighter and lighter than the color of the house. Specifically she mentions modern paint colors such as citron, poppy and peacock.

Beatrice West definitely knew how to put together an interesting mid-century modern color palette. I think any of the mid-century color palettes above could easily be stolen for your next mid-century exterior paint job, especially if you have a ranch home.

Where I Spend My Days

I've mentioned that I'm a copywriter in Austin a few times. Well, Apartment Therapy just posted a photo-filled article about where I work.

No one in the office happened to mention to me that Apartment Therapy would be stopping by so I could stalk them observe them from a respectable and professional distance. Sadly, you don't really get to see just how much classic mid-century furniture we have around the office. We have everything from a Marshmallow sofa to multiple Eames rockers to Womb chairs. It's seriously a great place to test out all the expensive mid-century modern furniture that I would never buy with a kid in the house. But perhaps that's too typical in these Mad Men days.

Touristique Posters for a Travel-Themed Nursery

Touristique is a series of travel posters by Moxy Creative House. The series made up of major cities from around the world: New York, London, Paris, Toronto and Amsterdam.

Each poster has the major landmarks of the city. For example, the London poster (above) has: the Gherkin, the London Eye, The Shard, Big Ben, Wembley Stadium, Royal Albert Hall, Marble Arch, Mansion House, Kensington Palace, London Tower Bridge and a double-decker bus.

The bright colors and simple shapes would be great for almost any travel nursery.

Broyhill Brasilia Dining Table and Chest in Austin

Uptown Modern currently has a Broyhill Brasilia dresser and dining table in stock. 

 

If you're in Austin, Uptown Modern is one of the best locations to find vintage Broyhill Premier furniture (and mid-century furniture in general). It's where we picked up our Broyhill Sculptra desk.

Mid-Century House Numbers on a Door

Now that we've got our mid-century modern door installed, I've been obsessing about all the other porch details: a new mailbox, a new porch light, the possibility of a plant/planter and new mid-century modern house numbers.

Honestly, some of my best ideas are just stolen from neighbors while walking through mid-century neighborhoods in Austin. While I don't think the "mid-century house numbers on the bottom of the door" look is right for my mid-century ranch, it might be fitting for your mid-century door.

As much as I might like the look, I just couldn't bear drilling into our Crestview Door. But it really does look good from the sidewalk.