I’ve been a fan of the 1950’s home decor all my life. My mom & dad gave me the end tables and coffee table from their first home after marrying in 1958. I refinished the wood years ago. I wasn’t born until the mid 60’s and never really saw the 1950’s decor except on tv shows.
I’m drooling at these pictures. Such a gorgeous home decor. Sadly my SO doesn’t share the love. Won’t be buying Salmon paint anytime soon. Dang it. I love Salmon. I had a battle just keeping my parents end tables and coffee table in the den.
I found one wiki article on mid century design. Basically the 1950’s and early 60’s was all about clean contemporary lines. Modern surfaces like steel, chrome, & plastic laminates. Open floor spaces with no clutter. I especially like the geometric shapes in the lamps of that period. The clean, simple lines in the furniture.
If I were to design my home. I’d use a little pop of 1950’s sea green and salmon. I wouldn’t go crazy with it like the article I linked. A little color goes a long way.
The contemporary look will never go totally out of style. It’s something I really like.
I love it!!! If you are into this stuff, check out http://retrorenovation.com/. They have lots of people doing these kinds of renos, and also show pictures of what they call “Time Capsules” up for sale. A Time Capsule is a house that is unchanged from the 50’s, usually because it had the same owner who dies. It’s amazing.
As a museum installation - excellent!
As a fun place to rent for a weekend vacation - way cool!
But living there?
I don’t think so - the furniture doesn’t look all that comfortable and some of those patterns and colors would start to drive me bonkers in a short time.
The odd thing is that you can see it in the original example - which is much more tasteful than I was expecting - but in the wrong hands it was so easy to turn this kind of minimalism into something awful. E.g James Lilek’s Interior Desecrations, which is what I generally associate with mid-century design. Albeit that he’s writing about the fag-end of mid-century design. The dregs. As a British person, I think of the 1950s looking like 10 Rillington Place, or the John Hurt version of 1984, on account of the bomb damage and the general economic collapse. In America they had Americana, juke boxes and big cars. We had bricks, lots of bricks, and gas mask satchels.
I guess the reason for awful kitsch rubbish is that most people didn’t have the time and money to do it right, see. Every era’s design looks good when it’s done right - just as every political idea seems good when it’s done right - but it’s not usually done right. The examples in magazines are artificially perfect, just like cooking. The meals in the book are nicer than reality. The women are more attractive in films than real life. Same with the rooms at the top of the page.
Also, was literally everything in the late 1960s, early 1970s mustard and orange and yellow and pea-green? How is it that for a few years every woman looked like this and then suddenly they didn’t? Some kind of weird genetic aberration? Literally?
Nah - I grew up living with that crap, those kinds of designs. That’s why my imaginary dream home is an arts and crafts or mission style cottage, filled with Stickley furniture, Rookwood ceramics, with some Frank Lloyd Wright design thrown in.
Won’t be buying Salmon paint anytime soon. Dang it. I love Salmon. I had a battle just keeping my parents end tables and coffee table in the den.