Roman Holiday

I'm indeed alive! I know it's been a very long time since I've blogged and my only excuse is extreme busy-ness.  The mini-mods have complicated and extensive social lives and it feels like my sole purpose in life right now is that of a gypsy cab driver. By the end of the day, when I used to enjoy my own quiet time for web surfing, blogging, or online shopping, I'm finding myself face down in a pillow crashed out cold.

First things first... recent finds!

2 "House and Home" magazines circa 1952 and 1957

These appear to be geared towards home building companies and contractors. There are ads, articles and stats. I find them fascinating but haven't had a chance to properly read them in full.  Here are quick photos, I will be scanning the better bits soon.

Nu Tone ad

2 pages spread of kitcheny goodness

i can't wait to read this and actually scan it to post.

we have this in the basement! our plumbing & heating guy calls it the "monster".

hnnnnnnng starburst escutcheon.

more gorgeous locksets

and my love of loves ... hall-mack !

Second things second ... I am getting ready to leave for Italy today ~ we are flying into Milan tonight with a trip later on in the week down to Rome. I'll be gone for 10 days. I'm not looking forward to this, as horrible as that sounds. I just feel that I have way too much stuff to do around here to be jetting off to Italy. HOWEVER I did learn that there is a huge outdoor flea market in Rome on Easter Sunday so I'm stoked about that. Fingers crossed that I find very cool smalls to bring home. :)

See everyone in 2 weeks, thereabouts.

What Is That Saying About The Best Laid Plans... ?

What a week! It started with one of my dogs spraining his back and suddenly becoming 70 pounds of immobile (and very sad/confused) pit bull.  His condition was so bad that my partner-in-crime had to postpone his flight for 2 days because the poor dog needed to be carried up and down steps so that he could do his bathroom business. That ended up being rather futile because the steroids that the vet eventually gave him after the anti-inflammatory pills weren't really working caused explosive... mess and stomach issues for the poor dog to the point where we had to lock him up in the kitchen to contain the chaos. P-I-C left for Italy on Wednesday and I promptly came down with a nasty cold that rendered me useless to just about everyone and everything in the house. There went my whole grand plan of house projects!

I couldn't sleep last night so I dug up the architectural plans for the house that we have. There's quite a few of them, and plenty of copies for some reason. I know we have the blueprints as well but I didn't find them. These plans are on huge sheets of paper and have been rolled but then squished under another box. Scanning them just exaggerated all the creases, so I fussed in photoshop a bit to make it look like they're supposed to be kind of ratty. Is anyone crafty enough to know a trick to smoothing out paper? I was thinking of putting a towel over one, and ironing over the towel to see if the paper smoothed out. Some of these are neat in their own way and I would love to frame them.

 

The original plans for the house (not shown) are dated 1959 and are really far-off from the finished product, which is funny. Also the original owner of the house is listed as the designer of it. He was an engineer by trade, and really knew what he wanted in house. A local architecture company drew up the blueprints and plans.

This is the aerial spec of the property, from 1971 when the carport and upper (off-kitchen) deck were constructed.

On Local Architecture and Eye Candy

I initially wanted to use this blog as a showcase for the mid century (modern and modest... mostly  modest) architectural gems that I see in my daily travels. When it came down to carrying my camera with me and taking stealth-like shots of people's homes in order to post on the internet, well... I confess I chickened out.

Not knowing the legal and/or ethical ramifications of doing this, I'm going to wait until I can do some more research on the subject. In the meantime, since real estate listings are online for the public (and since there are 2  'famous' houses on the market in my area for sale at the moment) and businesses are public as well, I will showcase some of my favorites and some of the examples of MCM[odest] architecture here.