A rather boring, boxy remodel was committed on my kitchen, but other than that and most of the flooring, I have a lot of original materials in my house.  In fact, I have a lot of original materials outside of my house…like roof timbers, flue tiles and concrete partition blocks.  Every day I am more amazed at the fact that these things have hung around for 65 years.

Before I met my house I had only ever come into contact with the standard two hole concrete block.  So when we started picking up rounded bullnose blocks and skinny partition blocks around the house, I was really intrigued.  I found them later in a Portland Cement Association pamphlet.  It was one of many pamphlets and catalogs for home building from the 40s and 50s, included in the Internet Archive’s Building Technology Heritage Library collection.  The collection’s also been pretty helpful in identifying the floor in the bedrooms (Armstrong 1949 pattern book) and the fixtures in the bathroom.  It’s kind of like backwards shopping, looking at old catalogs to find a match for what’s in front of you.

I dream of finding the floorplans for my house in one of the several house plan catalogs like Practical Homes.  I love how the post WWII housing boom was partially directed at the do-it-yourself home builder.  The Popular Mechanic’s famous Concrete Block House, an instruction manual to the home builder, includes a lot of techniques that I think were actually used in my home.

I wholeheartedly encourage you to peruse the Internet Archive’s Building Technology Heritage Library collection yourself.  It’s pretty spiffy, but a warning:  you may lose several hours of your day to it.

Yes, we have purchased a house and moved.  It has sucked up every ounce of free time and money in a crazy tornado of excitement.  We are still managing a list of to-dos that is a little longer than we’d like (which is why you won’t see any other photos yet), but I think we’re winning.

One of the first things I did with any speck of free computing time was to search the history of my house and the surrounding neighborhood.  It’s both wonderful and a little creepy how many things you can find accessible as public information.  I have a good idea who originally owned my house.  It was built in 1949 and our county’s online records don’t go back that far, so I’ll need to do some real world research to complete the story.  I know who bought it next, and how long they lived there, and who after that.  I know the names of all my neighbors, the years that their houses were built, the crime patterns in and around our neighborhood, and how much every house last sold for.

Our house was built just before the zenith of mid-century design trends, but it has plenty of characteristics of mid-century houses, especially since it was expanded upon in the 60s.  Post WWII decorating is usually identified as being spare, thankful and very patriotic.  Red, white, and blue were often seen as color schemes.  There was a big trend towards outdoor living and incorporating those themes inside as well.  Our house has managed to hold on to bits of these ideas:  The pink and blue of the bathroom tiles with white commode, tub and sink have that late 40s patriotism.  It is ranch style, situated facing south and set wide on the lot so that windows and views of outside (especially the back yard) surround you when you are indoors.

The picture here is through a back window over the raised garden beds just off the porch.  You can tell we’re in Florida–even the weeds look pretty (for now) as our neighborhood embden geese look for a snack.

Yet, my house is not mid-century modern.  It has no transom windows, pine, or terrazzo floors.  It is, as The Mid-Century Modest Manifesto at Retro Renovation says, like the hundreds of other mid-century houses built for the average American family.  I like the mid-century modest idea, and I would like to retain the existing original components of my home and return as much of the updated areas to something more like what they were.  Retro Renovation is an excellent resource site.  Once I’ve got our bathroom more up to snuff I will show it off on Save the Pink Bathrooms.  I’ve also found Atomic Ranch magazine and Mid Century Home Style excellent help.