Mid Century Nostalgia

Over the years we have taken some of the best qualities of mid century modern design with us into our contemporary lives. It is a lot of fun, then, to see some original designs and illustrations of vacation home plans in this brochure put out by the Douglas Fir Plywood Association when mid century was contemporary...

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Grain Edit, a blog focusing on classic design from the 50s to the 70s, has this great post presenting a pamphlet illustrating vacation home designs. Each image is a beautiful, if not slightly kitschy, rendering of families in the fifties romping on the shores of the lakes where they've built their fancy new vacation homes.

We love the glance back at mid century design when it was happening, and would even love to frame an image or two from the pamphlet. We love the look of the art from a time when renderings were done in watercolor by artists, rather than by computers. Check out the post here to get a little dose of design nostalgia--and maybe even some inspiration--with these great images.

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Comments (12)

Is there ANY way to find prints like this (or similar) to frame?

Really, what more could a person possibly want than the second home (called the Summer Tea House in the original book)? Look at the floor plan--it is just such a simple, efficient use of space. If I could have that on the side of a mountain lake I would be very, very happy.

Clampers ... You should go onto eBay and find a 1950's design book/magazine and take some of the pages out from there and frame them. ;)

"Is there ANY way to find prints like this (or similar) to frame?"

I've seen them on eBay ocassionally - larger images that were from developer sales offices.

Or you could just get a vintage planbook and remove pages for framing.

Clampers-The Library of Congress gift shop has some similiar-ish prints. The search function is a bit clunky but there is fun stuff.

http://tinyurl.com/otpv6h

Wow! These little houses are groove-u-licious. I want one for my 1st home!

These are great, but one thing strikes me as strange... the second image is totally screening off the view of the lake.

I know a family that still owns a kit house similar to these that they built in the 50s or 60s in the Poconos. It is a darling little (uninsulated and lead and asbestos-riddled) house - just like stepping into one of these ads.

I noticed they had carefully blocked the view of the lake, as well.

Thanks for the ideas, you guys. (Now why didn't I think of that?!)

@clampers

I live in Marin in an Eicher and they send me CA Modern magazine... they have lots of pics like this and resources for this type of thing I'm sure... eichlernetwork.com

I really enjoyed all the prints on the original website.