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...

5.27.09 midcentury 2.jpg

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.

5.27.09 midcentury 3.jpg

Comments (12)

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

posted by clampers on May 27th 2009 at 1:56pm
view clampers's profile

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.

posted by sally305 on May 27th 2009 at 2:05pm
view sally305's profile

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. ;)

posted by Fashionably_True on May 27th 2009 at 2:19pm
view Fashionably_True's profile

"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.

posted by bepsf on May 27th 2009 at 2:20pm
view bepsf's profile

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

posted by MsAmanda on May 27th 2009 at 2:25pm
view MsAmanda's profile

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

posted by AlmostAD on May 27th 2009 at 2:47pm
view AlmostAD's profile

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

posted by Doug on May 27th 2009 at 2:47pm
view Doug's profile

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.

posted by terra maria on May 27th 2009 at 2:50pm
view terra maria's profile

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

posted by jen_g on May 27th 2009 at 3:30pm
view jen_g's profile

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

posted by clampers on May 27th 2009 at 3:55pm
view clampers's profile

@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

posted by sfteri on May 27th 2009 at 4:04pm
view sfteri's profile

I really enjoyed all the prints on the original website.

posted by baileyb on May 27th 2009 at 5:19pm
view baileyb's profile