Google is doing some awesome things these days — no, we're not talking about being able to find your parked car in Street View (though that's pretty cool), but hosting the entire LIFE photo archive in their image search. This gem shows a Kirkland home in the 1950s that was probably new at the time, not to mention all that vintage furniture in its natural habitat.
While the pictures are historical and compelling as an artifact, it's kind of a nice reminder that so much of the mid-century style we see these days has been updated, especially in terms of color and the balance of soft and hard elements.
We still like the layout a lot, especially how it brings in the green outside via window walls that take up the whole side of the house. Kirkland sure looks like it was awfully rural back then!
Via: Vintage Seattle
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
How sad that we as a country got away from beautiful, modern jewelbox homes like this and into ugly, massive, characterless McMansions
view bepsf's profile
That looks EXACTLY like the house from "Blast from the Past" starring Brendan Fraser and Alicia Silverstone.
view Zhahira's profile
I could be very happy in a house like this.
view L1bby's profile
I think it's interesting how little stuff there actually is in this home. Contemporary interpretations of MCM style have a tendency to go overboard -- too many famous chairs, too many lamps with names, too many Nelson clocks, too much ornament and colour -- obviating the aspiration toward simplicity and restraint which is one of the key principles of modernity.
view amed studio's profile
I gotta say, and not to be a skeptic, but I've been in homes like this one in the damp, rainy, and moldy NW.
This one might be an exception, but those almost flat roofs and the materials the homes were built with did not age well in the our brutal NW winters.
Like damp? Like Mold? Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.
Still, they are adorable. And yes, with some modern re-engineering using more state of the art building materials and methods deserve a comeback.
view Lizzy C's profile
zhahira, that is exactly what i was thinking!!
view scarlett1313's profile
Seeing this house made me so happy and really brought me back to reality as far as the term "nice home" goes.
It's hard to avoid getting caught up in all the photos of huge houses when they are just EVERYWHERE.
view Erin Lang Norris/Yellow Canoe's profile
It looks and feels like a cozy home I could love.
view gordon's profile
amed studio -- that was my thought, too. There's very little in the house at all -- no painting over the bed, and only one small nightlamp on the headboard. One couch, two chairs and a coffee table.
It doesn't feel decorated, and it doesn't feel 'minimalist', either.
view jrochest's profile