Mid-Century Photo Friday: It's Cocktail time!

Furniture arranging

This week we see how to arrange furniture in a 1950’s home. Do you take into account traffic patterns? Or do you deal with scale and balance and a center of interest in your room? Taken from the “Better Homes and Gardens Decorating Book” Copyright 1956, we thought we’d turn Mid-Century Photo Friday into a learning experience. As usual you can leave a link to your Mid-Century Photo Friday in the comments.

Preserving the iconic gas station in your area

There is almost nothing as iconic as the Mid-Century Gas station. Once placed obviously along the road to attract weary travelers and to feed the gas to move along the road, now quite a few of the most wonderful architecturally stand empty and deserted. This particular gas station in my area got me thinking about preservation of these great structures! This former Phillips 66 gas station, displays the quintessential stylized box design. Its space age

Raising Retro Kids: Pedal Cars

Pedal car history goes back to the 1890’s when toy makers took their cue from real cars on the road. At the turn of the century, the cost meant that these cars were playthings for only wealthy families especially with many families reeling from the financial devastation of The Great Depression. No pedal cars were produced in the mid-1940’s when all metal production was directed to the World War II effort. Pedal cars experienced a

Dome Theaters in San Jose in danger!

In danger of demolition are the Winchester Theaters, a group of dome-shaped movie theaters which opened nearly 50 years ago showing It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World to herald both the space age and new cinema. The buildings—originally called the Century Theaters—were the first theaters of their kind. Designed by San Francisco architect Vincent Raney and opened between 1964 and 1966 to accommodate a new widescreen technology called Cinerama that was developed to help theaters