Finally, an AFFORDABLE Mid Century Modern Front Door (Like Under 200 Bucks!)

If you own a mid century modern house and your house had been 'modernized' with a spiffy (and I don't mean this in a good way) modern door, you've probably been looking for either an old door that someone else was changing out, or a new door to bring your front entry way back to how it should look. We'd been scouring Craigslist for an old door for awhile with no luck. Various websites list different options for period-look mid century entry doors, including this article on Retrorenovation.com. The cheapest mid-century looking door on that page starts around $500 bucks and is fiberglass from home dumpster. We'd been thinking about that door as our current door leaves much to be desired from a modern perspective. LOTS of photos below!

DIY A Mid Century Modern Cedar Fence

Spring has finally come to the north, and I've been taking advantage of the warm weather to get things moving along. Our new AC condensor is going in, replacing a true mid century unit which has unfortunately stopped working. This thing is totally cool - open bottom, wood grain vinyl access panel. It worked great - for about the first month we were in this house, then it just gave up. It has to be the original unit that was installed when the house was built, so 60+ years of service is pretty impressive. What does this have to do with a fence you ask? Well, read on.

Picking Through the Morgue: Racquet Club Drive, Palm Springs - One of the Ultimate Mid Century Style Guides

 

Any art student, industrial or interior designer worth their weight in salt will tell you that a morgue is an extremely useful tool. It's a place to store your ideas, fabric scraps, inspirational photos, magazine clippings, etc. Kind of like an old-school Pinterest. And I hate Pinterest. I have a folder on my hard drive that has in it all manner of interesting things. If I see something I like, it goes into my morgue so I can find it again later if I like something about the image, color scheme, house, building, hardscape, or landscape. Then, when I'm modelling in Sketchup, I can quickly brows my morgue file for that thing that I forgot.

We were in SoCal visiting family over the winter break a few months ago - so yes, this post is overdue. My wife's family lives in DHS, a small town situated just to the north of Palm Springs at the base of the San Bernardinos where the 62 snakes its way up toward Joshua Tree. So we were close to some lovely mid century houses to go gawk at. That was one of our list of to do's while we were there: 1) gawk at mid century houses on Racquet Club, 2) hit Long Beach Flea Market and antique stores, 3) hit PS antique stores (which are overpriced now, but nicely stocked with more credenzas than you can shake a stick at), and 4) hit the local thrift stores.

Palm Springs is one of the meccas of the Mid Century Modern ethic. From the visitor's center in an awesome 1950's service station (shown to the right as it was back in the day, Mt. San Jacinto behind), where you can fill up on gaudy T-shirts, PS mugs, bumper stickers, and fridge magnets. The Palm Springs Modernism Week, which happens once a year in mid February, is a weeks-long celebration of mid 20th century architecture, celebrity, automobiles, clothing, and, of course - furniture; in short, pretty much everything vintage. The first time I went to modernism week was either 2011 or 2012, and it was fantastic. The show - the showcase of largely furniture, glass, and jewelry cost something like $20 bucks to get in to, came with a nice glossy program, and had some amazing pieces - including a Bill Curry hexagonal shelving unit for Design Line. There is a company in England now that reproduces almost exact copies of that, but they won't ship to the US. Bastards.

Proposed Changes to the Front Elevation of our Atomic Ranch

I like to tinker. I like to build stuff. I've been doing some pretty major renovations to the ranch.

Well, in cyberspace anyway. I saw the utility in Google Sketchup very early on as an easy to use solid modelling program for design, layout, prototyping, material estimation, and to get an idea about how a finished project will look before you even start buying the materials. It's a pretty easy to use piece of software, there are tons of help documents online, there are many pre-made models that other users have constructed and shared on 3dwarehouse, and the consumer version is free. All you need to do is to start using it, and stick with it. You'll be making stuff in no time. So I've been letting my imagination go - after all, it doesn't cost anything but time at this point - money for sure... later.