Mid Century Home Style

Mid-Century Home Style is...just...insane. Like The Old Car Manual Project, but for interiors. A Pinterest wet dream.

Prepare to waste your afternoon browsing for renovation ideas.

"Spinning Levers" - Vintage Video

Thanks to the folks over at Jalopnik for sharing this excellent 1936 video called "Spinning Levers", explaining perfectly how a transmission works.

As someone currently learning how to drive a manual transmission automobile for the first time in my life (how embarrassing), I find it even more perfectly educational!

Classic Wrecks

You can find just about anything you could possibly imagine to purchase on the internet. This fact, is nothing new. However, when you're someone like me who sits in front of a computer as a profession, actually finding something new and original to purchase on the internet is not as commonplace.
Today was one of those special days, where I found my way to Classic Wrecks, an Etsy store full of 1/24 car models, specially customized to look like the junkers we love to mourn.

1962 Chrysler, with one black eye.

The details have been painstakingly considered, in a matter only a true auto-lover could conceive. The pitted chrome, the missing trim, the jagged edges of each individual rust hole. Even the undercarriages of these jacked jalopies look like they need an overhaul.

What really makes these special are the cheeky extra touches, like to this '57 Chevy Nomad:

The classic Mexican Blanket seat cover.

In case you couldn't tell.

The models range in year from 1930 to 1990, with many popular make/model vehicles included, so you are bound to find something that revs your engine, or something special for gifting to a lucky rust-a-holic. With prices between $65-$75 each, and the option to request a custom Classic Wreck, they are truly some of what the best a site like Etsy has to offer.

Stars and Starlets - An Exhibition by Robert Mars

Mixed media artist (and, full disclosure, a personal friend) Robert Mars has a solo show on display starting tonight at the DTR Modern Gallery in NYC. The anticipation of attending tonight's opening is getting me through this otherwise lackluster Thursday work day! This is the debut of several sculptural works that accompany his traditional mixed-media canvas pieces which celebrate and simultaneously mourn the Golden Age of mid-century Americana and design that is near and dear to the heart of the Greaser Garage.

"Car Power Gas Pump"

"Champion Again (Good Year)"

The show runs from April 12th through April 27th, and if you are in the New York area, I highly recommend you check it out. Stay tuned for photos from the opening!

 - Kustom Kitten

Tanker Desks - take two

Greetings and happy 2012! This new year finds me in a new home in Brooklyn, currently on the hunt for a work desk, which will hopefully aid in motivating me to update this site a little more frequently! (Ha.) While hunting around Craigslist and assorted other internet treasure troves for some sort of an affordable vintage office desk ("affordable"? Ha again.), I remembered a post about retro furniture I'd made ages ago on this very site. While I still am unable to afford to spend $700 on a desk, I can at least share the assorted other resources for vintage desks I've found, and maybe you'll be lucky enough to both have the cash and live near enough to the seller to score one.

Past, Present Future
This online retailer out of Minneapolis has an incredibly huge collection of mid-century furniture, as well as what appear to be some new pieces crafted in a solid vintage style and made to your specifications. Tanker desks, club chairs, sofas, book shelves, and even clocks and staplers.

For a few hundred bucks, you can have these vintage pieces restored in a basic manner. For double your money you can secure a custom restoration job, with a huge assortment of powder coat finishes, fabrics and linoleum choices (depending on what item you are having redone). Also, if you are planning on making your own wanna-be period televisions series of Mad Men, you can talk to them about prop rental furniture for your sets. If I lived anywhere even remotely close to Minneapolis, I'd be in their showroom browsing around instead of writing a blog about tables I can't afford!

Oh, and the other thing I love about Past Present Future's site is that they happen to have a ton of images from old product catalogs for some of these pieces. You know I love me some vintage product ads. For more, check out their "tables" section, and look at the bottom two rows of thumbnails.

Etsy
I hardly EVER go to Etsy. Don't ask me why. I even have a store (with nothing in it, apparently!) and still hardly bother to wade through the masses of handmade craft projects and overpriced vintage clothing. BUT I somehow was directed over there while Google searching "tanker desk" and lo and behold...people sell furniture there!

Ebay
I know many people have had success buying vintage cars and parts on Ebay, and I assume buying some huge vintage office desk would be about the same. Of course, as always, shipping these things is a bitch, so you are best off searching in your particular area and picking it up yourself. I didn't have much luck, but since I'm always wasting time browsing that dame site, I might as well continue to keep my eyes peeled.

Craigslist
You know...there's always this.

The Wonder of Vintage Eye Wear

A friend of mine just sent me a link to this lovely video about 1950's glasses fashion. As a long-time wearer of big, plastic vintage frames, I love them for the same reason I love classic cars. The designs were big, bold, startling, provocative and shiny, marrying overindulgent decoration with sleek style.


I only wish that I had each and every one of these pairs of frames! Looking for your own vintage eyewear? Check out Ebay's vintage eyewear section, where you can still find a deal on some things, or if you're in the NYC area, a local favorite, Fabulous Fanny's.

Sum-sum-summertime

Swimsuit postcard, Wildwood, N.J. via metromonthly

Oh my! I'm ashamed at how long it's been since I've parked any more verbal and/or visual vehicles in the ol' Greaser Garage! Three months? Seriously? Get it together, self. Ultimately I've had a lot going on with my life (some of it positive, some of it not; c'est la vie) and just haven't had an extra moment to put a cohesive thought to virtual paper for you. The blogging is the first thing to be jettisoned from my schedule when there is too much going on, unfortunately.

That said, do not fret! I can tell you that I will have a lov-e-ly bunch of photographs (dee-del-ee-dee!) from a trip I'm taking with some good friends to lovely Wildwood, New Jersey next weekend! I continually doubt that anybody reading this site has been with me long enough to remember any of the old website posts or redesigns I've ever made. But in the off chance you were, perhaps you recall that once upon a time, back in the YEAR 2000, I took a trip with my boyfriend at the time to Wildwood, came back and wrote a little photo essay on my time there.

It's hard for me to believe I was a young babe - emphasis on "babe" - of nineteen years when I wrote that. My youthful naivete shows (and makes my whiny teenage missive almost impossible for 30 year old me to stomach). So take a little trip back to Wildwood, NJ in the year 2000: when websites looked...well, like that, when digital cameras were mini floppy-disk drives that took ten photos max, and cellphones were giant tumor-causing toys for rich people.

I promise that the sequel - "Wildwood, NJ: 2011, a Beach Odyssey" will be much, much more interesting. Probably because of that drive-thru liquor store.