Fifties House » Pictures

Update on the Popular Mechanics articles

mrbill — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:03:05 +0000

Back in January I posted some pictures I’d taken of interesting articles from the 1961 “Popular Mechanics Illustrated Home Handyman Encyclopedia & Guide”.

I’m happy to report that Popular Mechanics has given me permission to produce PDF versions of their articles as long as I don’t alter the content and provide a link to their home page.

This is very nice of them (and fairly unusual in today’s copyright-sue-happy world); I’ve got some of the articles as PDFs already online made from the photographs I took of the books.

I’m willing to do proper flatbed scans of articles if I can somehow get my hands on a decent scanner.

Houston 1940 Air Terminal Museum

mrbill — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 22:20:19 +0000

Amy and I visited Houston’s 1940 Air Terminal Museum today, and I took a bunch of pictures.

It’s a great example of Art Deco architecture, and I’m glad that it was saved instead of being bulldozed.

Edit: here’s some of my favorite pictures. Click a thumbnail for the Flickr page.

Paint Suggestions

mrbill — Wed, 24 May 2006 03:26:43 +0000

Anybody have paint color suggestions to go with our awesome blue bathroom?

ring ring

mrbill — Sat, 20 May 2006 10:38:27 +0000

I’ve put up more telephone pictures at Flickr. The red one is my favorite so far.

More Living Better Electrically

mrbill — Thu, 18 May 2006 23:18:11 +0000

I found another Live Better Electrically medallion on eBay, this one looks a little newer than the one I found in the garage. I took pictures.

I’m also starting to take pictures of the vintage Touch-Tone telephones that I’m buying off eBay to replace the “modern” junk they sell nowdays.

I’m a firm believer in the fact that things worked better under a single monopolistic Bell System.

Interior Decorating

mrbill — Sun, 14 May 2006 00:51:13 +0000

I’ve added some great interior decorating pictures from a 1956 Better Homes & Gardens book to my Flickr photos, along with “How to be a Cookout Champion” and some 1970s interiors as well.

Someone else on Flickr has gone to the trouble of scanning four years’ worth of Sears Wishbooks.

New pictures

mrbill — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 03:02:12 +0000

I’ve added new pictures from December ’05 and January ’06.

More Adventures in Home Ownership

mrbill — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 19:35:53 +0000

I had to come home from work yesterday when Amy called and said “we have a roof leak.”

Got home, and saw this. Water damage to some of the old paneling on the outside wall, but no problems at all to the ceiling, which was very baffling. We figured that we had a roof leak.

Called the insurance company, and the adjuster came out today. He got up on the roof, and gave it a clean bill of health. They can’t do anything (as water damage without distinct roof damage isn’t covered), but he’s going to call a contractor for us to get an estimate to get the paneling spot-fixed.

We finally figured out what the problem was – leaf buildup on the root caused standing water, which slowly dripped/soaked down through a specific spot on the roof, onto a stud, and onto the wall you see in the pictures.

The solution was fairly easy – we went to Lowes, and bought a folding/telescoping ladder and a push broom. Amy spent about a half hour up on the roof sweeping off leaves (quite a lot of them), almost giving herself heatstroke in the process.

I guess we’ll find out if this was the cause/solution when we get rain from hurricanes in the Gulf in the next few days.

If like me you occasionally struggle with home repairs, you should consider purchasing home warranty insurance.

Live Better Electrically

mrbill — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 02:59:19 +0000

I found this on the garage wall, painted over and dark with 48 years of tarnish. Twenty minutes of scrubbing later (click for bigger/other pictures), we have:

After some Internet searching, I found details here:

To keep demand high, the electrical industry launched the Live Better Electrically, or LBE, campaign in March 1956. It was supported nationwide by 300 electric utilities and 180 electrical manufacturers.

The campaign got then-actor Ronald Reagan, the popular host of “General Electric Theater,” to take his television audience on a series of tours of his and wife Nancy’s all-electric Pacific Palisades home.

An in-house GE sales pitch declared that “by Thanksgiving, there should not be a man, woman or child in America who doesn’t know that you can ‘Live Better Electrically’ with General Electric appliances and television.”

In October 1957, LBE launched the “Medallion Homes” campaign, which sought to sell 20,000 all-electric homes nationwide by 1958, 100,000 by 1960 and 970,000 by 1970.

To earn a gold medallion–a decal affixed to a home’s entryway and considered the apex of modern, all-electric living–a home had to have an electric clothes washer and dryer, waste disposal, refrigerator and all-electric heating.

The Medallion Homes campaign was a huge success. By some estimates, the nationwide goal of about 1 million all-electric homes was achieved, according to the Edison Electric Institute, although data on the actual number built is unavailable.

Now that it’s cleaned up, I’ll put it back on the wall where it belongs. Obviously, this house was all-electric when it was built in 1957, but in the intervening years it was switched to gas for water and environmental heat. We went with an electric dryer.