One Guy’s Quest to Save the 1960s Time Capsule Homes of America

Miles McDermott might just be the youngest person to restore a time capsule home. An award-winning designer, local tastemaker and fellow old soul living in Phoenix, Arizona, he’s just spent the last few years transforming his own mid-century style home– which he found looking worse for wear on Craigslist– into a virtual museum of 1960s interior…

A Compendium of Vintage Pool Parties

Some things just look like a lot more fun in vintage grainy photos. I found a ton of nostalgic of motel pool postcards on Flickr and couldn’t help but put together another little compendium of some fabulously kitsch “pool parties”. When I went road tripping in California last summer, I tried to stay in as many motels…

Stop Everything, Check out these Miniature Mediocre Motels

Among my favourite things are mid-century American kitsch and teeny tiny stuff. Put the two together and you basically send me into overload. I’m not exactly sure why run-down vintage motels fascinate me so; perhaps that seedy glamour of America is much more appealing to a European road-tripper like me who hasn’t stayed in enough of them yet to have encountered bed bugs. But those pastel…

The Underground Travelling Tiki Bar

Tiki, unlike disco, is not dead. It may have been sleeping off a hangover in a cabana somewhere since the mid 1970s, but the kitsch phenomenon is alive and well… Pictured above is one of Los Angeles’ most iconic tiki bars of yesteryear, Vagabond’s House, during its heyday on Wilshire Boulevard in the 1950s. In the 1970s,…

Found Christmas Photos

Around Christmas these days, I feel like I see more into the living rooms and family lives of other people than at any other time of year, thanks to Instagram and Facebook. I’m invited to admire the twinkly Christmas tree, marvel at the amount of the presents under it and approve of how nice the family looks…

Fairytale 1950s Chalet Architecture of the West Coast

Were they expecting snow in New Mexico in the winters of 1950? It’s an architecture that should seem a little out of place in a climate like Orange Country, California, but for some reason, it’s sort of charming in a sad and nostalgic way; like watching re-runs of I Love Lucy and realising the ‘American Dream’ feels more like a kitschy,…

And they say Romance is Dead? Rooms by the Hour at the Paris Love Hotel

I‘ve taken the liberty of translating a few lines from the brochure… “Finally rooms that rent by the hour for a gallant time!” – Yes, finally! “Original rooms, a moment of intimacy in the heart of Paris for couples in love.” –I think it’s really sweet how they specify the rooms are for couples in…

For Sale: The First Mid-Century Hollywood Hills Shag Pad

“Mid Century was Born HERE, ” says the property listing which prices the supposed birthplace of the quintessential hillside Hollywood bachelor pad at $1,125,000. And although I’ve always been weary of real-estate talk, this is one selling point that might actually be true… These groovy LA digs were built in 1948 by the well-known American innovators of modernist architecture,…

Colombia’s Beloved Jeeps Loaded with Everything but the Kitchen Sink

In the Coffee Triangle of Columbia, the locals worship an unlikely icon– the Willys Jeep, America’s military vehicle of choice during World War II. Every year in the small towns of Quindío, there’s a big folkloric parade celebrating the utility vehicles, loaded with (literally) everything but the kitchen sink. They call them “Yipaos” (loaded Jeeps) and they have become…

Communist Dollhouses: Stasi Chic in Miniature

Cold War-era furnishings, kitschy wallpaper and fine examples of mid-century architecture from the German Democratic Republic, there’s a huge collection of “Soviet chic” German dollhouses on Flickr, hailing from the short-lived era when East Germany was under communist rule, for all your nostalgic Stasi needs… Browse the full collection here.