Old-fashioned Granny squares are easy to do and multiply so fast, you can turn out an afghan fast. And since you crochet a square at a time, you can carry them anywhere.
Vintage homes & gardens
Take a step back into the beauty of yesteryear, and see some pretty vintage & antique Christmas decorations that were both charming and affordable.
Actual carpeting – and even shag rugs – in the food prep area? Yep, it was a thing, as these vintage kitchen carpet photos will prove!
See 40 beautiful images from the 1910s, and get inspired by the color schemes and vintage home wall decor from more than 100 years ago!
Dinah Shore’s home in Beverly Hills is where the popular star relaxes with friends for good talk, good food, good tennis and good times. See inside her house from ’60s & the ’70s!
The Aroma Disc was a little machine from the ’80s you could use to play different fragrance ‘records’ to make your place smell like flowers or buttered popcorn… or dead fish.
About antique 1847 Rogers Bros silver plate from the early 20th century The ORIGINAL and GENUINE ROGERS’ goods for half a century have maintained the
Here’s a look back at some popular vintage Christmas lights, along with several old-fashioned examples from the ’40s, ’50s & ’60s of this kind of warm and wonderful holiday decor.
These vintage Peter Max clocks were designed by the famous pop art illustrator, whose colorful & psychedelic designs were a distillation of the ’60s.
If you already own a 1960s house, are thinking about buying one, or just want to see how new suburban homes were designed back in the Kennedy era, check out these vintage ’60s home plans!
Remember these retro cups so popular years ago? Colorama, Heller’s vintage “Colorized” aluminum tumblers, were beloved for as being unbreakable, lightweight, inviting to use and smartly designed.
Every home has room for a Christmas tree, even if it’s only the tabletop variety. See the festive joy a small tree Christmas tree can bring to your home!
See how the famously handsome football star Joe Namath used to pitch rocker-recliners and other easy chairs from La-Z-Boy… and the ads weren’t exactly subtle.
Whether you’re renovating a 1920s home or just love the aesthetic of the era, here’s a collection of authentic tile patterns and creative designs that come straight from the late twenties.
In the mid-80s, Dallas actress Linda Gray & Ed Thrasher had an open, informal ranch house north of Los Angeles – complete with a dog, two horses, three cats, and five adopted peacocks.
Few families today are without automobiles, so the lack of a garage affects the resale value of any home. A garage not in good taste architecturally almost as seriously affects that value.
Change the look and feel of a room to match the seasons! Here’s vintage living room decor set up three different ways, in true ’60s style.
Create your own distinctive beaded jewelry – bracelets, necklaces, belts, headbands – by weaving it on a basic box loom! Here’s how to do this retro bead craft.
Garden delights! Here are some old-fashioned backyard flower carts made of metal (often wrought iron) and wood.
Peek back into the musical past of vintage Wurlitzer organs as they were back in the ’60s, in all their woodtoned retro glory!
In the ’70s, pro golfer Jack Nicklaus and his wife helped advertise the new microwave ovens made by Magic Chef. Here’s a look.
This vintage playhouse from the ’60s is a real house, with a Dutch front door and hearts and flowers dormers and a white picket fence.
Here, see our collection of vintage mid-century 1960s wallpaper, and get insight from that decade about traditional and ‘modern’ home decor and color schemes.
In this era of push-button cans of room deodorants and fancy smells, there is still the lingering remembrance of grandma’s old-fashioned rose jar with flower petals.
Check out these 12 retro basement remodels, including a ranch room with a Western atmosphere, created with cowhide furniture, a totem pole, and a colorful pattern for the floor copied from a Navajo blanket.
Our practical dream house: Practical in the sense of low maintenance. Dreamy in the way it realizes the family’s hopes. What a house costs to
Holly Hobbie was the old-fashioned girl dressed in calico with lace-up boots and an enormous sunbonnet who appeared on everything from curtains to clothing.
For the ’50s housewife, laundry was huge: the love you had for your kitchen paled only in comparison to the adoration you felt for your washer and dryer.
After a long day on the set, actress Linda Evans rushes home to her 15-room haven in Beverly Hills. Here’s a look at her beautiful house from 1982!
Get 25 tips on how to conserve water inside and outside your home, developed in 1977, during California’s drought.
These bits of well-preserved vintage graphic artistry come from the simply-named Paints Oils Varnishes catalog from F. W. Devoe Co. of New York, which was
If your family never stays home because there’s nothing to do, check out these ways to pep up your yard or garden. Sometimes the simplest things, as in the play castle here, yields the most imaginative results.
The most charming homes of the later Victorian era were a sight to behold. In this book, you can color many examples of the elaborately-decorated houses built in America so long ago.
With a couple dozen clothespins – the flat, springless, wooden ones – you’ve got the raw material to craft some really original clothespin trivets!
Made with crepe paper and a few simple craft supplies, these glorious crepe paper flowers are easy to make and inexpensive, and will flourish in any room at any time of year.
For the picture-perfect housewife of the ’50s, the kitchen was the heart of the home. And the heart of the kitchen was the refrigerator/freezer combo – the kind of luxury that mother and grandmother could have only dreamed of!
To make any kitchen cozier and more welcoming! start by rethinking it as a room, not just a place to cook. Here are some ideas for how to make your kitchen work both ways.
The “hex marks” painted on the old barns of the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch farmers, even on some of the modern new barns, now are merely traditionally ornamental.
For Valentine’s Day or any day, you can re-create these pretty heart cross-stitch patterns with these designs and directions from 1955.
A lighthearted look back at the 50s housewife during the sunny days of yesteryear, when a woman’s home was her castle — and her kitchen was the heart of that home.
Are you wasting time and energy – and your silver plate – through a vigorous use of polish? Here, get some great old-fashioned tips to clean your silver.
What can we do with this horrible old kitchen? Frigidaire saves her from covering leftovers. A special storage area in this Frigidaire Frost-Proof Food-life Preserver
With their smooth white ceramic surfaces and sealed electric burners, these flat vintage cooktops made kitchen cleanups a breeze.
Get some retro decorating advice and see floors from 1950s homes featuring creatively striped and checkerboard flooring patterns with two or more colors.
Make some retro ornaments for your Christmas tree with these crafts from the ’60s: they’re fanciful birds and butterflies in inexpensive, easy-to-sew felt.
This fairyland gumdrop Christmas tree is made from gummy candy, toothpicks and a Styrofoam cone. At 24 inches high, it makes a magnificent centerpiece for a Christmas buffet table. Here’s how to make it!
Back when radium was first discovered, people loved that it was new and cool and it glowed… so companies decided to put it into a variety of products, like this radioactive X-radium cookware. Yeah, that was a bad idea.
Move out of doors in style during the summer . . . yet provide year-round storage for your boat, motor and outdoor equipment with this boat shelter and convertible patio.
The beautiful art tile stoves seen here were used to heat homes in the Victorian era, and came in many different styles. Take a look!
What were 1950s washing machines like? Here are some old-fashioned washers with high-end features for their time. These brands paid big bucks to promote these laundry appliances!
A kitchen remodel portfolio: Help yourself to the inspired ideas – some big, some little, all of them adaptable – in these kitchen makeovers by talented designers! Retro styles from 1978.
Bold, rich coloring for houses of the Victorian era The day when nearly every building was painted white, and window blinds green, has passed away.
If you don’t have enough time, maybe you don’t have enough Tappan Time Machines! See some time-saving new kitchen appliances for women who have more to do than cook food and wash dishes.
Michael Landon’s ‘Big House in Beverly Hills’ is a far cry from the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ featured in his hit TV series.
See 20 vintage scenes in and around Philadelphia in the 1950s & 60s! There’s the city itself, landmarks, suburbs, skylines and more from yesteryear.
Once electrical power became widely-available in homes, vintage vacuum cleaners debuted, including ones from the famous Hoover brand.
When you take a look at these retro 1990s bathroom decor & accessories – shower curtains, floor mats, toilet covers and sink skirts – you’ll get the sense that the decade was dominated by ruffles and pastels, plus fish and floral motifs.
Check out some vintage baby gear from Cosco, along with some of their other products – including folding tables, serving carts and more.
For a ’60s-style Christmas, give something out of this world! On the launching pad and ready to go in Santa’s space capsule are a collection of vintage creative holiday gifts for the home.
A bouquet of colorful light bulbs and Christmas lights (1970) A geometric retro Christmas tree made out of striped straws (1972) Decorated with ornaments made
Here’s how to make a retro DIY kitchen island with roll-away cart! This prep and serving center was designed to modernize a kitchen with ’60s style.
Fold-away dining corner A family-centered dining nook tucks away into warm wood paneling Here is an idea that will provide additional living space in your
In the ’80s, thousands of Americans loved the elegance of vintage Waterford chandeliers and other fine crystal items like these – and were willing to pay for it.
Shortly before her clothing line debuted – and back when her son, Anderson Cooper, was 8 years old – the multi-talented heiress Gloria Vanderbilt came out with her own print magazine: Gloria Vanderbilt Designs for Your Home.
Design-A-Wall units: Modular shelves, bookcases, cabinets and room dividers. What a wonderful world of beauty and utility is yours with new Design-A-Wall units! Handsome, without
These vintage Sunbeam Hot Shot kitchen accessories made hot water for tea, hot chocolate, coffee – and were promoted by actress Shirley Jones.
Today, when space-saving is so often a must that a piece of furniture is given houseroom almost grudgingly if it serves only one purpose, hassocks needn’t be merely be footrests. Here’s how to make your own!
Whether these antique enameled blue glass sugar caskets were used for sugar cubes or for jewelry, the handpainted pieces that have survived are prized for their beauty.
Bloomingdale’s originally opened in 1861 when the Bloomingdale brothers began by selling hoop skirts on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Then in 1872, the two opened
Summer parties and entertaining duties never cease — there are always garden fetes, weekends, luncheons and bridge suppers to be planned and executed.
Why were pink & yellow kitchens popular inn the ’50s? Because it wasn’t enough for homeowners to decorate the kitchen with just one color – they had to combine them, for a pastel buttermint effect.
Thousands of lives would be lost before it was discovered that simple asbestos – something natural, helpful and seemingly innocuous – would actually lead to many major health problems.[
The 1920s dining room, often a focal point in homes, showcased a unique blend of style and sophistication.
Vintage Formula 409 household cleaner hit supermarket shelves in the ’60s, and was one of the most popular household cleaning products during the 1970s and 1980s. See why people loved the stuff here!
The mark of the guest room is its appointments. It should be fitted with all the comforts that art and ingenuity provide in house furnishings. Here are some vintage tips!
Festive ribbons for your curtains Carry a decorated-for-Christmas look to a window treatment with colorful satin-tone gift-wrapping ribbon. Loop the ribbons over the draperies and
Each of these 1920s house styles tells its own story & showcases the creativity of the era. Many even helped shape how suburbs look today. Let’s take a closer look!
Invented in 1860, linoleum flooring was already very popular by the early 1920s, when these full-color (thus, very expensive) advertisements ran in four different magazines for
Family spaces changed radically when households started buying TVs. Then came the casual & comfy mid century modern living room as we still know it today.
Who needs a nursery? Make your kitchen the happy hub of your home! (1963) A playful candy-striped rounded kitchen from the 1960s MORE: 16 kitchen
Decorating the Thanksgiving table? Never before In the history of Thanksgiving dinners have the color schemes for trimming up the dining-room been so delightful as this year.
Enchanted evening by Zenith. (1950-1951) The setting: You… your guests, 1951 Black Magic TV with reflection-proof screen. Supreme moment! When Zenith Black Magic Television comes
Party aprons and serving holders Ever since Madame Schiaparelli wore lovely aprons as part of her hostess gowns, we’ve been on the alert for something
Her mother had the byline on all the books in the hugely-popular Little House on the Prairie series, but many thought that Rose Wilder Lane
Raised bath platform with a deep round tub in red-orange Old-fashioned rustic French style bathroom with dark brown fixtures from 1974 Retro lime green bathroom
Why not go native at your next party with a retro Hawaiian luau party? It’s now officially as American as a New England clambake.
