The “check your inbox”, “must have gift lists” and “buying guides” we are inundated with right now kind of give me the ick. Especially since we’ve just been hounded by all of the “buy right now energy” Black Friday Energy.
Plus, when I put mid-century gift guide into Google to see if I was forgetting anything as I prepped for this episode, what I actually came up with was a whole bunch of listicles with links to modern-ish products with vaguely mid-century styles that I just didn’t really enjoy scrolling through. After all, as mid-century enthusiasts, we tend to be focused on vintage, timeless things, right? Rather than new things that miss the mark on both quality and style.
So instead of another listicle with vaguely mid-century-ish products, this gift guide takes a slightly different approach. Focusing on experiences, design collaboration, and supporting small, quality businesses rather than succumbing to the urgency of sales. Today I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, that you already know you can gift someone more than an object. But sometimes the “what” of it all is the challenge.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
In Today’s Episode You’ll Hear:
- When a movie night might be the perfect mid-century gift.
- How to ensure you get your picky mid mod connoisseur the perfect vintage find.
- Where to find great mid mod inspired stuff for when gifting stuff is the right move.
Listen Now On
The Gift of Design: Time and Inspiration
One of the most valuable gifts you can give is the gift of design itself—the time, thinking, and dreaming that is the first necessary step of any Master Plan approach. This doesn’t necessarily mean hiring an architect (though a consultation with Mid Mod Midwest is an option ), but rather committing to the process. You could gift your partner a standing date—every Thursday over wine or every Saturday during a dog walk—to talk seriously about your home improvement dreams and get excited about your mid-century house.
Another incredible way to experience design together is through mid-century tours and adventures. While Palm Springs Modernism Week in February is the iconic architecture tourism experience, you can explore mid-century architecture any time of year, or even locally. A great resource for finding tours and local branches of enthusiasts is Docomomo (D O C O M O M O), a national organization that preserves and documents modernist architecture. You can also check out usmodernist.org, which organizes traveling tours and offers great modernist resources. A bit of research and logistics planning for a trip is a thoughtful gift in itself.
Books, Movies, and Vintage Hunting
For literary and visual inspiration, you can always gift books or a date to watch a mid-century inspired movie or TV show. We’ve updated the free Mid-Century Ranch Resources List with over 100 entries, including new additions like:
- Atomic Ranch Remodeled Marvels by Jickie Torres, Mid-Century Modern Style by Karen Nepacena, and Alexander Girard: Let the Sun In by Todd Oldham.
- Catch Me If You Can, That Thing You Do, Andor, Fellow Travelers, and Down with Love.
A quick note: When buying design books, please try to support your local independent bookstore or indiebooks.org instead of ordering from Amazon.
Finally, embracing the vintage nature of mid-century houses means you don’t have to buy anything newly manufactured. The most rewarding vintage gift is often the act of vintage hunting together. Take the mid-century lover in your life to a local antique store or mall. You get quality time, shared interests, and the bonus points of buying them the cool thing they like, rather than guessing what their specific taste will be.
Supporting Mid-Century Small Businesses
If you are looking for an object that delivers quality and fits the mid-century moment, consider supporting these small businesses run by good folks:
Modbox Mailboxes
Modern House Numbers
Hip Haven
Hip Haven Lights, Planters and More
Atomic Foundry
Atomic Foundry Doorbells and Hooks
Make it Mid-Century
Door Kits, Garage Kits, Laminate Counters, Tile and More
History Never Repeats
High drama starburst doors (and kits)
TruTone
TruTone Vintage C9 and C7 String lights
For those who enjoy a mental workout with a mid-century view, consider puzzles. Modern Puzzles(modernpuzzles.com) and Blue Kazoo Puzzle Company both offer attractive, mid-century-oriented designs.
Resources
- Grab the updated Mid-Century Resources List
- Get Ready to Remodel, my course that teaches you to DIY a great plan for your mid mod remodel!
- Want us to create your mid-century master plan? Apply here to get on my calendar for a Discovery Call!
- Need some targeted home advice? Schedule a 30-minute Zoom consult with me. We’ll dig into an issue or do a comprehensive mid century house audit.
And you can always…
- Join us in the Facebook Community for Mid Mod Remodel
- Find me on Instagram:@midmodmidwest
- Find the podcast on Instagram: @midmodremodelpodcast
Read the Full Episode Transcript
00:00
Whether you’re looking for a gift for a mid-century lover in your life, or maybe you are the person who deserves a fun mid mod gift. Sometimes it can be hard to come up with the perfect idea, especially in a time sensitive way, the right thing for the right person in just this moment, I can help today, I’m sharing a few of my favorite mid-century small businesses you might want to support.
00:23
Yeah, we should do that more than one Saturday per year, plus some of my favorite new and old books on mid-century design you might want to add to your library, and also a few thoughts on how you can give and gift without necessarily buying, or at least not buying anything newly manufactured this year. Hey, US mid-century lovers should like vintage things, right? Without further ado, a mid mod remodel Gift Guide.
00:40
Hey there. Welcome back to mid mod remodel. This is the show about updating MCM homes, helping you master mid-century home to your modern life. I’m your host, della Hansmann, architect and mid-century ranch enthusiast. You’re listening to Episode 2219.
00:52
Before I get into the gift guide, quick note. I’ve just on Tuesday put up the fourth in my video series on how to overcome whatever is stopping you from making real improvements to your home next year, this YouTube series has already taken me through how your real world budget isn’t going to come from what Google says on average kitchen remodel costs. How to break out of Pinterest overwhelm, which so many of the people that I talked to are stuck in indecision of just too much going on, and the simple system I have for breaking through that and getting into real choices when to push back on trendy advice and how demoralizing and kind of choice removing the 2025, perfect kitchen, or the latest this, that or the other thing you need to have in your house, kind of advice can be.
01:43
And then this week, I am taking you into a situation that many of my clients and students are in, which is that if you regret a past project of your own, it can really freeze you up. That might be something big, like a kitchen remodel you did right as you moved in, or maybe it was a nice little first project, a bath update, or the whole house where you painted the brick and then later realized you should not have whenever you’ve made choices yourself on your house and then regret them.
02:11
Particularly for mid-century homeowners who came a few years into owning the home, into appreciating what makes it mid-century, it can be really hard to put a boundary around your feelings about that project and get confident enough to move forward again. I talk to people about this all the time, and so what I can say is you can move past those worries, and I think the Master Plan method is the best possible way for moving on past and avoiding future remodelers regret. So today’s episode over on YouTube. Go to the mid mod Midwest channel and check it out.
02:45
I think you’re going to find this very reassuring. If you’ve ever done a project on your house that you now don’t feel great about, and it’s holding you back from taking on anything or everything else. All right, let’s get into a mid modern model gift guide. I’ve been having such mixed feelings about the whole concept of this episode. Actually, I put it on the calendar myself. I thought it would be fun and a nice chance to update and re highlight my list of mid-century small businesses you might want to support.
03:13
And it’s been an opportunity for me to update our free resources, list of books and movies and television shows and other mid-century inflected inspiration points you might want to look into. So I will link to, by the way, just go to mid mod, dash, midwest.com/resources, if you’ve never gotten that list before. And actually, if you have already signed up for the resources list in the past, we haven’t updated it yet at the time of my recording this, but by the time the episode airs, we will, we’ll shoot out an email just sending everybody who’s ever asked for that list in the past a fresh past a fresh version of it.
03:43
So “check your inbox” “a gift guide”, “gift lists”, “buying guides” give me kind of the ick. Especially since we’ve just been hounded by all of this Black Friday Energy, all of this “buy right now energy”. And when I put mid-century gift guide into Google to see if I was forgetting anything, what I actually came up with was a whole bunch of listicles with links to modern-ish products with vaguely mid-century styles that I just didn’t really enjoy scrolling through. So today I’m going to take a slightly different approach to the nature of a gift guide, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, I think you already know that you can gift someone more than an object.
04:22
You could gift someone your time and attention. You could gift someone a sweet conversation about what matters most to you or matters most to them, particularly if you’re gifting your partner in owning a home, something to do with your mid-century house. You could make a standing date to talk about your home improvement dreams every Thursday evening over wine, or every Saturday morning while you walk the dog, you could carve out a time in your schedule to go somewhere beautiful, take a couple of tours of mid-century houses for money. You know, you take paid official tours or just crash with friends in a city you’ve never been to before and go on a couple of long walks in mid-century neighborhoods. Is for absolutely nothing at all.
05:01
A number of the things I’m going to talk about in this episode cost amounts of money. But my point is, just as when I approach a mid model remodel project, as an architect, I’m not necessarily on the side for making a big change or any change at all. If I find a part of a house that a mid-century homeowner already likes, we will leave it alone.
It can be for free or for repair and maintenance costs. And I’m also not going to be the person that tells you what you must buy or that you must get a very expensive thing to be a good gift. There’s no sponsored links in this episode, although I will say many of the small businesses, I’m going to mention are/have become personal friends of mine. We don’t have any financial transactional arrangements about this, but, you know, I would like to see them succeed, just like I hope that my mid-century small business continues to succeed.
05:49
But yeah, I guess I wanted this to be more in the spirit of if you feel stuck, which I sometimes do when I’m trying to honor the moment of holiday gift giving with something really specific to a person, I love that makes them feel like I thought about them. Sometimes I need some ideas, some places to start off from, so I’m going to just throw out some ideas of things that are related to the mid-century world and are cool, and you can see where they land.
06:11
The effect of gifting is often to be spending money in this capitalist economy, buying, giving, but you could just as easily use this gift guide as a wish list for your own future planning things you might like to acquire, things you might like to add to your library, or just good ideas you want to track down in some other way. I’m going to mention books today, and books also live in libraries. Just a thought.
06:34
Speaking of buying, we’re past the biggest part of Black Friday, although we were nowhere near done having our inboxes inundated with holiday sale this and immediate discount that and take advantage of this right now offer this.
06:51
I got a number of questions from clients and students during the sort of Black Friday moment, as I always do of people who are not quite at their master plan completion moment of design thinking, oh my. I just got an email from a lighting company. I like I’m thinking of someone specific here, and I know we haven’t gotten a style guide together for the project yet, but is it too early to recommend specific products we could purchase for the house?
07:21
And my answer to the person who asked me that specific question was, unfortunately, we don’t have a style guide yet. We have not gone through the style guide process yet. We haven’t created that for you. You haven’t created that for yourself. And it’s kind of too early in the game to be choosing, to be giving, for me, to be giving professional designerly recommendations for which light fixtures just choose.
07:34
At the same time, I gave her the same advice I would always give anyone, which is, if you see something you particularly love, not based on a sale price. Although getting something you love for a discount is great. Buy it and we’ll build the rest of your style guide around that thing.
07:50
But I want to push back on this urge. We get this all the time. The urgency of something being discounted can feel incredibly powerful and sort of anxious, anxiety inducing. That’s the point of it, by the way. As someone who has tried to market products, services and other things, trying to put a certain amount of time urgency onto someone else is a great way to motivate them to jump into something they haven’t thoroughly considered.
08:12
And I’ve always found that kind of squeaky My personal preference is to get people to choose, to hire me to design a master plan for them when they’re ready or to join my program, ready to ready to remodel, oh, my goodness, or master plan in a month, or what have you that there can be artificial urgency around that, particularly whenever there is some sort of discounted price, I think sometimes we do create actual urgency when we launch ready to remodel.
08:35
There’s often a host of students who are joining at the same time. This creates a mid modern Mod Squad. There’s a benefit to doing that at a particular time, that is a real, actual benefit that you can choose to take advantage of if you join at the same time. But it’s an evergreen program. You can join when you want, because it’s there for you when you need it anyway. This is just to say Black Friday sales; any sale you’re getting a notification about from now until Christmas and New Year’s and then will come. What comes next President’s Day, there’s always going to be another sale.
09:09
And I get this actually around now. I’m going off on a tangent, but I often get this also from people who have just hired us to design a master plan for them and want to take advantage of a sale for things like all of the new appliances for their kitchen. And I can’t, you know, if we haven’t finished the master plan, I cannot tell them exactly what they’re going to like most from our various design suggestions. But also, if they want to buy a set of appliances for their kitchen because they actually like it and they’re getting a deal, they can let us know, and we’ll design the master plan around those appliances. But I also think it’s usually a good idea to just wait for the next sale. There’s always another sale. That’s the nature of our capitalist economy.
09:51
So yeah, the long story short of that ramble was I’m not really recommending anything that’s on sale right now, although, if you get the opportunity to see something you actually have been wanting, if something has been on your gift guide or your personal wish list for a while and you notice that you can get it at a more affordable price, go for it. Cheers to that. Hooray.
10:12
But also, please don’t ever buy anything or replace anything on your mid-century house purely out of the urgency of a sense of sale. Okay, that’s a perfect segue in my head into the next topic on my little outline here, which is, rather than giving objects to someone, give them the gift of design. Now this is actually something I’ve talked about in the past. If you want to give someone a consultation with mid mod Midwest, that is an easily available service. You can do that.
10:41
We’ve had people give that for birthdays, certainly for holiday gifts. We don’t have a we don’t organize enough to have a physical gift card, but you can go ahead into our consultation scheduler and just schedule them a call for any date in the new year, and then they can change the date on it when you give them the gift of a consultation. Giving someone the gift of a master plan seems kind of excessive to me, but you certainly could.
11:04
You could also do that as less of a surprise and more of the gift we give each other is, let’s have a master plan next year. That’s a wonderful way to go about it, but actually what I’m talking about the gift of design. I also mean not hiring anyone, but just the time, the thinking, the dreaming phase, that is the necessary first step of any Master Plan approach. I have been known, maybe it’s perhaps a cop out, but I’ve been known to gift design services of my own or design thinking design collaboration to my loved ones. This actually, I think I’ve done this to my sister a couple of times. Most notably, she often gives me the concept of, let’s go on a trip together next year.
11:42
And I often give her the concept of, I know you were thinking about making a change in your house, and I made you a sketch of what you were talking about, and then we’ll talk about it some more later and work it out bigger. And it’s a great way to not have to buy her something which is sort of a cop out. But also, we have historically had a lot of fun going on those trips together and talking through the improvements to her house. I think maybe the reason that feels like a real cop out to me as a gift is that I would do it for her anyway, even if I hadn’t made it a Christmas official item.
12:15
She can basically bother me via text or call anytime and ask me some philosophical question about her house, and then get a bunch of bolstering design advice comes out, talking doll energy for me, but for you, giving someone the gift of your willingness, like I said earlier in the episode, schedule a date, a recurring date, perhaps to talk seriously about what matters to you in your house, to get excited about something, to share and exchange your Pinterest boards, to look at houses, to go on tours of places together.
12:48
This can be a really valuable way to get on the same page with someone, to spend time with them, to get excited with them about what you can and will do for your house in the next year, or the next five years or the next 10 years. Another way to experience design together is, as I also mentioned briefly earlier in the episode, to go on some tours of local mid-century or travel and have an adventure to see some mid-century design.
13:13
Now I have talked a lot throughout the history of this podcast of just wherever I go I’m looking for mid-century. So you don’t necessarily have to make a specific trip, but Palm Springs modernism week happens in February. It is the iconic architecture tourism experience. But you can go to Palm Springs any day of the year and be soaking in gorgeous modern architecture. You can also go to any number of American cities or European cities or cities throughout the world and experience great modernist ideas that you can cross pollinate into your own living space and design.
13:48
I would recommend that wherever you are, if you want to start local and easy, check out the docomomo website, D O, C O, M O, what is that documenting and collaborating of modern I don’t know. I don’t know what there’s an acronym for or an abbreviation of, but docomomo is a national organization which preserves and documents modernist architecture, and many it will have on its website if there are any state or local branches that are affiliated.
14:17
These are really great resources, mostly design associated people of some sort, interiors people, real estate people, architects, modernist nerds in your area who have regular meetings. Sometimes there will be lectures, sometimes there’ll be drinks in bars, and they often schedule a tour day at least once a year of some really great mid-century residential design in your neighborhood. There’s often a specific tour day in early October.
14:46
And my only complaint about this, actually, is that if you’re in an area which has got several Docomo branches around you within driving distance, you would wish that they would all be on different weekends so you could go to the one state north of you and one state east of you and one state west of you. You on different occasions. You have to pick one, but it can be a really, really fun little weekend getaway to think about. You know, planning from now until October is quite a while, but there are going to be modernist tour events happening near you somehow all the way around.
15:16
So a little bit of research as the gift, the logistics of the trip as a gift, just the volunteering to spend your time and energy with someone as a gift, or again, as a gift you give yourself. This is a really great way to appreciate what you have that’s cool about your own house and come up with some new, fun ideas for what you might do to it, what you might infuse into it, or just appreciate mid-century design in all its variety by having a good time on a tour. O
15:42
h, in addition to docomomo, I should absolutely shout out usmodernist.org which was originally a North Carolina based organization but is now its national. They organize tours that travel. They often organize a specific tour to Palm Springs, both the fall preview and the modernism week in February every year, they are a great place, both to just get a lot of great modernist resources, but also to check out specific events and tours and things that might be going on near you or worth traveling to.
16:13
An even easier way to make a date to spend time taking in some mid-century inspiration with someone you love is to watch some mid-century or mid-century inspired movies and TV shows. Again, you could gift someone a DVD their actual own intellectual property, rather than whatever streaming rights actually are in this futurist age, or just the concept of time spent with them.
16:39
I said that at the beginning of this episode, we’re going to be updating our mid-century I think I originally titled it the mid-century ranch resource list. And it was, I think in its first pass, it was something like 60 books, stores, movies, references, how to, guides, etc. Then it grew to a list of over 80 things I thought people might want to know and had to their libraries, and now it’s well over 100 and we’ve just updated it again with some new books that are just out this last couple of years, and some new movies and TV some of these are actually, I just was thinking about it.
17:12
And a couple of things that were not on the list yet, but should be, are a couple of my own favorite movies from the 90s. The 2000s Catch Me If You Can. And that thing you do both beautifully grafted Time Capsule movies set in the mid-century era and then newer things that have been out and since I last updated this list, if you love sci fi, Andor has some amazing futurist sets that are actually featuring locations in mid-century. Internationally, I was particularly struck by the sets they shot at the Barbican in London. But there are a few other really great places to come to do some research and just get into the Star Wars world a little bit.
17:50
Other things that were sort of low key mid-century? Well, fellow travelers, if you would like to cry, if you would like to learn some mid-century queer some American queer history, and also see some gorgeous mid-century sets and costumes. Great resource. And then I was kind of surprised by how mid-century inflected the new Bruce Springsteen movie was. What was the title of that delivering me from nowhere.
18:16
Great movie. Very moody and kind of depressive, but beautiful, great message and great mid-century sets. Seriously, I could just, I could just listen to the movie and hear all of his beautiful recording sessions. Or I could just turn the sound off and watch him having emotional breakdowns in a really beautiful time capsule, probably late 70s house on a lake in New Jersey. I’m not enough of the boss guy myself, but I loved the movie. And I really, really, really loved the mid-century sets. Not that it’s set in the mid-century, but he is kind of a vintagey guy, and he likes he spends most of the time of the movie in mid-century spaces.
18:59
So yeah, a couple of things to add to that list, but also go grab the mid-century ranch resources list, mid mod-midwest.com/resources.
19:06
Other things I have called out in the past and absolutely loved the 2003 rom com down with love. It’s a super, super delightful send up of the classic sex comedy, totally done in pastel pink and shot so cleverly. It’s just, it’s absolutely, absolutely a delight from start to finish, the 2020, Netflix series Queen’s gambit that basically, like absorbed my entire brain inside the pandemic and made me just want to…they shot all of those…they shot all the residential sets in Canada, and it made me want to move to Canada and be mid-century there.
19:52
For other reasons, Wanda vision. If you want to stay in the Sci Fi world, but go more Marvel than Star Wars, you still need a Disney Plus subscription for that, just a myriad of fun mid-century things you could take in yourself. Have a good time watching or watch with someone else. Give them a little stack of good DVDs and plan for some movie nights to think about mid-century inspiration.
20:04
Okay, while I’m thinking about adding to the resources list, a couple of books that we’ve added to that list, but I think really, just go grab this list. I have books on how to get started with Mid-century Modern as a concept, books that are more about the concept of design. I do call out all of the various the two previous atomic ranch books as well as atomic ranch magazine, but there’s a new one.
20:27
Atomic ranch remodeled Marvels has come out since the last time I looked. Jickie Torres has done an amazing job of collating and dissecting a bunch of beautiful remodeled mid-century homes for our inspiration and della-tation. What else? Oh, Karen Nepacena’s book, mid-century, modern style, an approachable guide to inspired rooms, is based on all the experience she’s gained designing and remodeling or designing the remodels of Eichler homes and her website destination, Eichler is a great place to get started for that as well.
20:59
What else? A couple of fun new coffee table books, one on the history and architecture of mid-century, bowling bowlarama, by Chris Nichols, and one I just added to my own collection, Alexander Girard Let the sun in by Todd Oldham, which was a revelation for me. I knew, I knew about Gerard’s graphic design work and some of his architecture, but it was really, just really enjoyed flipping through all of the various aspects of design and his history of learning mid-century and creating, generating mid-century around himself, through a bunch of different industrial design and building into architectural design fields. Just really great stuff.
21:38
And then, of course, for me, I went down a rabbit hole when I took a trip to England this past spring and got really excited about mid-century British architecture. So of course, I added a couple more books on that to my personal library that I enthusiastically recommend to you. Mid-century Britain modern architecture by Elaine Harwood was a nice compilation of photos and little, little blurbs about various important pieces in England and then the Barbican estate by Steffi Orazi is a really excellent compilation of the history of that monolithic, magnificent, complex building development that is also a very, very hefty, complex book to add to your coffee table.
22:19
But really head over to the resources list, because whether you’re looking for information about a particular moment in architectural history, a compendium of architecturally significant chairs or other iconic design features, landscaping for the mid-century era history of particular people, particular designers, you’ll probably find a history on a mid-century architect from your area, whether you are looking for Delia Schulman in Chicago or Eichler in California, or Keck and Keck also in the Greater Chicago area.
22:53
Or you know what Wright did in Wisconsin or in Michigan, or anything like that. The starting point for finding more books to add to your mid-century library or to gift to anyone who loves mid-century in your life, I would say, is that long list of mid-century resources, but you can go to mid mod midwest.com/resources and I’ll email it to you. Can I take a quick minute here to get up on my soapbox and suggest that we all don’t order our mid-century design books from Amazon but instead try to source them from maybe indie books.org or your local independent bookstore.
23:28
I know you’ve got one. It’s amazing. Let’s keep it in business. You probably already have a favorite near you, I will say, even though there are a number of lovely bookstores here in Madison, I still tend to support Arcadia books in spring green, because I either get a chance to pop out there and pick up something I’ve ordered when I go to American players theater, or they can order and ship anything to me directly. And I know that I’m supporting a local small business, yay.
23:52
Speaking of which, let’s shout out a couple of the mid-century small businesses that I love the most. These are good folks running tiny organizations that are trying to deliver quality, modern products that fit a mid-century moment. I’m going to begin by someone we’ve had hosted here on the podcast several times in the past.
24:15
Make it mid-century is a great organization that is an amazing research resource, but also an amazing source for all the sort of vintagey preservationist mid-century materials you might not be able to track down somewhere else, things like sparkle lamp for your countertop, the right kind of tile for a color block bathroom, and more, plus kits to help you turn any solid core door into a mid-century door, front door or garage door with add-ons or window inserts that you can put in yourself with basic DIY skills. So make it mid-century is an amazing resource and run by Lovely, lovely people that you can learn a little bit more about by checking out the linked episode from our last conversation.
25:00
I am similarly so fond of the folks over at modern house numbers. So if you’re thinking about a little bit of a facelift for your house come the spring, and in fact, you can install these any time of year if you want to. It’s a really nice way to add a little bit better wayfinding to your house, and particularly if your house was more mid-century traditional than mid mod to begin with. Or if somebody else came along and lost your original house numbers, you can put on bright, new, bold, modern style house numbers from their wide selection of metals, customizable colors, bunch of different fonts, and they’re really easy DIY install instructions, which I have used myself and personally endorse.
25:40
And if you’re making a tune up to your house numbers, it might be a good opportunity to fix up or replace your mailbox. This is, again, something that is often very bland or has been replaced and lost its mid-century quality, if it ever had any. I really like mod box mailbox as a place to go to source brightly colored, playfully shaped, mid-century style mailboxes, the combination of a new door kit, a mailbox and fresh house numbers, you’ve got a whole mid-century house facelift.
26:10
Let’s see, where else do I point people regularly? Hip Haven is one of my favorite sources for mid-century light fixtures for bow tie lamps, for globe lamps, for bullet lamps, and also for bullet shaped planters. They have really lovely products that you can see of an indoor or outdoor rated if you want an authentic mid-century style look to your light fixtures. Hip Haven is a great place to look. Okay, I’m really trying to avoid that museum Gift Shop effect of like prints or stuff that just shows you mid-century things, or mid-century style Christmas ornaments, etc. Not that there’s anything wrong with those things, but it’s just, it’s not the try to, not the gift guide I’m trying to put together here.
26:49
But I did want to take a moment to sidestep into puzzles with mid-century themes, because I like doing puzzles and getting someone a puzzle is an easy gift, and doing a puzzle with someone is a better gift. So I wanted to highlight a couple of my own favorite sources for attractive, mid-century oriented puzzle designs that I like. I’ve had really good luck finding some nice vintage designs from Blue kazoo puzzle company.
27:13
But I’d be completely remiss if I didn’t point you towards modern puzzles. You can go to modernpuzzles.com which I went to when I saw on the Instagram account of Illustrator Christian Musselman that a couple of his gorgeous Palm Springs building illustrations were going to be turned into a puzzle. I wanted to find out if it was as pretty in person as it seemed online. The answer is yes it was. They are I have a couple of these. They’re gorgeous and they’re really fun, 1000 piece puzzles that I have done several times.
27:41
So if puzzles are your game, why not make your puzzles mid-century too, another lovely gift that’s not necessarily something for inside your mid-century house might be art of your mid-century house, or art framed objects about your mid-century house, vintage blueprints, vintage advertising, not necessarily of the house itself, but in the similar style, any information you have about the designer or the builder of the house itself. Early marketing materials can be framed nicely. These make really fun things to look at and talk about, conversation pieces, if you will, going forward into time, if you’ve got that information, get it framed for yourself. Get it. Gift it to the house. What a fun idea.
28:22
In the same vein, I want to shout out house logos, which is, I think, a one man band operation of making little graphic logos for specific mid-century houses. I do not know what the turnaround time on these things is, as far as I know, this is the side hustle of someone who just loves their mid-century house and made a logo for it and then was asked other by other people to make logos. But you can give it a shot for the holidays, or give the concept of it as a gift, and then the actual thing can come later. You can go to house logos on Instagram to find that, and they do really, really charming little encapsulations of the mid-century vibe, of your specific house to go along with it.
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The other thing I want to just talk about before I wrap up is just the idea that you don’t have to buy anything that has been newly made or manufactured for your mid-century house. In fact, the very nature of loving mid-century houses is that they are vintage, that they are old, that they are already in existence, and we don’t need to get new things for them. It can be really fun to source vintage things to put into your vintage house, even if you’re planning to update and upgrade a bunch of features when you remodel.
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So taking the time to walk through a local mid-century antique store or even just an antique mall with a bunch of mid-century kiosks can be a really pleasant way to come across something that once was Matt’s produced, but now feels pretty unique and special and unusual in my local area.
I’m always happy when I get a chance to stop by rewind decor, or go over to Milwaukee to take in some of the great finds at mid-century meow or BC, modern and. Then I’m pretty much always in the mood to go wander and see if I’m just going to stumble upon something in the atomic antiques antique mall that’s near, very near to my house, and just a wonderful Madison’s wonderful. You never know what you’re going to find in there. Resource less curated or less sort of specifically curated by one mind, but still a wonderful place to go.
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I will say, sometimes you can go and find the perfect thing to give to the mid-century lover in your life, but if they are a person of specific taste, like I know I actually am a terrible person to gift to. I’m really hard to buy for because I am persnickety as F and I have very specific tastes that I like.
So a better way to give me, personally, something cool found at a vintage store is not to go to a vintage store with me in mind and get something. It’s to take me to a vintage store and we can have fun going through it together, and then you can see what I like and either try to surprise me with it, which I’m a big sister, good luck with that, or just tell me you’re going to give it to me, and I’ll be very pleased. Be very pleased, because I would be unlikely to buy it for myself anyway.
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All of that is to say bonus points for taking your mid-century vintage lover shopping and then buying them the cool thing that they like, this gives you a gift, and also quality time and shared interests. These are a bunch of different love language options that you can engage if you just give the person who loves vintage in your life permission to have a new vintage object. If you are looking though, if you know the person in your life has a collection, something that they already like, I would point you towards Etsy, towards eBay, towards Facebook marketplace, hunting down search terms for a specific something.
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One thing you could probably give to me at any time, any at any day of the year, is some sort of vintage brass metal, wall art tchotchke. I’m obsessed with them. I have so many of them in my house, and I’m literally never done buying them. I just got a really cool new piece. It’s big. It’s metal. It’s got round, circley bits and gesturally poking out metal bits.
It’s more red than a lot of the brass pieces that are in the Curtis charrette style. I’m not actually sure it is Curtis charrette, and I honestly, I don’t care. I just like it. But one way or another, if you know someone and they’ve got a theme of things they like, go hunting for that and see if you can surprise them with something to add to their collection. But I really think your best bet when you’re vintage hunting is to vintage hunted with the person who loves it most.
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Or again, if this gift guide is really a you guide, here’s your permission structure to go thrift mid-century stuff for your mid-century house. Okay, so I’m gonna leave it here for now. If you want a refresher on anything I just rattled off in this episode, go check out the show notes page that’s going to be mid mod, dash, midwest.com/ 2219, and particularly if you want access to the newly updated mid-century ranch resources list, which has all the books the mid-century movies, and also some shopping resources that I want to support.
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What else is in that list? Websites and resources for DIY enthusiasts, magazines, blogs you might want to follow if you still read blogs, great Instagram accounts to follow for good inspiration, mid-century furniture suppliers you might need to stock up on tile suppliers. It’s got it all, actually, even some resources on common hazards and mid-century homes. I wanted to put everything into one spot, so go grab that, the updated version at mid mod, dash, midwest.com/resources, it’s got the resources.
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And I will just leave you to your creative gifting. If you think of something that you as a mid-century lover would like to be gifted, or that you have gifted successfully in the mid-century vein, and I didn’t mention it today. Please help a girl out. Shoot me an email about it. Della@midmod-midwest.com, and let me know, and we’ll add it to the blog post, the show notes for this episode, and so somebody else can take advantage of your good, wise gifting. And in the meantime, enjoy this mid modern model Gift Guide and the Gifty slash holiday slash warm slash dark season ahead of us and whatever comes after Happy holidays.