curtain fever

As many of you retro reno folk know, one of the best ways to invoke mid-century modern is with textiles. And with an abundance of 50s, 60s etc. fabric available on the web, I am in a constant state of temptation. More on that later along with some links.

When we last left our council house heroine, she was still sitting in her council box surrounded by a) the ex's late-80s taste, and b) masses of stuff accumulated by her (my) actually adorable husband. He just thinks those hotel shampoos, free-with-the-paper DVDs, and kooky beer mats might have some life left in them. I know this syndrome, but it all fell away the night I moved out of my one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver. I had been there for ONE YEAR, and I was stunned by the amount of-- we'll call it stuff-- in that short time. I had movers, I had a cleaner, and still I was dealing with piles of dusty whatnots until minight, wit the new tenants furious and camped out in the living room.

One great advantage of the style we call mid-century modern is that it eschews CLUTTER. And now my husband-- let's call him MMM-- and we have allocated him his own room to clutter up as he likes. (Yesterday he surprised me with his pristine new decorating scheme.) One great advantage of this plan is that it frees me from being a minimalist nag: :"Sugar, do we really need this..." Poor MMM, people would mutter. No longer (not on that account, anyway).

We tackled the living room first, going at it with a blue and grey geometric wallpaper (to defeat the brown and orange flower wallpaper that was there. Sound 70s funky, Reader, it was not.)

Here's the best textile place I have discovered so far, based in California: http://www.melinamade.com.