Crushing on retro

I have a crush on my neighborhood.

For those of you familiar with Atlanta, we are renting a 1950s ranch house in the urban/suburban area near Toco Hill Shopping Center. It’s one of Atlanta’s first “car suburbs.” (Atlanta’s first suburbs—now considered by many to be intown neighborhoods—were the streetcar suburbs of the 1920s and ’30s. Our section of North Druid Hills was still dairy farms until the mid ’50s when these subdivisions, designed for the city’s new car commuters, were built.)

Why is this woman smiling? Photo credit: RetroRenovation

Maybe it’s that I’m getting older, or maybe it’s the oddly “retro/modern” bent of my current life, but I find myself attracted to and comforted by these aging strip malls and flat brick rectangles of houses on huge lots with carefully manicured lawns.

When I lived in Atlanta before, I was obsessed with Craftsman bungalows and Victorians and neighborhoods like Virginia-Highland and Inman Park. To me, those 1920s and ’30s houses were “classic,” “historic,” and “vintage.” The ranch-house suburbs were just “old.”

Aside from being priced out (way out) of the intown ‘hoods now, I guess I find these areas fit my lifestyle now more in the same way that the original owners did. I used to love the idea of a two-story bungalow a big front porch and the original crown molding. Now that I spend most of my day chasing and cleaning up after a toddler, I appreciate flat. Flat walls, flat floors, and everything on one level. That’s how I roll.

Plus, I like taking the kiddo up to Toco HIll where I can drop off some shoes for repair at one store, hit the Publix or the Kroger for groceries, drop off the dry cleaning at the laundromat that’s in the same building as the liquor store (OK, bet you wouldn’t find too many ’50s housewives bragging on that!) and grab lunch at Chris’ Pizza.

And, it’s weird the odd comfort I take in the laundromat’s faded laminate countertops and cash-or-check-only policy. The moms and kids doing the wash on a summer afternoon. The flickering florescent lights above the outdoor sidewalks of the aging strip shopping center. The giant neon signs.

Every half-assed housewife’s dream: a package store and dry cleaners in the same building and within walking distance. Photo credit: HamwithCam

The same way I am finding the old knotty pine paneling on the walls of our guest room are growing on me, as are the old windows that stick shut (but that a burglar would have to take an hour or more to pry open from the outside, even after they broke the glass) and the bathroom with its old tile and grout that always needs cleaning. I can waste an hour watching the squirrels go up and down the trees in our front yard, and the birds building a nest under the eaves.

It all reminds me of a simpler time, my own childhood. And, I guess, most of the nostalgia is rooted in the desire to give some of that to my daughter. It just feels more like home.

Turns out I am not alone at all. Google “mid-century modern” and you will turn up tons of websites and blogs devoted to love of all things so last four decades. My favorites are:

RetroRenovation
Erwin House
and
Desire to Inspire: Mid-Century Renovation

Something to inspire me as I try to organize pots and pans in the original wood cabinetry that doesn’t always stay closed. In a year or so, we’d like to buy in this neighborhood or near it, which means we’ll be in a house of similar age. I think it’s good to renovate and maintain a house in a way that honors its original design. My love affair runs cold at the thought of keeping the “authentic” ’50s kitchen floor, though. Linoleum is now my sworn enemy.