Super Affordable Mid-Century Modern Style Beds

Original Photo From Retro Ranch.

I feel like I've been searching for the perfect bed forever. Or, you know, at least a year. (Yes, our current bed is held up with a concrete block from the tragic bed breaking incident of 2012.)

I mean, am I asking to much to find an affordable, comfortable bed with mid-century styling?

Maybe. What do I want specifically? Something comfortable, some with a low profile, and a wooden or upholstered frame. I don't want a headboard with a metal bedframe.

Here are my current favorites.

From Macy's.

The Kyle bed from Macy's hits a lot of MCM benchmarks. Tapered legs. Upholstered headboard. Nice, low profile. Finding a bed where the headboard isn't taller than I am has been a major challenge. Super high headboards are fantastic in homes with high ceilings. In homes with 8-foot ceilings? No. The headboard, especially on a modern styled bed, shouldn't be 5-feet tall.

ANYWAY. The line of button tufting is also really classic. Nice. Around $999 without a sale; currently $799.

From CB2

Here's the CB2 Andes bed. I like that it's not upholstered. I like that it's so structural and full of function.  I think it's an interesting, modern twist on mid-century bookshelf beds. However, I think the flat piece behind the mattress will make it more comfortable than the bookcase headboard beds (those were not awesome for lounging). The whole look is very boutique hotel chic, with a nice callback to mid-twentieth century roadside motels. That works for me. Currently retails for $849.

From Crate and Barrel

Crate and Barrel offers up the Isaac Charcoal Bed. As far as beds go, especially modern ones, it's really affordable, with even the king size ringing in at around $500. It's also really, really simple. The simplicity of the bed would look fantastic with more rococo or baroque sixties or seventies style dresser or other bedroom furniture.

From Amazon

Remember how I mentioned I don't want a headboard/metal bed frame (I think they are called Boston frames, which brings back memories of my Boston back brace/scoliosis/middle school hell). Here's an affordable wooden bed frame from Amazon.

I love this. NOW I could buy some super awesome headboard from the thrift store, and still have a nice wooden bed frame. Especially if you are up for restraining one of the elements (and if the headboard was in good shape, I'd go with modifying the new frame!) or repainting both if the headboard is in bad shape, it could look fantastic.

This option appeals to me because although more and more mid-century styled furniture is available for purchase, I'm not really seeing the low profile wooden headboards with interesting, organic details.

Like this one.

From eBay.

I've actually read bloggers report finding Broyhill Brasilia headboards on the side of the road or in thrift stores. This has never happened to me. But just look at those lines!

Also from eBay.

Here's another classic headboard shape you can find fairly frequently. A simple, divided Danish Modern style wooden headboard. This one is from Dixie Furniture, who did lots of great knockoffs of mid-century and Danish modern during the twentieth century.

Of course, if you are up for vintage (and you are willing to spend between $500-$1000 anyway) you could go all in and just buy a complete vintage bed.

And? eBay again.

Maybe you'll be extremely lucky and find a complete Heywood-Wakefield bed. Sigh. Look at the pretty! This is a double, but queen size beds come up fairly regularly and complete vintage king beds even show up on occasion.

What kind of bed do you prefer? Did you get a great deal?

Recreate This Space: Making Danish Modern 2013 Modern

Photo From Retro Renovation

Have I mentioned how much I love Pam from Retro Renovation? She posted this amazing ad from 1952 featuring Danish Modern furniture from the late, lamented Rich's Department Store. Amazing how truly modern this vintage ad looks! I mean, I think I could live pretty happily in the room as is.

Also, as proof that nothing is ever new in home decor? This entire space is greige, the particular gray beige (...which is really taupe, in my head anyway) which took over the colorscape in 2012.

However, there are some dated elements to this amazing space. The window treatments The huuuuugggggeeee mid-century lamps.

So then I decided to use this as an inspiration and piece and design a very modern take on this room.

The Eisenhower Sofa from Thrive Furniture seemed a no-brainer when recreating the original Danish Modern space. I like the oatmeal-y gray textured upholstery. You might get lucky and find a couple of vintage sofas you could recover! I mean, I'M never that lucky, but still!

CB2 Arc Lamp

While I love the original, huge, unbelievably tall table lamps I do think they are dated. What I like best about them is their sculpturalness. So I thought a couple of these lamps would fill in nicely, adding height and interesting shapes to the room. I'd place one by the arm closest to the window on one sofa and place the second lamp on the desk side of the room on the other sofa, just to break up the symmetry a bit.

West Elm Andulsia Rug

I love the bright yellow and green the floor cushions bring into the room in the original picture. While I'm not a floor pillow kind of person I do like a good rug (and hate the monochrome carpet Rich's used in their ad). So I went with this West Elm harvest gold rug. The room needs a small shot of pattern!

West Elm Desk

Here's another West Elm pick. A wonderful, leggy desk barely peeps into the corner of the original ad. Instead of going with another set of Danish Modern legs, I decided the organic metal legs of the Metal Truss Work Table were a fresher choice, while honoring the simplicity of the original piece.

Room and Board

This Room and Board dining chair isn't the chair of my dreams, but its close. I wanted to mix another shade of gray and more shapely legs. I really like how it subtly recalls the designs of the era directly preceding the Danish Modern/Mid-Century Modern era.

CB2

So many pictures of "styled" fifties interiors feature coffee tables placed in completely unusable locations within the room. I like a coffee table in front of the sofa, where I can place a drink or prop my legs. I didn't want to cover up the yummy rug, and there's SO MANY FANTASTIC LEGS going on in this room I didn't want to add more. The clear CB2 peekaboo table was the perfect solution. It provides lots of workable space without creating additional visual clutter. This helps maintain the sleek modernity of the original concept.

Amazon

The original windows had some bizarre oversized valance and curtain combo happening. A simple bamboo roll up shade brings the room into 2013. It also layers in another warm texture. I do like how the window treatments are floor to ceiling and definitely think this new fictional room should follow suit!

Ikea

Ikea's AINA curtains appear to have a fantastic linen-ish texture. I love this soft gray, especially against the bamboo shades.

One Kings Lane

My initial impulse would be a whole wall of questionable art over one of the sofas. However. I do like the restraint shown by picking one, perfect piece. It appears the artwork in the ad might be a large pencil drawing or lithograph.

Eh. I love both of those things, but not here. Here I think a bright splash of color is needed. So this vintage piece that brings in the grays and yellow from the rug and gives the room a sense of movement.

Plus...I love seascapes.

Now, wall color? I couldn't decide! A true white? A warm greige? What do you guys guys think?

While there are affiliate links (Amazon, One Kings Lane, Thrive) I really do pick the items I love best when I do these kind of these posts!

Beyond The Book: Arthur Hailey's Hotel

This post covers collecting, a crazy old book, hotel design, Disney World, and urban legends. Hang in there!

I've mentioned my parents enjoyed antiqueing when I was a kid, and I quickly realized developing my own collections would make our weekend jaunts a whole lot more exciting. Something to look for! And since I was quite the little bookworm, collecting books was a natural fit.

This fact helps explain why my reading habits closely resemble those of your average AARP member.

So today I thought I'd write about one of my favorite old books, Arthur Hailey's Hotel.

Arthur Hailey was the James Patterson of the sixties and seventies. Instead of murder mysteries, Hailey turned out potboilers centered around a crisis in different professional settings- hospitals, government, airports, public utilities, the automobile industries, banks, news broadcasts, and police departments.

The plot themselves are of the white-collar, middle-aged man career in trouble finds love in the workplace variety. If Jacqueline Susann pioneered the Sex and Shopping novel, then Arthur Hailey pioneered the Sex and Work Crisis novel.

Let's talk Hotel. An independent New Orleans hotel, owned by the exactly as racist as you'd expect for his generation and class Warren Trent, is teetering on the edge of financial disaster. Curtis O'keefe, a thinly veiled Conrad Hilton-esque character, arrives in town to take the hotel over. Hotel manager and Bright Young Thing Peter McDermott is only at the the St Gregory because of a scandal involving sexing up a married woman at a New York hotel which has so marred his name he can't get a job anywhere else (this is weak tea. Even Hailey seems to think this is super dumb. He should've tarnished Peter with a better scandal). Meanwhile he's falling in love with tragedy plagued hotel secretary Christine even as the trouble plagued teenage heiress Marsha Prescott pursues him.

Filling out the secondary characters are a bad tempered French chef, an on the make bell captain, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's evil alternate universe twins, a Canadian miner with a secret, a dentist with a crisis of social conscious, and a thief. The secondary plots revolve around drunken hit and runs, drunken frat boy debacles, trophy girlfriends, mechanical failures, and race relations in New Orleans.

Seriously.

The BEST part of Arthur Hailey's novels is the insane amount of research he did on the setting. Hailey's plots might be soap opera-y but the amount of detail he reveals about the setting (in this case, the running of the a hotel in the mid 1960s) is astounding.

Honestly, read this book and you'll understand how hotels went from this...

Photo of Claridge's from New York Social Diary

to this...

Hotel Valley Ho from Historic Hotels

There was such a giant seismic shift in public buildings and service post-World War II. The amount of change, social and structural, that occurred was simply phenomenal. I don't think the world of 2013 and 1993 look all the different; but a huge change occurred between 1945 and 1965 (when Hotel was published).

Perhaps even more fascinating than the changes that did occur were the ones that didn't. Hailey studied up on cutting edge ideas for each of the fields he took on in his books. Many of these ideas didn't come to fruition.

There's a scene where O'keefe (the Hilton avatar) surveys the lobby and thinks about the all the ways he's going to modernize the St Gregory. Some ideas are super familiar to us today. He was going to cut down on less profitable tenants like florists and drugstores on the main floor; do away with lobby seating, so that people have to pay to sit in a restaurant or bar; and commercialize every square inch of space possible. He tells Warren Trent that you can sum up what the public wants from a hotel in three words "an efficient, economic package." Hailey's tracing the veer from old world individual service into the mass produced every hotel the same experience. (Wonder what O'keefe would make of the boutique hotel trend?)

Some other very basic ideas that were apparently revolutionary at the time are common place now. These include things like motor lobbies, key cards, and computerized systems.

Most of his other ideas I don't believe were ever commonly used in real hotels. These include helicopter pick-up at local airports; escalators dedicated to specific rooms (???); automated delivery systems for room service and purchases (using dumb waiters, I think); beds that recessed into walls were a machine would change the linen and make them up; and floors made of steel mesh that could be vacuumed from underneath. The ideas put forth by Hailey called for hotels to be built in completely new ways.

Oddly enough I think the real life hotel that best encompasses these ideas is Disney's Contemporary Resort.

Photo From Kingdom Travel

The contemporary opened in 1972 and this picture of the lobby shows the monorail cutting through the lobby (reminiscent of O'keefe's transportation schemes).

Photo From Yesterland

It's the construction of the Contemporary that really veers toward the modern hotel Hailey verbally sketched. The frame of the Disney World Contemporary is made of steel and concrete.

Photo From Yesterland

 Here's where it gets interesting (finally, the three of you still reading this post think!). The hotel rooms were built off site, lifted by crane, and set into place amidst the steel girders and welded in.

Photo From Yesterland

These modules contained EVERYTHING. These sliding glass doors lead out to the balcony; inside was the entire, decorated hotel room and bathroom. The front of the module even contains the hallway floor directly outside the guest's door.

Here's where the urban legend comes in. Many people swear that the hotel was designed so that the modules could be taken out for repairs and redecoration.

Think about that for a moment. For the room to be repaired or redecorated the module would have to be cut out from the steel girders, disconnected from the electrical/plumbing/communication systems, lifted out by a crane and then trucked out for refurbishment. OR you could just send in a plumber, painter, and curtain hanger. Which sounds more economically feasible?

So what books are you'll obsessing over? And what's your favorite kind of hotel? Personally, I love both super modern and super old-fashioned. Anything but B&Bs are good for me!

Super Affordable Button Back Mid Century Sofas

Photo from Thrive

Thrive's Jefferson Sofa is the perfect button back mid-century modern style sofa. I love the low profile arms, pointy wooden legs, tweed-y fabric, and lack of cushions. Everything is very fitted and stream-lined. The price is around $1800...which is a lot, in my world.

Previously, I posted about great modern/mid-century modern leather sofas under $1000. Now I'm back with button back vintage style mid century fabric sofas for under a thousand dollars. These sofas are both mid century modern and more mid century traditional.

I'm not including Knoll-style sofas (aka the Karlstad). It's a fascinating origin story/current trend, and I think it deserves its own post. And modern, fitted, fabric sofas are a little harder to find, especially at an affordable price point.

Photo From Overstock

This green chenille sofa is labeled as the Armen Living Roxbury Loveseat. The earth toned olive green color and tuxedo sofa shape gives it a great, updated 1970s vibe. It currently retails for $989.99. I think it would look great in a home with lots of tan and pops of orange.

Photo From Overstock

A simple gray linen armless settee. Armless sofas look amazing in small spaces, like the corner of a bedroom or small office. The color is great and I love that everything is fitted. Currently selling for $392.99.

Photo From Overstock

I love this Stratham white MCM Danish loveseat, selling for $749.99. The shape! Unbelievably, I actually owned the original 1960s version of this. I bought it as a preteen at a garage sale and it lived in my bedroom. I gave it away later! Sob.

Photo From Macy's

The Clare Fabric Sofa from Macy's is on sale for between $599 and $799, depending on the fabric. This is definitely the closest to the Thrive Jefferson sofa. Same shape, same legs. The only difference is the seat is three separate cushions instead of one long one. I've seen this one in person and it looks great and was quite comfortable.

Photo From Wayfair

The Bauhaus Shelter Cove is a more traditional take on a mid century button back sofa. Very elegant. The turned arms are slight enough that they don't take up a lot of visual (or actual) space. Sells for $777.

Photo From Wayfair

Armless in Lagoon is a sleek little armless sofa retailing for $729. I love the open, sleek style. Not a sofa for watching movies on, but great in spaces where a more open sofa works better.

Photo From Wayfair

The Van Gogh Dave Sofa is covered in cuddly chocolate velvet and looks like the perfect couch to cuddle up on to watch a movie or read a book. Again, I think this sofa is very 1970s influenced in a very modern, great way. Currently selling for $857.

Photo From Amazon

The Suzette Button Back Tight Seat Grand Scale Sofa is classically mid-century. I love the contrast piping and buttons with the linen look fabric. Very fashionable. Amazon is selling it for $879.20.

Photo From Amazon

The Maxine Button Back Sofa falls more on the traditional side of mid century sofas. I love the unexpected shape, the tight back, the tilted legs...everything. Because of its slightly higher back this would be great in rooms with higher ceilings where the occupants still want mid century style.

Photo From Overstock

The Portfolio Ellie in Amethyst is a great alternative to most loveseat sized sofa beds or futons. Tight back, one cushion seat, low profile arms, tight back, cute legs. Nicely priced at $430.99.

Photo From Haverty's

Haverty's Hadley is a lot of style for $999.99. This is a more transitional rather than strictly mid-century style and would work for someone with a more current/traditional style.

Photo From Haverty's

Haverty's Metro Line is reminiscent of the Thrive. I like the subtlety of the button back, and I love this whisper soft aqua color. The price is right at $749.99.

So tight back with buttons are one of my favorite styles of mid century inspired couches. What about you guys?

This post contains affiliate links, but I was not paid or perked for my opinions.

What We Did Over The Holidays

We live in the historic district of our little lakeside town. It's wonderful and lovely and amazingly picturesque.

It also doesn't have streetlights on the extremely narrow roads in the residential section. So this is what our pretty neighborhood looks like at night. Especially on rainy or overcast nights.

So J and I are on our way home from the grocery, on a rainy holiday week night when something glimmers in the corner of my eye. I slam on the brakes. J unfortunately was holding a drink the moment I slammed on the brakes.

Whoops. He was then no longer so much holding the drink as wearing it.

"OH MY GOD WHAT'S WRONG?" J screamed, dripping with milk (yes, he carries milk around in the grown-up equivalent of a sippy cup. It's a long story). "DID YOU HIT SOMETHING?" He later tells me he thought someone's pet had gotten loose. Thank goodness, no.

I'm staring openmouthed, waving my hands around in UTTER SHEER EXCITEMENT. I can't speak. I can't breathe. I'm so excited.

I can see the merest glimmer of a metal foot and a tapered leg. I can make out one long piece topped by a smaller one.

Finally, I breathlessly announce, "There's mid-century furniture in that trash pile!!!!"

"Are you serious?" J asks quietly. Then, "Where? I can't see anything."

This is what I'm seeing in my mind's eye at this point. 

Photo From Strictly Heywake

Yes, for a moment I think I've found Heywood-Wakefield side step tables in the neighbor's trash.Then my mind runs through all the other tiered mid-century tables I've seen and admired. I decide finding any mid-century furniture in a trash pile would pretty much make my life.

I am absolutely ridiculously excited. 

This is when I jump out of the car and run over to the tables. Leaving my door ajar. I see immediately that I'm right, they are bi-level vintage side tables. They aren't Heywood-Wakefield. I don't care. 

"You need to pull the car up so we can put them in the trunk," J says, getting out of the car, into the blowing rain. 

I freeze. Honestly? I was worried if I stopped to move the car up someone else would come along, on this cliched dark and stormy night, and take my mid-century side tables from the trash pile.

"But...someone could take them," I stammer, clutching the table I've freed from the pile in an incredibly awkward embrace.

"MOVE THE CAR. NO ONE WANTS YOUR TRASHED TABLES." He didn't yell, by the way. But there was a certain firmness there.

So I nervously move the car up the requested five feet (I slammed on the brakes the instant my eye registered mid century leg) and we load them into the car. My incredibly patient husband helps me get them in the house, although they (and we) are absolutely soaked. Then he helps me dry them off, because I'm afraid if they stay wet they'll warp. 

The good news is that one table is in really nice shape. 

The other table is missing a leg. HOWEVER. The incredibly considerate neighbors also threw away said leg, and I found it. J says it'll be easy to reattach it. The bigger issue is that the finish on that table is marred. These are Formica, or laminate, side tables. Refinishing isn't an option, so I think I'll just paint them. I am toying with the idea of re-formicaing them.

(Also? These pics were taken while I prepped the living room for waxing the floors. I'll have the horrific details of that experience later in the week. I'm still processing.)

I'm picturing the end result looking something like this.

Photo From A Modern Line

Creamy top, black legs, preserve the vintage brass details. I'm so glad we found these, partly because we recently broke our bed and I think what we will get will be a lot lower than our current bed, which means our nightstands would be higher than the top of the mattress. Not good. These will be perfect with a lower bed.

Also, did you know my Facebook followers got a sneak peak? Follow me to get even more glimpses of the insanity around here!

So...am I the only trash picker? Does anyone else have a trash picked score they'd like to share?

I hope everyone has a safe New Year's Eve and I'll see you back here next year!

11 Super Affordable Mid-Century Modern Leather Sofas

So, as you all can see, I spent some time this weekend updating the blog. What's new? A header that (hopefully) lets people know what Middle Class Modern is at a glance, a commenting system that allows me to reply directly to your comments, and all my social media/feed buttons in one helpful location! I also rewrote our About page. The first The Moderns page? I was obviously having some sort of mental when I wrote it, since it was full of grammatical, um, oddities. The Contact page now has all of our info spelled out, but is also linked up, and sports a spiffy contact form. Let me know if you have any issues commenting/navigating/just hate the background!

Who knew there was such a thing as a variety of stylish, affordable leather sofas?

When I think of leather sofas, I think of this.

Sofa from Overstock

I'm not judging, especially since we could name this picture "J's dream sofa." It's just not my style. And I bet its not most of my readers' styles, either.

Photo Courtesy of HouseTweaking

Now, this sofa is more to my taste. A modern leather sofa. The Knoll-esque button back even gives it a Mid-Century modern feel. But it checks in at almost $2,000. Are there affordable modern leather sofas under a $1000? Even more specifically, do inexpensive leather Mid-Century Modern sofas exist?

My answer? A resounding yes! I found every permutation of modern/mid-century modern sofas for under a grand. Some of these, unsurprisingly, are faux leather.

IKEA Sater

Naturally my journey started with IKEA. This sofa is $399, features dark brown split leather and simple metal legs. Very clean lined. I've tested it out at IKEA, and its more comfortable than you might expect.

IKEA Karlstad

IKEA offers another option with the leather Karlstad. This sofa is $899 and comes in either brown or black. For a little extra you can get metal legs. Or you can do like all the cool bloggers do and paint the legs a darker color.

Overstock Cool Gray Faux Leather Sofa

This is a great option for people who don't have a lot of space (I'm kind of obsessed with settees after seeing how great Kenz's looks!). This small sofa is currently $294.99 from Overstock. Love the gray color (difficult to find in an affordable leather sofa) and the very MCM tapered legs.

Lexington Modern Florence Style Sofa from Amazon

Amazon is selling this Knoll-like leather sofa knock off (I'm planning on writing a post about how every furniture store that sells even slightly modern furniture makes serious bank by ripping off Knoll's sofa designs!) for $999. I've spent to many years looking at IKEA catalogs, because all I see is the Karlstad.

Le Corbusier Style Genuine Tan Leather LC2 Sofa from Overstock

Le Corbusier was a major force behind 20th century architecture and designed multiple pieces of furniture whom furniture companies happily knock off today. This Le Corbusier-esque sofa from Overstock looks great. It comes in multiple colors and hews closely to the original design. Overstock has it listed for $966.99, but I would Google around, because I saw it listed several different places. The product description lists as both genuine leather and vinyl, so...caveat emptor? 

angelo: HOME Sutton Saddle Brown Renu Leather Sofa from Overstock

I think the saddle brown color of the leather make this adorable settee style sofa look much more expensive than the $462.99 Overstock is currently charging for it. It's made of a leather composite over a wood frame, and the reviews on Overstock are pretty positive!

Mia Bark Flip Flop Sofa with Storage by Ashely Design (from Amazon)

This clean lined leather sofa is really, really nice. The lines are great. Very clean, very modern. Those bun feet need a serious reconsideration, but you could either paint them or replace them (since I'd bet money they are screw on legs). I think this is a can't go wrong modern leather sofa style, especially at $537. I like that the cushions are all one piece. I think it's a much cleaner look.

Monarch Specialities Bonded Leather Sofas from Wayfarer

So I was looking at this sofa on Wayfair when J looked over at my laptop. He really, really liked it. Which is surprising, since he tends to go for sofas like the one that started this post. Even more surprising? I really, really like it. I love its MCM by way of Googie lines. A Googie leather sofa? Who woulda thunk it?

Doesn't it look like it should be in Sam Spade's waiting room? And really, don't I base most of my furniture choices on whether or not a man in a trench coat and fedora with a cigarette clamped between his teeth would've liked it sixty years ago? Doesn't EVERYONE?

Ahem. Wayfair is charging $676.99 for this little beauty.

Brown Faux Leather Thompson Sofa from Target

If this sofa is in anyway comfortable, this is a great, great deal. $250 for a well designed leather mid century modern sofa bed? Unbeatable. I love the dark tapered legs and narrow, straight arms. Target claims a hardwood frame, and it gets good reviews.

.

Haverty's Contempo Sofa

Okay, I'm totally cheating a little with this sofa. The title of this post (if you remember reading it: I know this post is super long even for me!) is 11 super affordable modern leather sofas under a thousand dollars. Well. Haverty's has this sofa listed at $1099.99. I decided to cheat. This one time. But only because I figure that's only about 10% of the price, and therefore this sofa probably falls under a thousand bucks anytime Haverty's has a sale.

Plus, just look at it. It's gray, which was actually really hard to find in lower-end modern leather couches. It has that same mid century modern/googie style that I loved in the Monarch sofa. The legs are both tapered and tilted, which just SCREAMS mid-century modern to me. It manages to look stylish, modern, and comfy-cozy all at the same time. That's quite the feat! 

So here are my top 11 inexpensive leather sofa with either a modern or mid century modern flair. Do y'all have any favorites I've missed? (And I'll be back in the next week or so with more super affordable Mid-Century Modern sofas, and maybe a rant about the over-abundance of Knoll style sofas!)

This posts contains some affiliate links, but other than I was in no way paid or perked for mentioning these sofas/companies.