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anniedeighnaugh

For MCM fans...

Annie Deighnaugh
10 years ago

Just watched "The Help" for the first time. I'd read the book and somehow missed it in theaters and finally got it as a dvd out of the library. Anyway, I didn't realize that Nate Berkus was one of the Exec Producers of the film and the decor was set firmly in upper middle class MCM. If you're a fan, you might want to see the flick...besides it's a good movie.

Here is a link that might be useful: Decor from The Help

Comments (14)

  • Elraes Miller
    10 years ago

    I really like the green/white kitchen. But am trying to remember if we used hair rollers during this era. Or I was a late bloomer in using them. Enjoyed the rooms.

  • Annie Deighnaugh
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    I remember mother using her hair rollers all the time and she had one of those odd ball hair dryers with the plastic hood and the hose connected to the device....I can remember too trying to set my hair in a "flip". Didn't really work for me, though it did look pretty when it was set. It was a huge change for her when she stopped setting her hair and went short and straight...took quite awhile to get used to, but it was sooooo much easier for her.

    My MIL never did get over setting her hair and even in the nursing home went once a week for a shampoo and wash and set with regular perms.

  • ineffablespace
    10 years ago

    If any one of these houses came on the market as a time capsule, I could probably live in it with few changes. Elizabeth's is the most impersonal, but also probably the most typical of what we think of the period --it's a good taste, non kitschy version MCM, but a little flat. But I think the most typical version of any period is probably a bit impersonal, because that's what also makes it typical.

  • bpath
    10 years ago

    Set design takes so much thought, doesn't it?! But I have a question: is there a difference between mid-century normal and mid-century modern? Or am I thinking of atomic for the more modern, sleek design that started along with the space programs in the late fifties?

  • ineffablespace
    10 years ago

    Yes, the space age stuff is "atomic", and the term for atomic architecture is "Googie".

  • Elraes Miller
    10 years ago

    Meant to mention the photo wall running up the stairs. Another return to past?

    I didn't use rollers until the late 70s, moving on to the ones heated units. And yes, remember the heat bonnet for drying. But we used bobbie pins to make flat curls for styling at that time. Really old was my mother rolling my hair and tying the curls with scrap material.

  • joaniepoanie
    10 years ago

    I remember using empty (and clean) frozen orange juice cans for rollers. Mom also had a 50's/60's version of a blow dryer that was very heavy metal which went by the wayside when she got a salon style dryer that was molded plastic, sat on a table, and you sat under it like at a salon. Anyone remember Spoolies?

  • cat_mom
    10 years ago

    My mom had one of those dryers with the hose and soft vinyl "bonnet" that fit over your head like a shower-cap. In one of my parents' photo albums, they have a picture of me (age 4 or 5) sitting at the kitchen table eating a cookie, with the dryer contraption on my head. :)

    We also had a turquoise kitchen, and MCM style furniture.

  • Olychick
    10 years ago

    Sorry for the highjack...mc hair decor:
    Spoolies, yes! I loved Spoolies.


    There were also little rollers like these

    I know we used rollers in the1960s like these with the painful pink picks that you jammed into your scalp

    and earlier they used pincurls held with bobbie pins, along with these to make waves like we see in Downton Abbey styles right now.

    The Help was set in the early 1960's, I think, and I remember the large oj sized rollers in the mid-1960's when straight surfer girl hair became popular - along with ironing your hair with a clothes iron.

  • Bunny
    10 years ago

    I had one of those hair dryers that I used in high school and college. As rollers got ever bigger, you needed to make sure the plastic bonnet covered everything. When you dried your hair that way (about an hour) you were effectively deaf. Couldn't hear conversations, the phone ringing, nothing. I only used it when I did a special shampoo during the day and didn't have all night to let it dry.

  • joaniepoanie
    10 years ago

    Oly....too funny....I remember those skinny pink ones and I still have some of those black ones with the pic. Remember these and how they left ridges in your hair...can't believe you can still buy them!

    Here is a link that might be useful: Rollers

  • gsciencechick
    10 years ago

    Love the pink bathroom when I saw the movie. I also like the family room with the paneling

    I remember spoolies! My hair was so babyfine those were one of the few things that worked on my hair when I was little.

    Mom still used plastic rollers up until she passed away 5 years ago.

  • blubird
    10 years ago

    Somewhere around my house I still have one of those metal 'marcel' clips my mother used to use.

    Like technicolor mentioned, my mother used to wrap my hair in scrap fabric in mostly failed attempts to make those sausage curls in my stick-straight hair, somewhere in the mid 50s.

    I also remember those pink plastic and metal skinny rollers olychick posted. In the 60s we used to use stale beer to set our hair with those mesh rollers, using roller papers and clips. I had one of those bonnet hair dryers which came with a shoulder strap; however, because you still needed to be plugged into an electrical outlet, you could move only so far.

    Despite all the rollings and setting lotions my hair never held a curl or wave for longer than half an hour.

    I finally got a hand-held hair blower in the mid-70s and have never looked back. Thank goodness they've gotten much lighter and easier to handle over the years.

  • vedazu
    10 years ago

    My sister and I shared a double bed when we were growing up: a nice cherry Statton poster bed with tester. It is the only piece of furniture in my mother's house that shows any damage--from our prickly rollers! We washed our hair at night, and slept in the miserable things and our heads bumped up against the headboard. Combination of wet hair and the rollers took the finish off of a strip of wood.Maybe that's how I got in the habit of hardly moving when I slept--we found a "comfortable" position for our heads and stayed there all night. And as someone else said, it lasted about ten minutes the next day--before we had good hairspray to hold it.