I really, really like this. I’m not much experienced with this style of decor (except accents), but it looks very well done in my eyes. Understated, elegant, calm, and sophisticated. I especially love those beautiful parquet floors and the grasscloth. I even like the kitchen cabinets in this context. They certainly took good care of everything.

What great views, too.

I’ve seen occasional chairs in antique stores like this one and am always tempted to get one (even though I do not need to bring home another chair!).

It does seem very well done. I like some of the wall coverings a lot (the grasscloth and the moire wallpaper in the bedroom with the purple spread). I'm less enthusiastic about the mottled brownish walls in the living area, though depending on what it is (wallpaper? I really can't tell), I might be won over. The kitchen is very cool.

Cawaps, I was wondering what the mottled brown is, too. My first thought was some sort of burnished woodgrain treatment … would like to know what the application actually is. I’m thinking it probably doesn’t photograph well, but looks pretty cool in person. I’d really like to tour this apartment.

I’m also curious about the stove/oven/microwave unit. 1970’s? I remember similar ones as a kid.

It has seams like wallpaper.

It's an interesting apartment and a wonderful location with great views. But I find it uninviting. Too many mirrors for one. Perhaps it's not occupied. I noticed the abundance of high hats and lack of table or floor lamps in the public rooms, and the brand new stacked washer/dryer in the kitchen.

I would say I am intrigued by it and I like the idea of it, but it don't think this is how I would do it, if that makes any sense.

The finish in the hallway does seem to be tortoiseshell paper.

If you notice, the areas with the recessed cans are all dropped soffits and any other ceiling lighting is surface mounted. If this is like almost every other building of the era the ceiling is the bottom of the floor plate above and is poured concrete, so limited ceiling peforations. Also notice plug mold here and there. Some of the walls are layers of gypsum board with no cavity I am thinking.

I also noticed the lack of table or floor lamps, but if I look in the Building a Home Forum or Decorating Discussions I see a lack of floor or table lamps, too.

You always find such interesting and/or unusual places to share with us, Pal. Thank you! This latest one has lovely views and rooms. I’m fascinated with the Asian dolls that are displayed in glass boxes on the foyer entrance walls. I have two very similar ones that I inherited, both also in glass boxes to keep their intricate silk robes ( and real hair) as safe and clean as possible. Mine are from Japan in the 1930-40’s.

There are tenants who have apparently lived in this building since new, (1960). It is not overly neighborhoodish on one aspect (the Parkway) because it was built during that era that promoted the "Tower in park-like setting" that turned out so abysmally for public housing and Brasilia. However it Does have a diner-restaurant, pharmacy, small grocery, and several doctors offices in its base, (and a shuttle) so it is probably pretty self-contained for elderly residents. The other aspect is more residential but it was not all that great for a number of years. We eat weekend breakfast at the diner occasionally as surving diners get farther and farther from where we live, and the hallway by the interior entry to the diner is lined with walkers of people who don't need them 100%. So I feel like a number of units that come up in this building are extreme-long-term tenants and you will see historic design inside the apartments.

I think it's a shame that people no longer do their home nicely and just live with it, only making minor adjustments throughout the decades.

Now there is constant pressure to change things to stay current. It makes things so boring.

I think there are still people that do this. We rarely see it because there is no reason to publish it. Like they aren't on here asking questions about decorating or updating because they are done.

But part of it is also that alot of things don't last all that long. And people paid more for durable goods 50 years ago than they do now, relatively.

There's a lot I like about this - most of it, in fact. The minuses I find (and there are few) include the excessive mirrors in the bedroom and the gold in the bathrooms. The bathrooms are the least appealing rooms to me, for multiple reasons, but I do like the kitchen - if only it did not have the laundry in it. I especially like the black tile floor in the kitchen, which is very similar to what I have always wanted in my kitchen - black slate.

It reminds me a bit of when one of my aunts redid her house in a Chinese motif in the 1950s.

I'm a fan. I find all the rice paper coverings to be quite soothing. But the time machine in the kitchen would have to go. (Time curiously stopped around midnight...something is definitely afoot..owned by Doc Brown???)

Asian influence was popular in the late ’50s and early ’60s. My parents melded Japanese elements beautifully with Danish Modern. No mirrors, though. My Danish-American Dad had served in the occupation of Japan and brought back some art, ivory, and silk, and an appreciation.

Here, I am especially taken with the grasscloth. I’ve always liked that natural, textural element on a wall.

If that stove worked there is no way I would get rid of it. It looks like they ate downstairs in the restaurant a lot. Even the DW looks old and that often seems to be the first appliance to go.

Love it. The people we bought this house from bought two apartments adjacent in that building and remodeled into one. I can say that the only thing I really disliked in your post is the hallway, which could be much much better.

Pal, if you are looking for a real honest-to-god diner, I can recommend the Penn Restaurant in our little township. A complete throwback, and very good, too.

https://www.facebook.com/thepennrestaurant/

I like the kitchen and the grass cloth wall covering, not so much that tortoise shell pattern, tho. I like the mirrors too.

That range looks amazing 😀

I recently saw this home on Time Capsule
houses - so cool and extremely MCM/Japanese.

https://www.redfin.com/IL/Park-Ridge/1101-S-Rose-Ave-60068/home/13640356?600390594=copy_variant&231528114=control&utm_source=ios_share&utm_medium=share&utm_nooverride=1&utm_content=link&utm_campaign=share_sheet&fbclid=IwAR0RbvPJJIyRp7lIEACztMrVZOPR1O87NdILzh5zwsdqgxf1QNVh5Cu6Gd4

Re: the condo - gorgeous place and a beautiful view! How do you feel about the kitchen? I like the slate concept for the backsplash.

My mother would have gone NUTS over this place! I grew up with the four seasons artwork and Buddha, Foo Dog, Kuan Yin statuary around the house. My mother tried gifting me with a gaudy gold framed mirror in my first home. She said mirrors were essential.....everyone had to have a large gaudy one in their home. :0)

Robo, I saw that house, too. I would love a bridge over a moat to my bedrooms, too, especially when I was a kid!

I really love Asian décor/furniture but not so much whole rooms of it. Although, your posting is close to an exception. It's very nicely done. I like things that are an Asian shape but not overly elaborate. My favorites are console tables and coffee tables of which I am on a search of.

I came across this listing for two cabinets for $500 on my FB market place. No takers so far. My area isn't real imaginative though. It is a little BOLD and not a look I'm going for but I think they are beautiful.

Oh, that’s so striking, JT! Love those!

Nothing wrong with a good old Frigidaire Flair. That would be the upgrade...

Like Bpath's Dad, my late Mother lived and taught on a US Army base in Tokyo for a year, after the war, mid 50s. Tail end of the occupation I think. She brought back so much beautiful stuff, and wove it into her home decorating. I have brought out even more of it, including her Japanese doll collection that was stored in boxes, and some old calendars that I framed, etc. A lot of US decorating after the war was so influenced, and yes, mixed with the Danish modern element very well. We had real grasscloth wallpaper in our living room, although the guys who hung it ruined it by getting glue on the outside. Such a disappointment to my mother . . . but we kept it because it cost so much.

I love the apartment, what a neighborhood and view! My mother has a small tea cannister made out of birch bark, but it's the brown inner bark. Maybe that mysterious brown wall covering is bark cloth . . .

I like the parquet, the spice cabinet in the foyer outside the half bath, and I loved the kitchen. Also those big lotus wall lamps or sconces or whatever you could call them.

Someday hopefully in the not too distant future I will be redoing my dining room and putting up fake grasscloth wallpaper. The real stuff is too delicate, does not fit our lifestyle.

There are two ways to decorate Japanese, one is ornate and colorful, the other muted and Zen. I tend to like the later. My house is in between. This apartment seems to favor the former. Not sure how all that stuff wears over the long haul, but hey, I've known folks who had an apartment in the city and used it the same way some of us use a summer cottage, only for the times they are in town for business or whatnot. I would certainly love channeling my inner "Auntie Mame" in that place.

Light the candles,
Get the ice out,
Roll the rug up,
It's today.
Though it may not be anyone's birthday,
And though it's far from the first of the year,
I know that this very minute has history in it, we're here!
It's a time for making merry,
And so I'm for making hay.
Tune the grand up,
Dance your shoes off,
Strike the band up,
It's today!
And we're living
In the world game,
So this whole game's
What we make.
Call the cops out,
Raise the rockets,
Pull the stops out,
It's today
Light the candles,
Fill the punch bowl,
Throw confetti,
It's today.
Life can also be lived on a weekday,
So don't depend on a holiday date,
If you need New Year's to bubble,
Then order a double and wait.
Doo doo doo doo dah
There's a "thank you" you can give life,
If you live life all the way.
Pull the stops out,
Hold the roof down,
Fellows watch out,
It's today.
It's a time for making merry,
And so I'm for making hay.
Tune the grand up,
Call the cops out,
Strike the band up,
Pull the stops out,
Hallelujah!
It's today!

Generally very well done. At least in the photographs, the tortoise shell wallpaper fights with the parquet. I'd prefer a subtle grasscloth or painted walls. I'm surprised by all of the mirrors in the bedroom. None of my Asian friends have any mirrors in bedrooms. They're as adamant about that as they are about tetraphobia (no 4's!).

I don't know about superstitions, but I hate mirrors in the bedroom because I do not want to be greeted by my image first thing in the morning . . . ack!