The Moose Lodge

Modernism is the mode at the Moose Lodge, the home of a record producer known only as The Moose. He lives up in the bucolic North Central Corridor, where he can take a morning stroll on the bridle path to get his juice at Luci, an afternoon stroll to get his ice cream at Churn, and a Sunday morning stroll to get brunch at Dick's Hideaway.

My dad built this house, which is why it has a stunningly realistic staircase. This is also my most "period" house, having been decorated largely in 1960s Blue Box furniture. Blue Box did half-scale furniture sets that imitated two popular three-quarter-scale furniture lines: Petite Princess and Triang Spot-On. The house is a whopping 792 square feet.

The Moose sprawls in his living room, which has the Triang-style wing settee, two matching wing chairs, and the credenza. The black step-end-tables are 3-D printed. (Let us pause a moment to contemplate that idea. Somebody printed out the end tables.) They're the Moderne Wedge side table from Pretty Small Things, who also makes 1:36 furniture now, a fact that has immediate and distracting relevance for me. The oil painting depicts my cat, who helpfully skinned a catnip mouse to map the fur rug.

Here in the foyer, the desk is faux-Triang, and the chair is another 3-D printed item (aluminum chair from tisch).

In the kitchen, more 3-D printed chairs await a table: one Thonet arm chair and two metal chairs (which I have since seen in full-size at every hipster café in Phoenix). The Moose displays his collection of plates and platters because he lacks storage space.

It was not until after I'd installed the striped wallpaper (with blue-tack, as this house has historically changed wallpaper a lot) that I realized it was supposed to resemble corrugated tin. For all I know, corrugated tin was a major bathroom finish in 1960s Phoenix.

Blue Box afficionados (assuming there are more than two of us) will ask: "How on earth did you get a beige bathroom set? The bathroom set is always a sickly lavender-pink."

I spray painted it. I'd bought my bathroom set cheap, so it was in poor condition, with many glue stains and ugly fading. After  multiple attempts to decorate around it, I decided to see if the metal bits could be pried off without breaking. They can. I pried. I then took it out in the yard, used a medium shipping box as a paint booth, and zapped it all with Krylon Colormaster Almond Gloss (under $4 at your local Walmart). The metal bits all went back on (some with superglue help), and there it was! The tub is a Polly Pocket piece, spray painted to match.

While the Moose should have a proper studio somewhere (and I have plenty of instruments for it), he likes to keep a piano, a tuba, and a few other instruments around the house for impromptu composing sessions.

A true Moose needs a sturdy bed! This one came from a flea market in Mesa that I can't identify and may have hallucinated for the sheer convenience of having a flea market right then. It's not the big one on the north side of Main Street, but a smaller one on the south side, maybe a bit further west? The bed came with a resin teddy bear for a whopping 50 cents. I did some repainting and covered it with a proper native rug from the Heard Museum gift shop. The Moose sleeps well under it.

To know more about related things:

• Modern Phoenix Neighborhood Network is the source on mid-century architecture around here.
• Pinterest collection of Blue Box vintage dollhouse furniture.
• Tilt Top Magazine discusses the strong resemblance between Blue Box and Petite Princess.
• A list of Petite Princess sets, a Pinterest collection, a Flickr pool, and quite a lot of history and discussion.
• KT Miniatures shows you Tr-iang, and then Spot-On Collector shows you more Tri-ang.
• Shapeways, where a person orders 3-D printed miniature furniture.