Connections to real life.

Dragnet's production designers were tasked with mimicking real life, which had it's own style and usually quite a bit of real-life clutter, er, character. Arizona real estate agent Leif Swanson has curated an amazingly exhaustive series on residential style from the 1950s through present-day.

His Design Through the Decades posts are particularly insightful and really a good look at some of the designs that the Dragnet team would have been replicating in a minimalistic way. He also sheds light on details that Dragnet (almost) never shows such as 1960's bathrooms.

Here are some photos from his blog that are representative of what surprises await you:

That ceiling fan is probably the only giveaway that this photo is from a house-for-sale.

Nearly spare enough to be populated with scale-paid Dragnet actors.

The cornice, drapery, and sculpted carpet is straight out of the sixties. 

It's so coordinated that it almost looks like an advertisement for sculpted carpet, heavy drapes, and cornices.

This orange-heavy front room even has a swag lamp!

I opted for front rooms because that's where they do most of the interviewing and exposition in Dragnet.

Architect Ralph Haver designed in Midcentury Modern and is also featured on Leif's blog. I was happy to learn more about "Haver Homes." They served as an answer to the post-war housing demand in a William Levitt-meets-Joseph Eichler sort of way.

A classy post-and-beam "Haver Home" from 1957.

From the commonplace to the luxurious, enjoy Leif Swanson's 'Ugly House Photos', you'll find it well curated and engrossing.