Julie from Seattle recently sent a photo (immediately above) of the original built-in from her new home in Seattle, and asked for some help with a couple of issues. Here’s what she had to say:
Hi, Pam. I love your blog. We just moved into a 1950’s ranch in Seattle and have this amazing huge built-in cabinet in the Dining Room. It’s very asian feeling and I’m wondering if you’ve ever seen anything like it in a 50’s home? Our bedroom also has a built-in which two closets and a dresser that is built very similarly. Just curious. I’m looking for some coppery toned knobs to replace the shiny brass ones the previous owner used. Any suggestions? – Thanks, Julie
Amazingly, my husband had just bought me a book about vintage Heywood Wakefield and I used it to turn up the 1950 Joseph Carr-designed credenza in the photo at the top. I think the lines are very similar to Julie’s built-in. Also, there are other famous families of Heywood Wakefield — namely Kohinoor and Sculptura — that also are similar. I am not a wood species person. Is anyone out there? The famous blonde Heywood Wakefield was maple or birch. What about Julie’s built-in?
For the second part of Julie’s question – about coppertone knobs, I turned to a couple of sources and hit it bigtime at Liz’s Antique Hardware online, which currently offers a nice selection of antique coppertone, chrome and other finish knobs in the satellite-cone styles we are all raving about this week. (Screen shots above, at at the bottom of this post – nice selection right now!) Julie loved these, and said she would order some sample. Julie, you must report back!
The LAHardware.com site can be a bit difficult so I made a screen shot to help you navigate right to these terrific vintage cabinet pulls. Coincidently – or not, as we are all on the same retrowavelength – digretro also posted this comment yesterday on the uber-pink kitchen post:
Hello Pam & retro all!
A well deserved congrats on your kitchen spot !
In regards to the pink kitchen cabinet pulls .. an ebay pick with some close runner-ups:
http://tinyurl.com/399nov
pricey? hmmm – very cool – yes!
And guess what? This ebay find of DigRetro’s is also — Liz’ Antique Hardware! Happy shopping (and salvaging) everyone, and thank you Seattle Julie, and DigRetro!
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
A salute to Julie for wanting to preserve and enjoy this interesting, probably one-of-a-kind built-in cabinet.
My husband, who does some woodworking, thinks the piece could be sugar maple, with the top and verticle supports appearing solid, and the door and drawer fronts probably veneer. But, he stresses that this is a guess coming from just looking at the photo.
We have the pinky coppery hardware on our maple kitchen cabinets (recently purchased at the ReStore) and we really like the look.
Thanks, Judi aka Sumac Sue!
Julie,
I ran across your post today on this wonderful website I just found (how have I missed out on this for so long?) Anyway, our midmod home has built-in drawers that look just like yours! Ours appear to never had any hardware on them. Since each drawer flares out at the bottom, they seem to be designed to be grasped from the bottom lip to pull the drawer out. Or, at least, that’s how we’ve been using them.