Once upon a time, in a land far away, and that land was called mid-century America, the kitchens were all red, white and blue, or aqua, pink and sunbeam yellow, or other happy *colors* and most certainly not greige. Moreover, the ranges were all mostly 40″ wide, a very pleasing size indeed. Not too big, not too small, just right for Mama Bears in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s to cook their families’ porridge. Alas. What happened to those 40″ ranges? They disappeared, slowly but surely, to be replaced by mostly 30″ ranges, we know not why, and may have to do some *real* investigative journalism at some point to find out. Fast forward to that same land, America in the last days of the first decade of the 21st century, and there are only two-ish 40″ ranges made today and one tries to look all hi-falutin’ with its stainless steel finish and the other, I kinda worry about the quality. Yes, vintage 40″ stoves are out there. But sometimes, you just want a self-cleaning oven already, not to mention Not Another Project. But. Wait! Did you know? In Britain — that fairytale land of handsome princes getting engaged to beautiful commoner girls whose hairdo I could actually pull off — it has been discovered: 40″ ranges still made today!.
And not just one. Not just two. But many many makers of 40″ ranges. Well, 39.37″, according to the nifty website that I found to convert those pesky centimeters into much more civilized inches. 100 centimeters = 39.37 inches, I hope I read that right or my whole theme is shot. And, these first two screen shots from my search still aren’t ALL of the 39.37″ ranges available in the land of endless drizzle, butter tarts and slow pints. There are More.
Some of the “cookers” — as those amusing Brits so amusingly call their freestanding ranges — have plaid on them! (You know how much I have been into plaid lately)…
Some kinda look like Viking ranges….
Some look like vintage Chambers ranges, imagine that!
Some look like Agas.
They come in lots of colors.
Even Hoover have cookers <– catch my ‘british-ism’ there? This is $1295 Euro’s, not *too* bad. The other ones above are bloody expensive.
This Fisher-Paykel model is nice looking, too. I am not really sure if all these single screen shots are 40″ but you get my drift. Note: I think Fisher-Paykel have a 36″ model like this in the U.S. but as I recall, it does not have the important and critical (for retro aesthetics) double doors.
This one isn’t retro – but you gotta admit, it has a kind of space-age style that is admirable. And that range top exhaust: Beam me up, Scotty!
I was actually in London this summer. I went to the big John Lewis on Oxford Street — and that’s where I first spied these cookers in all their shining gleaming 40″ majesty. It was mesmerizing, I tell you, just mesmerizing. You can ask my husband. I was seriously muttering senselessly and otherwise acting like a lunatic right there in the store, and it would have been embarrassing except that by now he’s kind of proud of what a nut I am. He also recalls the days of self-cleaning ovens in the house and knew this discovery was Big.
Also, I didn’t realize it til I bumped into this humongous John Lewis department store, but John Lewis is a humongous department store. And John Lewis of Hungerford — which is another location in London — on Hungerford — is where they market the reproduction English Rose steel kitchen cabinets. Duh.
Oh, and guess what else the John Lewis store was buzzing with: Pinch pleat draperies. A Whole Entire Department just to take your order and help you with measurements and with like 118,642,904 fabrics to choose from To Turn Into Pinch Pleat Draperies. I am seriously impressed by those Brits and their respect for cookers and windows and reproduction vintage steel kitchen cabinets.
Here is a single link to a place with lots of 39.37″ British cookers to complain are not sold here: Range Cookers in the U.K.
Hi Pam, Love the stoves and I noticed a lot had one burner that was huge which I’m assuming is for BIG pots for making large quantities of porridge for us bears!!
John aka AtomicHipster
This is why I come here everyday. I love that you get loopy over ranges, and plaid, and spatulas! Why DID standard ranges shrink? Any mid-century kitchen-dweller (avoiding any gender reference) would be delighted with the selections above – so many opportunities to personalize the kitchen! Now pardon me while I drool over the six burners…
Pam — thanks, I think. Wish they were available here. But, since they aren’t, I guess the only way for me to get gas in white is to go with the 30″. In my decision framework, white matters more than size, I guess. Has to be white!
I have been looking for years and you are right that there are only two 40″ made — by Frigidaire. Well, there is a Kenmore 40″ but that too is Frigidaire. White is only in electric. Gas is only in stainless, YUCK. So, just this week I finally found a white gas range that is OK. It has the most chrome trim of all I found. Price is OK and some features will be fun. The downside is now I have to have cabnet work done to use up the “leftover” 10 and a a new counter top to “absorb” the 10″. Happily the boomerang in charcoal is still available.
Anyway, if interested in the 30″ I find OK, with as much chrome as possible, here it is:
http://www.frigidaire.com/products/kitchen/gas-electric-ranges/fggf3076kw
I’m disturbed that this range has a “chicken nugget button.” What has the world come to?! Could I please have a salmon veloute en croute button instead?
I like the chrome on this, though…
OH, me TOO!! Pretty bad comment on what has happened to our eating habits.
I have never cooked chicken nuggets in my entire life, so will never have the occasion to use that button if I do finally buy this range. Might try the pizza button but then again, maybe not.
Here’s my theory…Over time, people have opted for a more compact design to make for more counter space. You know to make room for fancier gizmos such as bread makers and cappucino machines. Somewhere along the way, asthetic taste and appreciation gave way to cost-effective sterile design. Also, more and more women have entered the workplace, without much time for puttering around the kitchen, as housewives usually do. I puttered just this morning, in fact. I have a 40″ range in my kitchen, but it also screams late-20th century blandness. It looks sadly out of place with my decor and ’49 Philco refrigerator. I don’t know what I’m going to do if either one dies unexpectedly.
there is a place near us in baltimore that carries many british/euro appilances including AGA – http://www.stitchesetc.biz/index_files/Page1572.html really beautiful and bloody expensive. the odd thing about these british stoves (AGA) is that they stay warm continuously – the range tops have to stay covered or else your cat will fry its paws. very cool, but again, a bloody fortune, wot?
Every kitchen I ever visited in the U.K .is; for some unkown reason, Royal Blue and Orange. Every single one.
BTW-
Today’s rate of exchange is $1/L1.60: these cookers are roughly a wee bit more than one and one half of the listed price in US dollars.
“wee bit more”….a little UK lingo thrown in there by Gavin!
Pam,
You have no idea how you just rocked my world… My husband (indulges me) and we always talk about things we will do when we get a house.
He wants newer stuff and I try to win him over to mid-mod.
These modern-classic stoves… they just… it’s so… they are B-E-A-utiful.
- Lindsey C.
Thank you, Lindsay, rock on!
I dun landed me a 1949 Maytag gas range this last weekend! Forty inches and no scratches or chips in the porcelain. Drop dead gorgeous and in my house.
How do we get our avatar on the posts here? I got it on the Forum but it won’t work here…
I need to show my handsome face!
Get your gravatar here: http://en.gravatar.com/
As a very proud owner of a 1951 Chambers, 40 inches I might add, I fully understand the need and the desire to have a large stove. Why we stopped making them is strange, they are very nice to work with, lots of elbow room as it were.
While these fancy new stoves are all pretty and what not I would never, not in a million years trade my Chambers for one of them, never.
Chambers and other vintage stoves can still be had, and even with full restoration, they would come in at half the cost and out preform these, these….invaders!
Thanks for this BTW!
Wow, some of these stoves are amazing. Very fun to gawk at. Thanks, Pam! Maybe someone needs to start an import business.
We have a 40″ electric pushbutton GE that’s from around 1950-52 and I love it. It’s so great to have all that work space in between the burners. However, in the meantime I have acquired a 36″ Wedgewood which is now in storage. I have not yet made the commitment to trade all the storage drawers in the GE for all the broilers and bread warmers in the Wedgewood. I would love to have gas, but we’d have nowhere to store pots and pans if we switch. Everyone should have such a dilemma!
i also have a 1948 Chambers B. Her name is Buttercup and she is following me wherever I go for the rest of my life.
You can find vintage stoves of many flavors at http://www.stovelist.com.
She is a keeper.
I have been lurking here for ages but only now driven to post by Gavin’s comment – Gavin, I don’t know what sort of kitchens you were visiting in the UK, but I have lived here for 45 years and don’t remember EVER seeing a royal blue and orange kitchen. When I was a little girl in the 70s, there were lots of orange and brown ones: more recently, I’ve seen plenty of blue and cream ones, but not blue and orange, really : )
I had a range cooker of the size you admire in our previous house, and was very sorry to leave it behind when we moved. Surely someone must import these? There used to be a big market in importing American fridges to the UK, until they became popular enough for home-grown ones!
Welcome, Alison – so glad you’re a commenter not just a lurker now!
I knew I could get you out!!!
Glasgow is FULL of orange and blue kitchens! Tour some flats in Kelvingrove and around Glasgow Green. Complete with tile backsplashes in a pyramid design!
Great stoves Pam! My theory on why stoves shrunk is because wall ovens and cook tops came into being, and were all the rage immediately after 40″ stoves. When they went out of style, then 30″ stoves were all the rage, and then finally, we arrived at stainless steel with “commercial styles” being all the rage. And so it goes…..
That’s just my theory anyway. In my book, nothing will every be better than a nice vintage 40″ stove!
I agree, this is a travesty! Our vintage stove finally died a year ago, and all the years using matches to light the burners and cleaning the oven by hand came to an end when we bought our new Kenmore. It’s great, it self lights, self cleans, and is insulated. But, it left an 8 inch hole in our kitchen due the the reduction in width. How wide are the 6 burner stoves – would one of those fit? Are any available in retro style?
Richard, in my post I linked to the Sears 39-40″ model: http://retrorenovation.com/2009/09/24/a-retro-stove-from-sears/ … As Elizabeth Mary also pointed out in her comment, Frigidaire/Whirlpool make a white model… I kind of worry about the quality of that one, I *think* I saw it in the store one time and it did not seem as substantial to me as the Kenmore. That said, my experience with the white model is very limited – do your own research.
Pam,
I know this “cooker” is only 36 inches AND it is stainless steel, but Premier Stove’s Pro line has a very vintage look: three doors and a top shelf. It works super well in my 1948 original kitchen and it cooks well too!
Thanks, Nancy, I’ll take a look!
I have to disagree…The size of the total unit got smaller, the the oven actually got larger. Most 40′ stoves are divided with the oven on one side and storage on the other. Since the advent of the streamlined kitchen, the storage area became wasted cooking space. With the adoption of large countertops, the bare work surface area on one side of the burners was no longer needed.
These old ovens were workhorses, daily turning out 3 meals and millions of cakes and pies weekly. A really big wide DOUBLE oven is a whole other story: but how many people are making roasts and pies and baked potatoes on a regular schedule?
I use my oven 4/5 times a week and I think it is probably more than most folks.
(My one peeve is that oven doors (and dishwasher) have gotten LOWER.. They have stolen the height from the drawer at the bottom…so now you must stoop to remove your turkey…which is cooking on a rack about 9 inches from the floor!)
I live in Australia and we are looking at putting one of these in our “new” kitchen. They are great, we just don’t like some of the handle’s as they are going to be hard to keep clean. I did a post a while ago on my blog about our cooker options, that is after I spent alot of time drooling over some of the kitchens here.
I suppose that someone should write a history of the stove/range in the United States to answer these questions. I guess it was the designers who set the stage…maybe with a little help of asking people what they wanted.
I have been putting together a “vintage” kitchen and since I have decided to not replace the original 1985 cabinets (That decision may change), I have been restricted to a 30″ range. I have catalogs….1957 Sears/1959 Speigal/1960 Montgomery Ward…..which I have been using as references for my decorating and find 30″ range styles plentiful in them. Also some 24″ apartment sized models. Also, many of the original advertisements which Pam has posted show 30″ ranges.
As plentiful as the 30″ers seem to have been….it’s been dificult locating them on Ebay and Craigslist. I finally came across a 30″ 1956 Frigidaire Imperial 39 with Fench Door oven in California and had it shipped here. It was quite dirty when it arrived…not greasy, but just dust and dirt. I’ve disassembled it and am cleaning it really good and inspecting the wiring, etc. Also have acquired a copy of an original parts catalog and a source for a few parts. Will be an interesting project.
What size range did June Cleaver have? Laura Petrie had a cooktop and a 30″ wall oven. Samantha Steavens had the 40″ double Flair Imperial. Betty Draper on Mad Men had a cooktop as well and a 30″ wall oven. There is a campy video on Youtube of the 1957 Frigidaire appliances and there are both 40″ and 30″ stoves.
Interesting how we delve into the minutia of such things.
be careful re: asbestos that apparently can be within these old stoves…
I am drooling over these 40″ stoves. Some of them even appear to have 2 ovens. I just bought a 30″ and it cooks good and all but I wanted a 40 and cant afford a viking or wolf etc. just love looking at those pictures. thanks for posting this.Like you said sometimes a project takes too long. I have a project my 40″ frigidaire flair. the very thing I found your website looking for others that had them.
I’ve wanted a vintage Aga for years.
That Falcon in Plaid now has me lusting for it as well.
Guess I’d make shortbread in it for it’s inaugural run.
(Something tells me it wouldn’t be too difficult to find a tartan kettle to match.)
I have a 2 oven AGA natural gas cooker and love it. I’ve had this one (was a 4 oven) since 1975. Unfortunately I live in NY State. My sons grew up with it on our PA farm for 18 years, then I moved to a stone cottage in MD where I sold the end two ovens-cottage way too small, and then twice in NY. I’m now getting ready to move and cannot take it with me.
You can see photos on my listed website.