Today: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About “Cabinettes” But Were Afraid To Ask.” Over on the Retro Renovation Forum (no longer online), cabinet-hunter pja2trees wasn’t afraid to ask, “Could you please explain what a ‘cabinette’ is?” 52PostnBeam, aka Helen, who is the mega-expert, responded:
A ‘cabinette’ is a small cabinet with sliding glass doors, popularized by General Electric. It’s usually mounted under the upper cabinets, or less frequently they’d be mounted atop the backsplash, with the base cabinets slightly extended from the wall to accommodate. They’re often seen in conjunction with the GE Wonder Kitchen and the GE wall mounted fridge — products both marketed in the mid 50s.
You can see the taller Cabinettes in Chris’s GE Wonder Kitchen. Yes: That’s a “Wonder Kitchen”: One long piece of stainless steel countertop incorporating a sink and cooktop, with oven to the right, cabinets including dishwasher underneath. We see these occasionally, they are quite the marvel.
Helen continues:
The unique spelling “cabinette” is from GE’s marketing materials. The sizes came in 21″, 30″, 51″, 54″, 64″ … and possibly 12″, 18″ and others.
Often undercabinettes were fitted beneath the GE wall mount fridge. The refrigerator is 64″ wide. Underneath: Two, 30″ cabinettes with a spacer between them.
GE cabinettes have a light mounted at the top, and inside the cabinet there’s an outlet. A hole in the back makes it possible to run electric all the way though each cabinet.
GE glass was sometimes called “waterfall glass” because of how light looks passing through it.
The vast majority of these type cabinets were made by GE, but Geneva made a version with thicker reeded glass. St. Charles and Lyon also had their own versions. Special corner unit made to fit undercabinettes together.
There were also corner Cabinettes.
Thank you, 52PostnBeam.
Now: Why didn’t these under Cabinettes remain popular and continue into today? I am going to speculate:
- These cabinettes did not leave enough counter space for the growing list of kitchen appliances women wanted to leave out on the counter.
- Another thought: Wood cabinets came to dominate anyway… and the cost to make units like this in wood was prohibitive — although we certainly did see the rough concept continue with corner appliance garages.
- And last, I think that GE was out of the steel kitchen cabinet business sooner than others.
Aren’t vintage steel kitchen cabinets fascinating? Continue work on your Retro Renovation undergraduate, graduate or ph.D. degree by reading more here:
- My “short history” of vintage metal kitchen cabinets
- My complete Steel Kitchen cabinets story archive!
When they left the market, so did cabinettes. What do you think, Helen? Readers?
Rebecca Prichard says
I love them. So cool-looking and useful.
Tava Young says
I have St Charles and one cabinette. It is not lighted, nor under a cabinet, it is installed above a built in desk in the corner of the kitchen. Very handy for stashing things in. Love my St. Charles would never want wood cabinets again. 🙂
52PostnBeam says
St. Charles kitchens are known for nearly always having a built in kitchen desk, one of my favorite features. The early “Mom’s Office.” I’d love to see a pic of the desk/cabinette combo!
tailfin says
I have either 2 or 3 pink cabinettes with the textured glass doors in the set of pink & beige GE cabinets that I got off Craigslist 2 years ago. The cabinettes are really adorable and — I would imagine — extremely useful.
Currently the whole set (including cooktop, wall oven, sink & wall-mounted refrigerator/freezer) are sitting in storage until I find room for them in a kitchen.
I don’t want to install them in my current kitchen because I don’t believe this is my “forever house”.
But the whole set was free & I couldn’t pass it up! About the only things this set of cabinets didn’t have were corner units or lazy susans. But I believe the Retro Spirits will smile upon me again at some point & I will find the remaining pieces of the puzzle.
52PostnBeam says
Happy to contribute another post! I’m a documentary filmmaker by profession so I retain facts and information about stuff I’m interested in — thank goodness there’s somewhere to share this knowledge, before I eventually forget it.
I’ve loved these cabinettes since I first saw them, and was lucky enough to score two 30″ GE Cabinettes (originally pink, painted white) for free last summer in Ohio, where I have a nice cousin kind enough to pick them up (karma happens). My units came with the corner piece shown above. I’d like to find one of the smaller cabinettes, 20″ or so, and then I can use the corner. They really are great for stashing little things, and I use them as a mini-pantry for commonly used food items. I’ve also replaced the original lighting with some modern LED flat lights, which are smaller and don’t heat things up. I put the lights INSIDE the glass, much cooler looking that way!
Helen
CindyD says
Aw – inside the cabinets! Brilliant! (so to speak) 🙂
Kersten says
ooohhhh! I love today’s post! We have 2 St. Charles cabinettes (light yellow) that are the 51″ size. With the layout of our kitchen – basically NO wall space to hang wall cabinets- I was wondering about the possibility of mounting these on the top of the base cabinets as pictured in the aqua example above! One countertop is between the kitchen and dining room, and I’ve been thinking of putting the cooktop on that counter, but worried about little fingers being burned from the dining room side. If we mount one of the cabinettes behind the cooktop, this would build a little wall up so fingers can’t get over the top and be burned on the cooktop! Hmmmm…. that just might work! Sheesh, our house was built in ’57, and I wonder if it originally had a Wonder Kitchen?!
TappanTrailerTami says
Wow, so ahead of their time……..lighted and everything! If I could figure out a way to have them above my wood cabinets (more traditional style), I’d probably do that!
Thanks for all the interesting info!
Tami
Carri Carlson says
This is fantastic information. I am currently working with a client who has Geneva cabinets. She would like to remove the soffits and add some kind of cabinet for more storage. I’ve had some ideas that I still think would look nice but this is another option for her. Pam, you are just a wealth of information. Thanks so much.
Steven Hollifield says
This type of storage was very popular in many bathrooms was it not?
pam kueber says
Yes – similar, different manufacturers. The under-cabinets in bathrooms were generally built into the wall, underneath the mirror above the vanity. Sold by Nutone, Hall-Mack and Miami-Carey, I believe. You can see an example here in Cindy’s bathroom, she has chrome-plated sliding doors, I believe there also were glass. I may actually have a catalog on the site somewhere: https://retrorenovation.com/2009/03/12/cindy-updates-her-50s-bathroom-vanity-tile-floor-and-shower-with-spectacular-results/
CindyD says
These cabinettes are great for stowing away the cabinet clutter – salt/pepper, napkins, vitamins – all that short stuff that takes up valuable real estate needed for plates, glassware, etc. True, they don’t leave much counter space, but we’ve tucked our iPod/sound system under the one in our kitchen, so no loss there. We’re also using them in our storage/office/craft/game room to keep dice, cards, small games, coasters, etc. We’re still working this room, but I think the DVDs might fit under them. Plus, I like the built-in lighting.
pam kueber says
You have them, CindyD????
CindyD says
We actually bought five of them from a great couple in – the best Retro town around – St. Louis. We used one in the kitchen and two in the storage/office/craft/game room (all 30″ wide) and have promised to send photos of the two 21″ cabinets to weed30 as soon as our dust settles. If she doesn’t need them, 52PnB is next on the list.
CindyD says
GE’s, by the way. We have Genevas and I think they look grreat together – hope that’s not a bad thing…
52PostnBeam says
Thank you! Yes, I’m the one who posted that ad for the 5 undercabinettes in the forum. Doesn’t that perhaps … um … merit a bump to the top of the list? Had to ask 😉
Jenny says
Thank you for this Pam and Helen. I really appreciate all the research and information that goes into these posts. I don’t have these cabinettes, nor will I probably ever have them, but reading about them is so darn interesting. I always come away from reading your blog with a feeling that I’ve received a bit of an education. I’ve been reading for nearly a year now and I see things in a whole new light. We were watching a movie the other night, probably from 10+ years ago, and I was drooling over the furnishings of the main character’s apartment. The funny thing is, his stuff was supposed to be “old” and “outdated” to signify that he was down on his luck. I told my love that we could make a mint off of Craig’s List if we had half the stuff out of that apartment. It’s amazing what exposure and appreciation can do in altering how we look at “old” things. Thanks again for all of your hard work!