My office studio remodel is not the only project I have up my sleeve. Shhhhh! Don’t tell anyone: I’m also working on a new little website all about, yes, the Knotty Pine. Alas, the whole wide world doesn’t quite understand — like Betty Crafter (above) and Eartha Kitsch and Jeff and Lynne and a whole bunch of us do — that knotty pine can be a gosh-darned wonderful thing.
Can you help me tell the knotty pine story — by sharing photos of your knotty pine kitchens, dens, basements, sunrooms, tiki bars — all your knotty pine galore (bathrooms, even!) – that I can use on the new website? It’s easy to upload your photos, below. I will be so grateful! Get out your camera — most all cameras today do a great job, cell phones, too! Use natural light, and get artsy fartsy with your angles (get up on a ladder… lay down on the floor… take wide shots… take detail and accessories shots… Have fun — let’s show ‘em that knotty can be nice! Instructions on how upload your photos follow:
Upload photos of the knotty pine in your house, below… Tips:
- If you can figure out the setting, please set your camera to no bigger than “medium” images, so files aren’t too large — large files really slow down the slide show.
- (2) Uploader DOES work but message you get on screen *may be* funky and confusing. Upload ONCE and trust the image it there — I just need to “set new photos free” from my control panel and will be checking hourly to do so.
- (3) Terms of Use apply.
Tips to view slide show: Click on first image… it will enlarge and you can also read my captions… move forward or back via arrows below the photo… you can start or stop at any image:
I love that stove! I have just purchased a Frigidaire Flair(the stove on the old Bewitched show) Can’t wait to get it home! I love knotty pine kitchens!
I have to clean a few rooms first. haha. My upstairs bedroom and entire basement is knotty pine. One wall in my basement has a mural-size B&W photo of Big Sur! I bet nobody else has that!
Jeanne — we NEED to see that mural room! Need!
I will definitely do some cleaning, staging and photographing – hopefully this weekend. I also have an inset/build-in bar in the basement with a unique 50s wallpaper that I need to photograph.
Hi Pam, great idea. I love knotty pine too. I have natural wood cabinets but they are birch from the 50′s, not knotty pine.
John
I have an old Better Homes and Garden magazine from the 50s all about Knotty Pine. Let me know if you want any of the informaiton!
Heck yeah I do! Do they talk about why it is so popular????
I’ll look, I found it in my attic last year. We had a knotty pine kitchen in our 1900s house and it was so poorly done that I hated it. I had no idea it was so popular!
Kathy, you mentioned in the response to Eartha Kitsch that your magazine was vintage BH&G. If so – no need to scan, I cannot use any of those images – I do not feature old editorial content because it is copyrighted. However, if there are any articles about WHY knotty pine was so popular, it would be great if you could read the story and paraphrase what is says for us… Many thanks, Pam
Kathy, can you let us know what issue that is? Would love to look out for it! Thanks!
I have two (well there are a lot more upstairs they are just covered in 50 years of dirt and dust – you have to wonder why they put them in the attice but didn’t cover them….). Better Homes and Gardens Remodeling Ideas. It has a ton of suggestions on how to decorate and repair homes. Better Homes & Gardens Home Furnishings Ideas. Both from 1951. We are leaving for the weekend but I will work on scanning the pictures next week, I’ll make sure to include the cover pictures.
Thanks! : )
Ooh! Exciting!
Our knotty pine den is now the knotty pine playroom, and it is a wreck! But I love it-it’s the real deal. Four walls of real, solid pine, original doors and windows, and parquet floors. Everyone keeps asking when I’m going to paint it. Never! I wish I could get a good picture up, but I’ll have to see how much time I have to clean it first.
Decorating Tennis Girl – what a beautiful fireplace nook! Knotty pine doesn’t usually fit my tastes, but this application just looks SOOOO right!
Thanks, Chase. I love it and is original to our 1939 cape cod style home
I’m so glad to find your site. My 50′s ranch had knotty pine cabinets, but had to reconfigure my kitchen and thus get new cabinets. I got knotty maple which looks pretty close, especially since the adjoining breezeway/family room is paneled in knotty pine. As we do renovations I am keeping the wood trim with 3 lb. orange shellac (now called amber shellac) even tho the contractor wants me to switch to white painted trim.
My elderly mom lives in a 60′s split entrance ranch with aqua GE metal kitchen cabinets that are in excellent condition. Now, as she gets nearer to moving to a smaller place, lots of folks see her kitchen as a big problem in the process of selling her house. I can see marketing it for its great 60′s characteristics including no wood trim at all around windows and doors and a great modern chandelier in the dining room along with tiled bathrooms in great shape!
I’m glad to see there is developing interest in keeping these houses consistent with their original concept.
Ooh! Thanks Pam for including our knotty pine living room! When my husband and I bought the 1953 house, so many people “suggested” that we either remove the pine panels in the living room or paint over them with white(!). No way! The wall was a bit dull, but nothing a few washes of Murphy’s and tung oil couldn’t fix. Now it looks wonderful and warm and we love it. We need more KP appreciation for sure.
gorgeous rooms everyone! I love knotty pine,unfortunately my house didn’t come with anything as nice at that, but I am enjoying all the photos.
You want knotty? Oh my, we have an entire lake cabin of knotty. Unfortunately, all I have are pictures that my husband took prior to listing the cabin for rent last year – complete with his little messes and mismatches everywhere. We recently spent a week sprucing up the place prior to renting it out again this year but I was so exhausted from cleaning every one of those boards that I didn’t think to take new pictures. Okay, I didn’t have the strength to pick up the camera and was probably a little high on Murphy’s Oil soap.
)
The cabin is a family ‘heirloom’ built in 1948. Wish we lived closer so we could enjoy it on weekends (and also dig into some reno projects) but we hope to spend our post retirement summers there.
I WANT that cabin!!!
LOVE your cabin, too! My first house was a 560 sq ft (nope, not kidding!) cabin in the redwoods. 100% knotty pine. Walls and vaulted ceilings. I LOVE KP, but under the trees felt like a thousand pine eyes were looking at me while I was asleep.It was very dark under the redwoods and in a mistaken fit of ‘lightening things up’ I pickled white the KP in my bedroom.
Big mistake. It took 2 weeks with full fans going for the white pickle finish to dry! I learned my lesson. Don’t mess with the KP and Amber shellac is your best friend. Two KP kitchens later, I am still a huge fan. No KP in our 1920 spanish bungalow now.
But I still consider a KP kitchen to be the ultimate. Love em.
BTW- your cowboy sofa and chair set on the porch brings back memories. My dear old roommate loved her set like that. I knew her marriage was in trouble when the ex made her sell them at a garage sale. Sigh. She and I loved those things.
Chutti,
I would love to see pics of your 1920′s spanish. I love that style, too. Do you have a blog?
No blog currently.
We just had our 1 yr anniversary in our house this weekend.
Main focus has been on the landscaping, so not too many interior pics yet.
There is very little that needs done to my pink bath with original fish wallpaper. Hubs already put the new VCT inlay in the kitchen, but haven’t done pix until he finishes the attached hall/laundry area this summer.
Eventually, they will come. Right now, still very much in flux. Still all about the infrastructure around here.
Love seeing that cabin!
Jeanne2- just realized that your cabin pics have the furniture I like. Love the horse chair and sofa as well as the hutch and couch in the other picture.
It’s nice to see there are other mid-century fans who also like the maple/colonial/non-modern vibe.
Wow! I love knotty pine but have a newer house. Will sheet rock ever develope nosatalgia? Lol
I’m glad you’re doing this new site. I love seeing all the pictures.
Photos 18 & 19 are my favorites. Why? Because of all the colonial maple furniture in them. I have a house full of colonial maple couches, chairs, beds, dressers, chests of drawers, corner hutches, and the most beautiful (to me, anyway) kitchen table and chairs.
As I tell my husband, our next house will be the cutest cottage with all those lovely 50′s touches. In the mean time, I’ll enjoy your site!
Each and every one a treasure!
I love my knotty pine “ratskeller”. That’s what they called finished basements in the 50′s. (at least in St. Louis.) My pics are from the original listing except for the one with the pink bar stools. Like many here, I have so many projects that I haven’t done much down there. I also love the fact that the unfinished portion has stained and oiled wood panels on the walls!
oops – my pics haven’t been “freed” yet, so when they are, reread my post
Wendy, I woke up, and set your photos free. However: Do you have photos of the ratskellar that you took (vs. the ones from the real estate listing)? I would like to show your basement on the blog at some point — BUT I would need to have photos you took, not MLS photos. You do not own the copyright to those photos, and in reality, I need to delete them.
I found them! (couldn’t at first…another incomplete project…organizing my digital photos so I can locate them quickly.) They were taken before I bought the house, with my very own camera
I will upload them shortly.
thanks, Wendy, I’ll keep an eye out in between my house projects today!
Love them all! The only knotty pine left in our home is in the mudroom/laundry area (pictures 13 &17) which is just off the kitchen. When we do the remodel of this space, the washer/dryer will go back to the main bath (where it was originally) and the knotty pine room will become part of the kitchen
Can’t wait for the website Pam!
Ignore the numbers of my photos; they are moving all over the place
I just went to a garage sale yesterday that had the most wonderful knotty pine garage! I wish I had had my camera with me!
We have a room with painted-over panels, with grooves, I am assuming that underneath is KP…but here is my question…whomever installed these over the drywall did not go a great job…sections “bow out”, you can push the panels about an inch to the wall in places, and it bounces back….is there anything we can do now, short of ripping out the entire room?
Love the photos! I’m a long time reader and just uploaded photos of both our knotty pine basement den and knotty pine first floor office. When we bought our house in Melrose, MA the realtor suggested that the knotty pine was old fashioned and that we should whitewash over it. Never! We absolutely love it. Our house was built in the late 1930s, which is when I think the knotty pine dates to, but they also clearly did some bathroom renovations in the 1950s as we have two super well preserved baby blue bathrooms.
Shoot- I’ve been so busy with a charity garage sale this weekend, that I didn’t have time to log in, until now. I’ve uploaded a small pic. of my lovely Costco bar stools (5 for $30 at a sale last year! – I figure 4 for guests & one for a bartender behind the bar). And a pic of my favorite tv lamp in front of knotty pine. Sorry I couldn’t upload more photo’s but my house is just trashed after getting ready for the sale.
He told me that my house was the first on the street in 1965. He lives close by on another street, so I can go ask him other questions as they come up. Thanks Pam!
On a great note for the sale – I met the guy who built my house
My pictures are the ones of the “Octagon Kitchen” as we call it! The house was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright in 1947 and finally built in 1951. This house needs A LOT of love, but the majority of it has not been altered since it was originally built. The uploaded kitchen pictures (“many angles” knotty pine) show that the only update was the flooring (yuck!). The kitchen also features a Towel Dryer, Metal Bread Boxes, a Vegetable Drawer, and very large Lazy Susans. Thanks to your websiite, Pam, we are having the original cooktop and wall oven “rejuvenated” from a dealer in Michigan! We love our very strange knotty pine kitchen and WILL NOT replace anything!
verrrrrry cool!
We have a knotty pine den that I just h***. It doesn’t look anything like the rest of the house (built in 1939). I love the wroght iron railing and the glass doorknobs with the black eschuctions. i want to find two more for the pantry in the kitchen.
Susan, I edited your comment. We don’t use the h*** word here.
Hi Pam, I was just wondering if the pics I sent you were ok? I took them with my phone so Im hoping the size was ok.
Holly, everything currently in the KP gallery is “set free”. Can you try again – please use the uploader.
Pam,
Guess I should have specified that my home are pictures #43 and #45. Our cape style home was built in 1939 and I have tried to keep the original flavor, as much as I can. We still have the original casement windows, slate siding and roof, etc. We are only the second family to have lived here, moving into our wonderful home in 1985.
I can smell the mold/must from here. GOD I H*** KNOTTY PINE.
edited. we don’t use the h*** word here LH.
We have tongue n’ groove knotty pine half walls in the finished basement of our ’58 cinderella ranch.It’s was a great family room as our son was growing up – a roomy 23 ft x 27ft + area.Room for Dad’s computer and for lots of model train tracks.Cozy in the winter & a wonderful retreat during tornado season.Basicly, lived down there for 6 weeks in ’98 due to all the tornado warnings and straight line winds that year. It’s now evolved into husband’s satellite office & retreat for when he’s putting in long hours on projects for work.wrought iron lamps work great in the space and we have a braided rug in the TV area with vintage cool-o-nial oak chairs.We closed in a skraggly screened in porch to make a 4 season porch with 3 4 ft by 5 ft windows and finished the interior walls in the T n G pine siding.Stained it w/ fruitwood and coated w/ urethane for the walls(didn’t know about the shellac),for the ceiling primed the T n G white before installing and then painted white after installation.We have really enjoyed this little cabin room that looks out into the back yard that’s right off my cramped 85 square foot kitchen.Pine siding was a feasible, diy solution for our shoe string budget and our novice building skills.
In picture #84, is that bamboo floors with knotty pine ceilings? The white with it is gorgeous. I’ll get either a white granite or marble when I change out the counter of my soon2B knotty pine kitchen. I thought about painting the kitchen and dining room a soft sage green. Yes? No? Thanks for the visual idea.