kitchens

Day 4, and today I’ve included a select few “honorary” pink kitchens. Kitchens one small step away from full-blown pink, so we can better understand the trend as it unfolded. 

31. Every day I come up with yet another new/old pink kitchen that is my all-time favorite. I adore this 1964 pink and brown and black-and-white colonial kitchen. It is so homey and comfortable, but with an innate sophistication, as well.

32. A rather hilarious Formica kitchen, circa 1956. Notice the cabinet that opens up from the top to hold the family booze. More seriously (well, sort of, we’re talking about kitchens after all!) one of several designs that show how the 50s fitted kitchen continued to evolve by moving away from dependence on a single color of cabinetry to a more adventurous use multiple colors.

33. AMAZING how modern — today, even — this 1956 Hotpoint kitchen feels.

34. We only get a snippet of this pink kitchen. We are definitely in the midst of the Mamie years here, 1956. Look at the cool electric burners, though. This style, which folded down from the wall was definitely around and marketed pretty seriously. I don’t know, exactly, why it didn’t catch on.

35. This is a very early40s illustration. And why it really violates my rule for what to include in this series (the cabinets are not pink), I wanted to use it today to show that pink definitely was around in the 40s and exerting its influence in the kitchen. One small step – and Mamie Eisenhower — and this color went directly onto the cabinets.

36. I’m not sure it’s fair to call this one pink — how about “pinktone birch”? It’s from 1956. As we’ve seen in previous posts, staining birch was done.

37. We looked a pink-and-erin-green kitchen yesterday, that I was actually a bit unsure of. Taken from a greater distance, and taking it all in, this is actually a very nice color combo. The dark green gives this pink kitchen a bit of gravitas.

38. My “cheating” continues today and only today. I could not resisting adding this 1954 kitchen as an honorary to the Mamie pink kitchen collection because of that American Standard sink and drainboard combination. I love it!

39. 1955. I am putting apricot into the pink collection. This is what our grandmas’ on the farm kitchen were likely to really look like. Granpa made the cabinets himself. They bought the steel sink base with the awesome porcelain drainboard. ANd of course, the electric stove! You can be sure that a lot of real work was done in this kitchen.

40. Another honorary to the collection. Circa 1954, pink on the rise. Very sophisticated! The cabinets are excellent – they are a short-lived (I believe) American-Standard design. Note how they hung a shelf below with 18″ wall cabinets – this was actually an option, the text (cropped out) said. Very clever.