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postwar homes – “modern” and “modest” alike.
I'm Pam Kueber, your mid mod mad guide. Read more
Scathing Jane spotted this big, pretty set of yellow Geneva steel kitchen cabinets for sale in Pittsburgh on craigslist. $500. Isn’t yellow a delightful color for kitchen cabinets? Thanks, Jane, and 52PostnBeam, too, for all the volunteer work you do posting kitchen cabinets and vintage plumbing items onto the Retro Renovation Forum.
Lots of treasures awaited my return home yesterday… An ebay find which I’ll show soon… Barkcloth samples from Full Swing Textiles… and the best of all: Two rolls of vintage pink wallpaper from reader NYC Dorothy. She has contributed it to our community – so that it can savored for all. You see, these are the two wallpapers that hung in her mother’s kitchen and bathroom – and she wanted them to go to a good home. Dorothy, I promise you, they are in the right place – in front of many thousands of readers who treasure these memories of the homes our own families built in postwar America. Many thanks, indeed!
Oh, and readers… just to ensure you are triply amazed: Did I mention that both of these wallpapers are on a totally high-quality (not brittle) vinyl…. and that they have gold flecks and streaks throughout? Totally swoonable.
Click through for more delightful images of these two great vintage wallpapers…. Heck yeah there is more →
Ruth’s Geneva kitchen, pink bathroom, peach bathroom, Tennessee granite fireplace — everything in her 1957 Michigan home — are just fantastic. I thought that I had more Geneva metal cabinets in one place than anyone, but Ruth sets a new record. And look at it: A curvacious island… marble counter topped baking area … original range exhaust fan … and more. Ruth did replace the kitchen floor – so you also can ogle her design and see if it might be right for you. I think it’s terrific – the scale is just right and the soft gray and blue have just the right ‘coolness’ to go with the lovely light blue Geneva cabinets.
Read on for Ruth’s story…16 photos…and a link to more on her flickr stream…And when you’re done be sure to check out her new blog: No Pattern Required. Heck yeah there is more →
This is a fun one! Heck yeah there is more →
Wow, Alice. You have a beautiful kitchen, bathrooms – and house to wrap all around them. What a classic! Readers, note that Alice is in Richmond, VA. Alice, you asked about suggestions for your kitchen, so here are a few thoughts: Heck yeah there is more →
Sleeping Bee Alice writes:
Hello, I am a novice retrorenovator…and am loving your website.
My husband and I are leaving our modern, brand-spanking new customized kitchen for a charming 1950′s yellow Geneva kitchen in a home that we have fallen in love with. I’m having trouble thinking through the “enhancement” of the kitchen…the cabinets are in great shape and we really like the look…we have to replace the outdated wallpaper, bad flooring and yellow countertops. The fridge was gone.
I really enjoyed all the pink kitchens pictures…any such resources for yellow kitchens? (Pale, maize yellow.)
For future thought, we are also inheriting three fabulous tiled bathrooms…one pink, one blue, one aqua…will be looking here for complimentary design ideas for those as well…no gutting going on here!
Thanks!
No — thank you, Alice! For all the wonderful photos — and for letting us know, another sweetheart of a middle class mid-century home is being saved. Hallelujah!
Since this is already a long post, what with all the photos, you’ll get some suggestions tomorrow!
Our penultimate day of pink kitchens. I love that word, penultimate!
41. TGIF, it’s party time and these 1961 Hotpoint kitchen-goers are ready!
42. This 1955 Geneva kitchen is more sedate but setting the pace nonetheless.
43. Pink and yellow, what a spring-y combination. And, this seems like quite the 1957 groove pad! Note the wall-cabinet fridge, every ReRe reader’s favorite, it seems!:
44. Oops. Another formerly used Flashback Kitchen with the numbers stuck in it. But I had to show this pink-lavendar-blue combo. Lavendar for kitchens was promoted later in the 50s. It looks nice here, be clearly never caught on. I think there’s something fundamentally icky about purple+food, grapes and eggplant notwithstanding.
45. A 1952 Youngstown kitchen – you can see the rosy pink cabinet at the right, so this made the list.
46. Religious readers will recognize this amazing kitchen. You gotta give those Formica interior designers credit:
47. A 1955 St. Charles kitchen combining pink, aquamarine and birch (I believe.) Pretty snazzy:
48. An honorary pink kitchen: pink + classic birch plywood cabinets with a darkish stain:
49. Another (painted) pink and birch kitchen, from Coppes-Nappanee:
50. And another all-time favorite, a Dow Styron tile ad with a kitchen that I christen pink because of the wall cabinet refrigerator. Awesome kitchen!
This week it’s pink postwar kitchens of every style – from the 40s through to the 60s. Be sure to check in every day, today through Saturday for a festival of Mamie pink!
To start – let’s head right to 1957, the absolute pinnacle year for pink pink pink!
#1: 1957 GE pink kitchen and look at that all-new Refrigeration Center!:
Many thanks to Whitney, who just tipped me that Wilsonart has introduced 11 new colors of boomerang laminate. There now are a total of 14 colorways — the most of any manufacturer. I am quite liking the “butterscotch” above — looks like you could use this in a kitchen with yellow kitchen cabinets. There is [...]
Seems like I’m starting the week off with the spotlight on RESOURCES! I was checking out Formica’s site recently – and saw these two new laminates. They both have a nice retro groove, underscored by their names, Atomic Orange and Atomic Turf. Back in the postwar era, there were a number of laminates that had [...]
I just got off the phone with George from New York Metals – purveyors of the stainless steel edging to true to 40s 50s and 60s kitchen countertops. The recent question on the table has been: How to bend my preferred “Snap-On Molding” (in photo above) for rounded edges – be they quarter-round cubbies or [...]
If you are looking for retro-style laminate for a kitchen or bathroom countertop, you have some blinding research ahead of you. Unless there is a home-run-out-of-the-park solution — like the boomerangs, crackle ice or dogbone still available — it’s going to be a hunt-peck-and-forage to find something that’s “close enough” to original laminates from the [...]
Following up on Monday’s exciting post about the Arpa USA palette of solid-color laminates, let’s take a look at how to use this material to recreate this 1959 Ma Bell kitchen. It would be oh-so-easy! Elements include: Laminate cabinetry using Arpa’s “Jardin” colorway. Cabinet pulls: Rejuvenation’s new midcentury “sharp arch”, in satin chrome Countertops are [...]
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