Several readers have asked where to get cabinets faced with laminate, a style very appropriate for mid-century kitchens and bathrooms. I checked my notes from Cindy — who used laminate cabinets in both her kitchen and her bathroom renovations to very good result. She reports that her cabinets were made by Holiday Kitchens, which turns out to be a relatively large national brand with production in the U.S. Their doorstyle for laminate kitchen and bathroom cabinets is called “Geneva” (you will have to scroll through the door styles to get to it.) I am presuming that you can specify any particular laminate you like. Check out my Countertop Category for my list of laminate manufacturers.
Where to find laminate kitchen and bathroom cabinets
Posted by: • December 28, 2009
Steven’s Mondrian kitchen
Posted by: • November 21, 2009
Those of you in modern homes, remember to consider a Mondrian-style kitchen if you need to renovate. This one – from Steven’s 1957 Alcoa Aluminum house in Rochester, N.Y. — is original. Well, the part in the foreground is. He needed to replace the cabinets and backsplash along the back wall, and did so in complementary style. The original Mondrians are laminate-over-wood. In the back, Steven combined black-painted wood base cabinets, and blue-painted vintage steel wall cabinets. If you have trouble choosing a color — hey, what a solution. Click on the photo above to see Steven’s entire house, on his flickr photo stream. And click here to see my other posts showing Mondrian kitchens.
Painted MDF kitchen cabinets: Another great choice for a retro renovation
Posted by: • November 10, 2009
Maribeth’s kitchen points to another excellent idea for retro styled kitchen cabinets: Have your kitchen cabinets built out of MDF, then paint them. Heck yeah there is more →
Our 70th brand of vintage steel kitchen cabinets: Anemone Kitchen Furnishings
Posted by: • November 5, 2009
Retro-anthropologist Pam here. I spotted my 70th brand of vintage steel kitchen cabinets: Anemone Kitchen Furnishings, a lower price point brand from English Rose. You can read more about it, and see the complete 1955 ad, over on the Forum.
That 70s house — 3 interiors
Posted by: • September 15, 2009
Could there have been a more creative period in American design history than 1974? Methinks not – as evidenced by the three interiors today… and by my memories of the era. And folks: This look is back with a vengeance, so no whining, go look for your old David Cassidy and Bobby Sherman posters and prepare a place for them. Heck yeah there is more →
Octagon and dot floor tiles in 13 color combinations
Posted by: • September 12, 2009
OCTAGON FLOOR TILES are great for pre-war homes — 1920s, 1930s, 1940s — and then some colorways came around again in the 1970s. This tile style can work, I think, for either a vintage style bathroom or kitchen floor, and that dot gives you a nice flourish of color to play with. Heck yeah there is more →
What is this 1950s British kitchen gadget?
Posted by: • September 6, 2009
Sherri read this Time Warp Wives post from last year and asks, “What is the gizmo above the stove??” Does anyone know? How about some wild and wacky guesses? 
Meanwhile, remember the vintage “Teasmade” – as in ‘tea is made’ combo alarm clock, radio, and tea maker that I spotted on ebay last year? tea hee, those wacky brits.
Youngstown Kitchens Monterey cabinets
Posted by: • August 28, 2009
Finishing up my Youngstown Kitchens 1957 mini-series, here is their Monterey line. The unique selling proposition of this line: Sandalwood-colored steel base cabinets and doors…. with wall cabinets with Sandalwood-stained wooden doors on steel bases. Reading through this marketing material I see: Industry concern about color fatigue, oh no! “Give us a color we can live with for years” and “that goes with everything,” consumers asked, Youngstown explained. Again…as we’ve discussed before…the move away from enamel-painted steel, which was difficult to repaint (and likely getting more expensive), to wood cabinetry (which was easier to re-paint and also had the “furniture look” of adjoining spaces”, was under way. Heck yeah there is more →
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