John Lewis of Hungerford reproduction English Rose cabinets

retro style metal kitchen cabinets creme de la creme

The discovery of vintage English Rose cabinets, covered in a recent post, was great. But get this: A company in England is actually reproducing these for sale today. John Lewis of Hungerford’s Creme de la Creme cabinets look to be authentic reproductions. An article from two years ago, says that a mid-sized kitchen redo would cost about 15,000 pounds – that’s about $30,000 in U.S. dollars today – not including shipping and any inflation that may have taken place.  Here is their website.

retro style metal kitchen cabinets creme de la cremeSo…if you are wealthy enough and have the desire — here’s another alternative to the new St. Charles’ coming out this month. Or – go vintage and keep your eye on the Postwar Steel Forum on upper right of the nav bar here.


Vintage English Rose metal kitchen cabinets — from Spitfires to luxe to salvage and back again

vintage English Rose metal kitchen cabinets

Scathing Jane seems to have caught the steel kitchen cabinet bug even more than me. She recently sent this TREMENDOUS find my way — English Rose cabinets. Same as in America, England had surplus metals available after the war. In this case: Aluminium. These English Roses are iconic – and now highly collectible.

vintage English Rose metal kitchen cabinets

English Rose kitchen trolley cartHere’s a clip from an article about these cabinets: “The first English Rose kitchen was made in Warwickshire in 1948…by CSA Industries, an engineering firm that originally made nose cones for Spitfires. After the war ended, CSA used stock-piles of aircraft-grade aluminium by diversifying into up-market kitchens.”

Interestingly, the drawer design of these cabinets closely resembles our “American” brand, pictured below. Even see how they both have “trolley carts”… hmmm, maybe the companies shared some tooling? Nonethess, the English Roses’ recessed stainless steel handles really distinguish them.

1953 American metal kitchen cabinets
1953 American brand steel kitchen

Thanks, SJ, keep your cabinet finds coming!

A new steel cabinet brand discovered this weekend!

One of my favorite archeological teams!
admiral 50s steel kitchen cabinet metal kitchen cabinet forum

I feel like a giddy archeologist every time a new brand of metal kitchen cabinets surfaces.

I did some cleanup and additions to the Forum this long holiday weekend. Updated count: 45 distinct brands of steel kitchen cabinets from the 1930s through the 1980s! Admiral brand is the latest, with a lone cabinet just listed in the San Francisco area.

Lots of action on the forum in the past 24 hours. Be sure to check every day in the View Today’s Posts section if this topic interests you — going to this spot daily makes it easiest to see the very latest posts with one easy click.

And be sure to let our St. Charles hunters know if you have the odds and ends they are looking for. What goes around comes around.

metal kitchen cabinet forum

Harvest gold metal kitchen cabinets on the Forum

sears.jpgWhoa. What a blast from the past. These vintage Sears — harvest gold — steel kitchen cabinets now are on the Forum.

Also: If you’ve tried to log on to the Forum recently, but were told you couldn’t — my fault. I fixed the issue, and you should now be able to log right in. Sorry to force passwords – you wouldn’t believe how much spam would get in if we didn’t have this.

This is a big set available in St. Louis; also posted last night are big sets in Detroit and Albuquerque, and corrected from last week – a set in Washington state (not Maine).

Will Santa bring you a new, retro kitchen this year?

santa-war-bonds135.jpg

During World War II, Americans were encouraged to buy war bonds to fund the war effort. At the same time, amid the deprivation of war time restrictions, the country was dreaming of better times to come. And at that front of that list: A shiny new kitchen!

Happy holidays, everyone. I dropped out of the blogosphere for a day and a half, as my family flew down to Florida for a sunny break. I expect to keep posting daily, but no ebay until after the holidays. Please continue to send your emails and comments!