St. Charles mid century modern kitchen cabinet colors

From Metal kitchen cabinets

I recently found this image of 10 original paint colors for St. Charles steel kitchen cabinets. I believe that these are circa 1957.


Will someone please hurry and snap these up!

A HUGE set of St. Charles’ in Bloomfield, Mich. — and no one’s snapped them up yet. Folks, it does not get any better than this! Please please please, I hope a Retro Renovation reader gets them. They are on the Forum, do not delay! Heck yeah there is more →

61 Mamie Pink Kitchens: “Two-tone” is the theme today

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!

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42. This 1955 Geneva kitchen is more sedate but setting the pace nonetheless.

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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!:

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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.

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45. A 1952 Youngstown kitchen – you can see the rosy pink cabinet at the right, so this made the list.

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46. Religious readers will recognize this amazing kitchen. You gotta give those Formica interior designers credit:

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47. A 1955 St. Charles kitchen combining pink, aquamarine and birch (I believe.) Pretty snazzy:

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48. An honorary pink kitchen: pink + classic birch plywood cabinets with a darkish stain:

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49. Another (painted) pink and birch kitchen, from Coppes-Nappanee:

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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!

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61 Mamie Pink Kitchens: Let’s start with 10 from the big name brands – St. Charles, GE, American-Standard, Crane, Formica and more

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!:

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Heck yeah there is more →

Vintage 1966 kitchen — St. Charles mixes wood and metal, and harvest gold and avocado arrive!

1966 St. Charles Kitchen cabinets

How about this fabulous 1966 St. Charles metal and wood kitchen? Heck yeah there is more →

Oh so groovy St. Charles kitchen cabinets – for sale on the Forum

vintage st. charles steel kitchen cabinets

vintage st. charles steel kitchen cabinetsvintage st. charles steel kitchen cabinetsThese are fabulous. And there are 40+ to sell — including a ton of bases and walls — pantries with locks and lined shelves — some refrigerators — all St. Charles’. The groovy wall cabinets with the lime trim are all steel, the seller in Mt. Kisco, NY, assures. And though I don’t want to seem ungrateful to the decorating gods — these are even more tremendous than my aquamarine Genevas. See more photos on the Forum. SNAP THEM UP, retro renovators!

Big news — St. Charles cabinets are being resurrected — with big bucks marketing, too

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viking3.jpgpaint-colors.jpgBig news in retroland: The Viking Range company has purchased the St. Charles name and plans to introduce a whole new line of steel kitchen cabinets as early as February.

There will be 23 powder-coated colors, which appear to be quite contemporary. Look at their hardware — and at the other material on their website — and it appears that their audience is today’s luxe kitchen buyer — not retro renovators in the sense that I address. To be sure, Viking Range is a high-end product. This company also has refrigerators and cooktops, and now, a complete kitchen solution. Interestingly — just like Hotpoint and GE back in the day.

stcharles.jpgIt’s clear that with these new St. Charles’, we are talking mucho dinero. In their marketing, they point to the Mies van der Rohe Farnsworth House (below) and its use of St. Charles steel cabinets. Cool kitchen.

All this said….I think this is really exciting news. And, I think that this is REALLY GOING TO BLOW THE ROOF OFF of the appreciation for vintage steel kitchen cabinets from the postwar era. Stock up.

See my other St. Charles kitchen posts, circa 1948 and 1957. And don’t forget to check the Forum for cabinets for sale across the country.

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