We watched Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House last night.
A great movie from 1948 with deep social underpinnings — the mass relocation of Americans from city to suburbs — but just as importantly, Cary Grant, Myrna Loy and Melvin Douglas as funny and wonderful as ever.
Coincidentally, I had just loaded a bunch of 1948 kitchen photos — mostly of St. Charles Steel Kitchen cabinets. I’ve been doing a lot on exuberant colors for 50s and 60s kitchens — and thought it only fair to give white cabinetry its due!
To be sure, white cabinets were always the #1 choice of American homeowners in the postwar period…they are very flexible to decorate with…they convey a sense of cleanliness and order…and as you can see from the first, large photo below — perky, cheerful color was still a very important part of the design scheme (e.g. see Bradbury & Bradbury’s 40s wallpapers — you can see how they’d look great with white steel cabinets.)
If you’re redoing your kitchen — there are lots of great retro kitchen design details and ideas that you can pick up from these examples. Have fun!
Click on all the thumbnails to enlarge.