• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Kitchens
  • Bathrooms
  • Blog
  • Exterior
  • Other Rooms
  • Decorate
  • The “Museum”
  • Be Safe/Renovate Safe
Retro Renovation
Retro Renovation

Retro Renovation

Remodel & decorate in Mid Century Style

  • Home
  • Kitchens
  • Bathrooms
  • Blog
  • Exterior
  • Other Rooms
  • Decorate
  • The “Museum”
  • Be Safe/Renovate Safe
Home / Kitchen / Vintage Steel Kitchen Cabinets

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

Pam Kueber - March 22, 2008, Updated: May 4, 2021

1966 St. Charles Kitchen cabinets

How about this fabulous 1966 St. Charles metal and wood kitchen?

1966 St. Charles kitchen

1966 St. Charles kitchen
click to enlarge photos especially the first one!

  1. Cool how it combines wood with metal. And French Provincial wood, no less.
  2. This was part of the transition to kitchens that looked like furniture – like the rest of the house, which was now encroaching as ‘open concept’ design truly takes hold.
  3. Awesome oven and range. So Samantha Stevens!
  4. Great mix and match of colors and materials as you move from space to space – showing that your retro kitchen does not have to be all matchy-matchy – works especially if you have a large space to work with, keeps the eye moving.
  5. Peek at the wonderful green patterned sofa, and painted panel walls in the adjacent family room.
  6. And here we have — harvest gold and avocado together! By 1966, the 70s have arrived!

One change that I would recommend: I think it’s much smarter to have the working sink positioned between the fridge and the stovetop, rather than at the far end. Much better for working efficiency.

Want to start re-inventing this look for yourself? There a large set of St. Charles cabinets, in Denver, just posted this week on the Postwar Steel Forum (top nav bar) that has a similar look. Snap them up, and you are well on your way to funky town!
St. Charles kitchen cabinets for sale in DenverSt. Charles kitchen cabinets for sale in DenverSt. Charles kitchen cabinets for sale in Denver

CATEGORIES:
Vintage Steel Kitchen Cabinets

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

  • steel-kitchen cabinets
    The Retro Renovation® Encyclopedia of Vintage Steel Kitchen Cabinets
  • electro sink center 1963
    1963 Electro-Sink Center: The most wonderful kitchen faucet ever?!
  • be safe renovate safe graphic
    Make a resolution to: Be Safe and Renovate Safe!
  • steel kitchen cabinets by moya living
    Steel kitchen cabinets -- 4 places to buy them made new today
  • republic kitchen cabinets salesman display kit
    My vintage Republic Steel Kitchen cabinets salesman's at-home presentation kit -- includes rare Easel Presentation -- 24 photos

Reader Interactions

Comments are closed. 

34 comments

Comments

  1. Derek says

    January 20, 2011 at 5:31 pm

    Well, I have been into retro vintage for 30 years now. I am 49 and as a kid I hated avocado green. I now love it. I just did my kitchen in red-orange formica and avocado green appliances and it looks gorgeous. In fact Apartment Therapy just did a spread on my apartment iin Los Angeles.

    So what someone may have disliked in the past isn’t always what they like now! I can attest to that. As you age your taste changes.

  2. Ann says

    November 15, 2010 at 10:48 pm

    we just bought a home with an original St. Charles kitchen. Does anyone have suggestions about updating? I hate to tear it out.

    • pam kueber says

      November 16, 2010 at 7:57 am

      Ann — see all my Kitchen posts, and under that category, all the post on steel kitchen cabinets. Also – the galleries… this blog probably has 1,000 stories on ways to update your mid-century kitchen.

  3. Josie says

    September 25, 2010 at 12:21 am

    My mom raised me with her ’70s design ethos…I still tease her about a color scheme of: Brown, Jute, Tan, Chocolate, Rust.

    Wood doesn’t get painted on her watch, and no window is safe from an army of potted plants.

    Its not what I like for myself (I actually like the ’30s-’50s stuff she says is too old for her) but it will always be homey to me.

  4. Danielle says

    February 1, 2009 at 3:13 am

    where can I find information on a Tappan “Fabulous 400”? I have a gas one. It needs some work, but I love it, and I cannot find any informaton on it. I don’t even know where to find the model number.

  5. Lane_in_PA says

    January 6, 2009 at 1:51 am

    I did not know that about steel cabinets and vermin. But it makes absolute sense.

    Except that sometimes the little furry rascals find a way to get into the drawers via the foundation walls of the house. And build a nest in the utensil drawer.

    No room for error and gaps when installing said cabinetry.

    I grew up with avocado green, and I am still stuck on green.

  6. Mooski says

    January 5, 2009 at 10:33 pm

    My stove! I love it!

    Okay–the actual discussion. Style. When the 1966 house was built, the second sink might have been for hand washing only. My aunt had one, no one could wash in her kitchen sink. PSYCHO!!!!

    My parent’s home was a 1956 cape with a yellow bath and kitchen with birch cabinets with wroght iron. Lots of chrome all over the place, the counter edge a hootie ring on the cast iron sink. Very 1960-ish.

    The kitchen and bath were destroyed in a fire when I was 6. Lighting strike and thankfully no one injured. Unfortunately, all of the ‘cool 1950’s stuff was gone, gone, gone. We had to live ‘at camp’ the whole summer while the house was rebuilt. Mom had no say in the house beyond the cabinets and insisting on the tub being fully restored.

    CRAP!!! Think of the trust. My dad was a sweetheart and tried to pick what he thought she would like. Very classic, but Harvest Gold appliances. It still looks pretty decent, except for the cheesey particle board panelling in the kitchen. Put up to replace the sunshiney tile that melted.

    The ‘divorced mom’ in our neighborhood had the ‘modern mission’ furnitue. Funny, I love red, but when I think of it at her house, it makes me feel sad!

    • Mid Mod Pam says

      January 5, 2009 at 11:01 pm

      Hey Mooski, I don’t think your aunt was bonkers – about her sink, at least. I recall having read that way back when, there was a strong belief that disease could be prevented by not mixing food prep with handwashing and bathing in the same sink. (I am not sure which was supposed to be the disease carrier – the food or the outside dirt!) Steel kitchen cabinets are actually an outgrowth of the desire early in the 20th century for ‘vermin-free’ cabinetry — you first saw steel used Hoosier cabinets – the mice and bugs could not chew through steel – then the material was translated to fitted cabinets.

      • Anastasia says

        January 17, 2012 at 2:33 pm

        They separate sinks in food service as well for the same reasons, lol! And as for bad memories “tainting” our likes and dislikes and I text book on that one. I was adopted as a 10 year old, certain colors I JUST CAN’T TAKE as they come from my “before” life. And as far as what I really can’t take, it’s old cabinetry. Yep you hit it on the head…..It’s what might be IN the old cabinets that make me shudder, yuck! LOVE Pam’s metal kitchen, lol!

    • Mid Mod Pam says

      January 5, 2009 at 11:03 pm

      Oh, and Mooski, no dissing harvest gold here – some of us like it – a lot! 🙂

  7. LaurenBecks says

    January 5, 2009 at 10:02 pm

    I love this style of interior decor. I grew up extremely poor being shoved from one set of grandparents to the other. My parents weren’t married when I came along and never married. I guess if abortion was legal when I was in the making my mother would have disposed of me but as luck would have it I was born and raised by poor grandparents who had no decorating style at all!
    I love rich bold colors and this style.
    I married a rich man 20 years ago and we finally built our dream home and yes it’s decorated totally in early american and 1970’s colors.
    My friends “adore” my new home and my retro decorating style.
    Ebay and other online shops made it easy to purchase so many of my retro home decoratives.
    I appreciate this style and dive in head first

« Older Comments

Primary Sidebar


Footer

Follow Along

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RENOVATE SAFE
  • About
  • Blog
  • The “Museum”
  • Kitchens
  • Bathrooms
  • Exterior
  • Other Rooms
  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Notice
  • Disclosures
  • Contact

© 2023 Retro Renovation® • All Rights Reserved • Website by Anchored Design
Please do not use any materials without prior permission. Portrait by Keith Talley Photography