Retro Renovation

Remodel & decorate in Mid Century Style

Home / Kitchen / Readers and Their Kitchens

Decorating ideas for Tracy’s knotty pine kitchen — Readers, chip in!

pam kueber - Updated: February 18, 2020

Retro Renovation stopped publishing in 2021; these stories remain for historical information, as potential continued resources, and for archival purposes.

Tracy wants our ideas on how to perk up her knotty pine kitchen. What do you think, Retro Renovation Squad? Tracy writes:

Hi Pam! My husband and I bought a 1962 ranch house in Nashville about 3 years ago and I’ve been wanting to somehow “update” the kitchen but still keep the mid-century feel. It’s a knotty pine kitchen with aqua formica countertops and a sort of aqua, peach, and ivory speckled linoleum floor. Everything is in really good shape and functional and the layout works for us. The thing we’re having some discussion about is the knotty pine on the walls and cabinets. I’m not a huge fan of it. I mean, I like it, but I just don’t like so much of it. Honestly, I’m not really sure what direction to go with it. I was wondering if you or your readers could make some suggestions of things we could do to kind of brighten the room up without changing the character, which we appreciate and love.

Thanks,
Tracy

Tracy, you may be new and not quite know it yet, but we are generally nutty for knotty in these here parts. So be forewarned. See this post about Eartha Kitsch’s knotty pine kitchen. And, you might like this story on “heart pine” — the expensive stuff, which I tend to believe you have in your kitchen, given it still looks so great.



In our email back-and-forth to get prepared for this post, I ask Tracy some more questions. First, with the pics, she says:

Yay! Thanks! Here are some pics. The area with the microwave/cart/mess of rubbermaid storage containers is the bane of my existence. Storage is an issue for us in the kitchen and we want to get some sort of behind-doors storage instead of that open microwave cart with all the pet food/crap thrown in the bottom. And the red/green/clear rubbermaid containers are for recycling, but we need to figure out another solution for the recycling/garbage that is functional and sort of funky and visually pleasing at the same time. The ceiling fan hasn’t worked since we moved in – the light is broken on it, so lighting will have to be addressed as well. Thanks again!

Then, I ask her to tell us more about how she and her husband (as yet unnamed, along with the doggie) got into the house. Ahhh! Ford is involved again. They should sponsor my blog. She writes:

Sure…we live in Nashville and bought our house about 3 years ago after an EXTENSIVE house search. We were looking for over a year before we found the house actually. In the beginning of our search, our agent was taking us to newer subdivisions, I guess because that’s what most people she works with want, but we didn’t really care for any of the newer homes. They all seemed the same….didn’t have any character or any sort of story to tell. Then we stumbled on this neighborhood called Charlotte Park and totally fell in love with it. All of the houses are mid-century ranch homes, built in the early to mid 60s for employees of the now defunct Ford Auto glass plant. Ford built a plant here in 1956 to provide glass windshields and windows for their cars and our neighborhood, Charlotte Park, grew up around it for employees of the glass plant. I believe that Ford even provided some money to help build some of the homes. The streets are all named after Ford products….Cougar Drive, Edsel Drive, Thunderbird Ave. and, our personal favorite, Mercomatic Drive. Our street is called River Rouge Dr., named after the original Ford River Rouge Complex in Dearborn Michigan. Anyway, we love the story of this neighborhood, we love the people, and we love the homes. We particularly love our home – it’s not too big (we love the “not-so-big” home ideas), it’s solidly built, and it has a lot of character and just feels warm, if that makes any sense! We knew it was perfect for us as soon as we saw it.

So, gentle readers… whatcha got for Tracy?


Reader Interactions

Comments are closed. 

95 comments

Comments

    • pam kueber says

      That is a pretty cool lookin’ cabinet, Tracy. But yes: Be careful not to get something too deep. Idea: Take cardboard or even newspapers… arrange them in the space you’d put the cabinet — see if you can even get the mockup to the proper height and then see if you feel like it’s okay or not.

      • Tracy says

        That’s a great idea….thanks! I was trying to do it with chairs and it wasn’t working very well.

        • pam kueber says

          hey i also think $400 is way too much. and: while the piece is great, i was also noodling: do you want something that doesn’t scream “wood” so much, as you already are sheathed in knotty pine? and, tracy, i think you really want to optimize all that space along the wall. you need a piece or pieces not too big not to small just right. did i mention: this all is torture. don’t listen to any of us, including me. scope, laugh, have fun and trust your instincts.

          • Tracy says

            Yeah, she said she would sell it to me for $250 but I decided it’s too big for the space. I’ll keep looking.

  3. Mary Melmac says

    Great kitchen…there’s something to be said for “original” time capsule preservation. 😉

  4. Elaine says

    Oh, my, I hate the thought of painting that beautiful wood. I do love the log cabin look and I had a house made of pine logs with all knotty pine inside, floors, walls ceilings, cabinets, even the furniture was handmade from local cedar. What tones it down a little bit is colorful window treatments and upholstery or otherwise not wood furniture. Pine can take lots of color in the accessories. I like the red and turquoise very much. Since you have to live there and don’t love the knotty pine, though, I hope you can come up with something that can be reversed should the mood strike you or maybe the next homeowner in line.

    For instance, I like the idea of a colorful backsplash. Might there be something, like tin or stainless that could be applied over the wood in such a way that it could be removed without damaging the wood too much? Could you put drywall over one or more of the walls instead of painting?

    • Julie says

      It’s been years since her post but would love to know what she did.

      I’m in the process of negotiating for a house with a knotty pine kitchen (built in 1955) and I found the description of her kitchen to almost seem to offer the answers to her questions. Sure her aqua countertops seemed to demand that color in the kitchen but she had some cool choices in the linoleum too. Personally, I think knotty pine looks remarkably good with almost any color with ‘personality’ (tangerine, red, olive green, aqua, yellow). It just seems to get out of balance when it’s asked to share the space with just white.

      I find myself hoping she didn’t succumb to the suggestions that some made that she should paint it!

    • Michaela says

      Give it time because I wasn’t too fond of my knotty pine and now I love it. When you paint, you can’t take it back either. Keep that in mind. To me painting knotty pine is a fad that will end soon.

  5. jane says

    Hi Tracy — I didn’t read all the comments so I don’t know how many people have suggested painting, but I have almost the exact same kind of kitchen in Woodland Hills, CA (a suburb of LA) in our very ranchy house. We painted ours white and spray painted the hardware black. Our floor was a very raunchy and ugly yellow 70s vinyl that we covered with black and white peel and stick tiles. Your floor looks pretty cute though. I would not be afraid to paint the wood if you don’t like it. I’ve never liked knotty pine and I doubt it would grow on me – perhaps you feel the same way. If you want to see a pic our our white cabinets with black hardware, email and I would be happy to send some your way.

  6. The Jenny says

    What an adorable family and such a sweet home. I agree with the new backsplash idea. White or light colored tile that would complement your laminate countertops. Looks like you are fond of blues, a pale turquoise color would really make the cabinets pop. Maybe paint the ceiling fan white too so it blends with the ceiling and gives the room more visual height.

  7. nina462 says

    love, love, love it! would go well with my knotty pine basement! – I would suggest red accents, or turquoise. My kitchen has a knotty pine theme-and I’ve decorated with a cheery cherry theme. But it’s in moderation. I have cherry curtains, and some cherry/fruit chalkware for the decor. I’ve also framed a couple cherry canning labels (in red frames).

  8. Rob Bielarski says

    Hi Tracy,

    I think your home is very cool. How nice to live in such a neighborhood with those neat street car names. Also, your exterior shutters with the blue squares are awesome!
    I had a kitchen in a prior home that had knotty pine similar to yours. I think part of the problem is that as you say, there is so much of it, it sort of gives you a log cabin feel. Perhaps you could make it stand out more by taking it out of the back splash area under the cabinets & maybe using formica or tile in that area. The area above your cabinets maybe could be painted or wallpapered in a neat retro-vintage style. I think this way you would have less knotty pine but at the same time, what is left would be shown off to greater effect. Maybe in the dinning area you might paint the walls a nice nuetral color or if you want to be more daring, you could match the formica on your counters for a more dramatic look.
    Good luck and enjoy !!! Rob

  9. Susan says

    Hi,

    I didn’t make it through all 56 comments, but I had a similar recycling/microwave problem that I solved with a customized cabinet from http://www.barsandbooths.com. See images 3 and 15 at this retrorenovation link:
    https://retrorenovation.com/2010/04/09/the-seven-month-saga-of-susans-steel-kitchen-and-her-recommendation-for-a-metal-cabinet-refinisher-in-new-jersey/#more-22639

    Also, I had to bite the bullet and throw out some things to make room for others. Barsandbooths will work in any material you suggest–even knotty pine, I bet! In the cabinet ,we installed two pull-out Rev-a-shelf containers for recycling, one behind each door. I found special Rev-a-Shelf units that were shallow, with the longest edge of the wastebasket facing front (I have a photo of the inside of the cabinet if you’re interested). Because my cabinet is not very deep, it doesn’t take up very much floor real estate.

    Good luck! I grew up in a 1955 ranch home in suburban Detroit in a neighborhood across the street from a Fisher Body plant, so I lived a little bit of what your neighborhood recalls.

    • Tracy says

      Oooh thanks for that link, Susan! I’ve been thinking for a while that I might need to have a custom cabinet made that can hold the microwave, recycling and has shelves for my cookbooks but I just wasn’t really sure where to go to have something like that done. This helps.

      I also saw this table on Craigslist this morning that looks like it could match my counters perfectly!!! http://nashville.craigslist.org/hsh/1738225466.html

      • pam kueber says

        Ha, Tracy – the retro decorating gods clearly read about you on the blog yesterday and sent this item to you for your consideration!

          • Nathan and Daisy says

            Tracy, we have some mid century magazines, please let us know as we could copy some stuff out for you.

            Daisy suggests pulling colors out of the floor for accent items. She also suggested hanging different colored items in the backsplash, such as mondrian style quilts wrapped around streacher frames and hung in the back splash. We have some pictures showing this. Then you wouldn’t have to destroy the back splash.

            Let us know! Nathan and Daisy

            (You can reach us via direct email at nathan at valinet dot com – replace the english with appropriate punctuation).

  10. gsciencechick says

    I think you have some good ideas here. Our knotty pine had already been painted a horrible dirty cream when DH bought the house. So, we have painted it white for the cottage/beadboard look.

    I would agree on perhaps taking out the pine in the backsplash and maybe leaving it painted for some visual breakup. We do have blue glass mosaic tile, but the cabinets are painted white.

    Also, we have a similar wall where there is no storage. I have a vintage Hoosier cabinet, but it’s still not enough, and we’re looking at what else to add there, mabye some Ikea shelving, or else I saw some modular storage units on JCP. com.

    Oh, BTW, around the corner from us is a house for sale with pretty much the exact same knotty pine kitchen AND a pink tile hall bathroom!