My office studio remodel is not the only project I have up my sleeve. Shhhhh! Don’t tell anyone: I’m also working on a new little website all about, yes, the Knotty Pine. Alas, the whole wide world doesn’t quite understand — like Betty Crafter (above) and Eartha Kitsch and Jeff and Lynne and a whole bunch of us do — that knotty pine can be a gosh-darned wonderful thing.
Can you help me tell the knotty pine story — by sharing photos of your knotty pine kitchens, dens, basements, sunrooms, tiki bars — all your knotty pine galore (bathrooms, even!) — that I can use on the new website? It’s easy to upload your photos, below. I will be so grateful! Get out your camera — most all cameras today do a great job, cell phones, too! Use natural light, and get artsy fartsy with your angles (get up on a ladder… lay down on the floor… take wide shots… take detail and accessories shots… Have fun — let’s show ’em that knotty can be nice!
Update: Uploader now closed, but view all the photos:
Tips to view slide show: Click on first image… it will enlarge and you can also read my captions… move forward or back via arrows below the photo… you can start or stop at any image:
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Jacy says
My pictures are the ones of the “Octagon Kitchen” as we call it! The house was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright in 1947 and finally built in 1951. This house needs A LOT of love, but the majority of it has not been altered since it was originally built. The uploaded kitchen pictures (“many angles” knotty pine) show that the only update was the flooring (yuck!). The kitchen also features a Towel Dryer, Metal Bread Boxes, a Vegetable Drawer, and very large Lazy Susans. Thanks to your websiite, Pam, we are having the original cooktop and wall oven “rejuvenated” from a dealer in Michigan! We love our very strange knotty pine kitchen and WILL NOT replace anything!
pam kueber says
verrrrrry cool!
Nina462 says
Shoot- I’ve been so busy with a charity garage sale this weekend, that I didn’t have time to log in, until now. I’ve uploaded a small pic. of my lovely Costco bar stools (5 for $30 at a sale last year! – I figure 4 for guests & one for a bartender behind the bar). And a pic of my favorite tv lamp in front of knotty pine. Sorry I couldn’t upload more photo’s but my house is just trashed after getting ready for the sale.
On a great note for the sale – I met the guy who built my house 🙂 He told me that my house was the first on the street in 1965. He lives close by on another street, so I can go ask him other questions as they come up. Thanks Pam!
clg1977 says
Love the photos! I’m a long time reader and just uploaded photos of both our knotty pine basement den and knotty pine first floor office. When we bought our house in Melrose, MA the realtor suggested that the knotty pine was old fashioned and that we should whitewash over it. Never! We absolutely love it. Our house was built in the late 1930s, which is when I think the knotty pine dates to, but they also clearly did some bathroom renovations in the 1950s as we have two super well preserved baby blue bathrooms.
MCM is Grand says
We have a room with painted-over panels, with grooves, I am assuming that underneath is KP…but here is my question…whomever installed these over the drywall did not go a great job…sections “bow out”, you can push the panels about an inch to the wall in places, and it bounces back….is there anything we can do now, short of ripping out the entire room?
Laura's Last Ditch--Vintage Kitchenwares says
I just went to a garage sale yesterday that had the most wonderful knotty pine garage! I wish I had had my camera with me!
Sherree says
Love them all! The only knotty pine left in our home is in the mudroom/laundry area (pictures 13 &17) which is just off the kitchen. When we do the remodel of this space, the washer/dryer will go back to the main bath (where it was originally) and the knotty pine room will become part of the kitchen 🙂
Can’t wait for the website Pam!
Sherree says
Ignore the numbers of my photos; they are moving all over the place 🙂
wendy says
I love my knotty pine “ratskeller”. That’s what they called finished basements in the 50’s. (at least in St. Louis.) My pics are from the original listing except for the one with the pink bar stools. Like many here, I have so many projects that I haven’t done much down there. I also love the fact that the unfinished portion has stained and oiled wood panels on the walls!
wendy says
oops – my pics haven’t been “freed” yet, so when they are, reread my post 😉
pam kueber says
Wendy, I woke up, and set your photos free. However: Do you have photos of the ratskellar that you took (vs. the ones from the real estate listing)? I would like to show your basement on the blog at some point — BUT I would need to have photos you took, not MLS photos. You do not own the copyright to those photos, and in reality, I need to delete them.
wendy says
I found them! (couldn’t at first…another incomplete project…organizing my digital photos so I can locate them quickly.) They were taken before I bought the house, with my very own camera 🙂 I will upload them shortly.
pam kueber says
thanks, Wendy, I’ll keep an eye out in between my house projects today!
Just another Pam says
Each and every one a treasure!
Marion Powell says
Wow! I love knotty pine but have a newer house. Will sheet rock ever develope nosatalgia? Lol
I’m glad you’re doing this new site. I love seeing all the pictures.
Photos 18 & 19 are my favorites. Why? Because of all the colonial maple furniture in them. I have a house full of colonial maple couches, chairs, beds, dressers, chests of drawers, corner hutches, and the most beautiful (to me, anyway) kitchen table and chairs.
As I tell my husband, our next house will be the cutest cottage with all those lovely 50’s touches. In the mean time, I’ll enjoy your site!
Jeanne2 says
You want knotty? Oh my, we have an entire lake cabin of knotty. Unfortunately, all I have are pictures that my husband took prior to listing the cabin for rent last year – complete with his little messes and mismatches everywhere. We recently spent a week sprucing up the place prior to renting it out again this year but I was so exhausted from cleaning every one of those boards that I didn’t think to take new pictures. Okay, I didn’t have the strength to pick up the camera and was probably a little high on Murphy’s Oil soap. :o)
The cabin is a family ‘heirloom’ built in 1948. Wish we lived closer so we could enjoy it on weekends (and also dig into some reno projects) but we hope to spend our post retirement summers there.
pam kueber says
I WANT that cabin!!!
Chutti says
LOVE your cabin, too! My first house was a 560 sq ft (nope, not kidding!) cabin in the redwoods. 100% knotty pine. Walls and vaulted ceilings. I LOVE KP, but under the trees felt like a thousand pine eyes were looking at me while I was asleep.It was very dark under the redwoods and in a mistaken fit of ‘lightening things up’ I pickled white the KP in my bedroom.
Big mistake. It took 2 weeks with full fans going for the white pickle finish to dry! I learned my lesson. Don’t mess with the KP and Amber shellac is your best friend. Two KP kitchens later, I am still a huge fan. No KP in our 1920 spanish bungalow now.
But I still consider a KP kitchen to be the ultimate. Love em.
BTW- your cowboy sofa and chair set on the porch brings back memories. My dear old roommate loved her set like that. I knew her marriage was in trouble when the ex made her sell them at a garage sale. Sigh. She and I loved those things.
Robin says
Chutti,
I would love to see pics of your 1920’s spanish. I love that style, too. Do you have a blog?
Chutti says
No blog currently.
We just had our 1 yr anniversary in our house this weekend.
Main focus has been on the landscaping, so not too many interior pics yet.
There is very little that needs done to my pink bath with original fish wallpaper. Hubs already put the new VCT inlay in the kitchen, but haven’t done pix until he finishes the attached hall/laundry area this summer.
Eventually, they will come. Right now, still very much in flux. Still all about the infrastructure around here.
Love seeing that cabin!
Mario Powell says
Jeanne2- just realized that your cabin pics have the furniture I like. Love the horse chair and sofa as well as the hutch and couch in the other picture.
It’s nice to see there are other mid-century fans who also like the maple/colonial/non-modern vibe.