One of the things that sold reader Melita on her 104-year-old Victorian farmhouse when she purchased it 25 years ago was the 1963 kitchen added by the previous owner. Tragically, the 1963 kitchen was destroyed in a fire a few years ago. But instead of feeling defeated, Melita rebuilt and created her dream kitchen. Notably, Melita used steel kitchen cabinets available today from a company that manufactures and sells cabinetry for laboratories. What a terrific alternative for Retro Renovators who do not want to go through the epic struggle of searching out vintage steel kitchen cabinets.
Melita worked hard to replicate the 1963 kitchen that she had loved so much, while also adding some new elements — like her 1938 Chamber B-11 gas stove. The kitchen remodel took three years to complete but Melita wouldn’t have it any other way — now she’s living in her retro modern dream kitchen.
Melita writes:
Dear Pam,
I am sending pics of my ‘dream’ kitchen, recently completed (completed? Is a kitchen ever completed???) after a gut-redo due to a fire. The design and materials are newer versions of the original materials that were in the kitchen when we bought the house 25 years ago. The proud seller told us about her renovation 25 years before that — in 1963 — and we fell instantly in lust with the house and kitchen. It took us a good part of three years to finish the entire renovation after the fire.
A few months before the fire we had embarked on updating/changing the appliances to better fit our current needs. We took out the dishwasher and replaced it with a combo unit washer/dryer which was much needed and used as the laundry room is in the basement and not easily within reach. We replaced the fridge — the 1963 one had been replaced long ago by a tenant — with an Energy Star with an access door, a feature that is very rarely seen but works great for us.
And after the fire, we were finally able to get our dream stove, a Chambers B-11 gas stove. I believe it is a 1938 model. She came from afar — Buffalo NY — Ebay purchase.
The cabinets are an updated version of the originals, Yorktown (yes, Yorktown, not Youngstown. I know there was only one other person on the Forum that had those). They are taller and bigger than the ones made in the 1950’s. The new ones were made by Genie Scientific/Moya Living in Laguna Beach, California. These cabinets are a joy to use and pure eye-candy. There is a gap where the contractors did not account for the spacers when they sent the order. They just used the widths of the old cabinets themselves. I have been toying with various ideas – constructing shelves, etc. At some point… For the time being, it holds the broom/mop/dustpan.
The stove, a 1938 Chambers is considerably shorter than the counter. There is definitely a visual break there, but after using it I realized how much easier it is to see the food into the pots in the back at that height…
Breakdown for the appliances and fixtures:
- Stove: Chambers B-11 model – 37 and ½ inches wide.
- Washer & Dryer Combo unit (where a dishwasher would normally go, but I have no use for it) is a 24’’ wide LG WM3455HW.
- Sink: Kohler Delafield tile-in/metal frame right out of your blog.
- So is the hudee ring, order from Vance Industries.
- Counter top: Wilsonart Grey Glace (update, seems discontinued). We had the exact same one matching our French Country Blue American Standard sink. That sink was a good color but awful quality… Fiberglass. No comparison to cast iron/enameled. And worse yet, it was ‘self rimming’. Now the counter top also matches new sink.
- Cabinet handles from Lowes (I can’t find them online at the moment, but they looked very atomic age to us…)
- Faucet: Chrome Gooseneck from Plumbing Overstock (link now gone) — We also purchased a Dishmaster for this sink for ‘later’.
- Fridge: GE GSHL6PHXLS.
- Hood: Vent-a-Hood, their ‘retro’ design (here pictured in the color of your kitchen!), and ‘under the hood’ is a powerful Magic Lung, an exhaust advertised as keeping the fire from spreading. We can wholeheartedly vouch for that, as we had the exact brand exhaust before and it kept the fire from spreading anywhere in the house.
- The under cabinet light is strip led lights from Costco – self stick! No holes on the cabinets.
- I used Rare Earth Magnets – they are VERY strong – to hold the metal key holder shown on the vertical pic. My keys are many and heavy.
- The backsplash is glass tile from Home Depot, less than $10 per square foot.
- The floor is Atlantic Birch laminate.
I find laminate [flooring] very comfortable and easy in the kitchen. Especially the non grooved type. Easy to clean and maintain, non-flammable, easy to install. OK, this time I had it installed. But only because it was an insurance job. One thing I regret though, I didn’t get Pergo, which I had before, only because I couldn’t find a non-grooved Birch or Beech I liked. But Pergo is better constructed, more durable and it does not bubble if liquid seeps between planks. I am foreseeing replacing the floors with Pergo in the not so distant future…
One ‘pocket’ that doesn’t show in the pictures is the ‘other’ side of the fridge. I have a tool chest there! (although I got it from Sam’s last year, I don’t see it available there now). A stainless steel tool chest with butcher’s block top and on the wall above it, not yet hung, will have my copper pots. I find having the tool chest in the kitchen immensely useful. All the power and non-power tools right there, within reach summer and winter. Our “garage” is the old barn, not that close to the house.
The house, a lovely 104-year-old Victorian farmhouse, was at some point divided into apartments for the various members of the previous owner’s extended family (they owned it for over 70 years!) So although the house is big, each unit has a very urban apartment feel.
Your website has been indispensable to my quest to replace our kitchen after the fire. I wrote to you then (2009) looking for help with metal cabinets and all your tips helped me restore our lives… There is no way to express my gratitude for that. I am including all these product details in the hope that I may ‘pass it forward’, as you did.
Thank you, thank you so much!
Melita
PS – that pitiful microwave has to go. A street find. Did a good job before the stove got hooked up.
In a separate email to Pam, Melita mentioned that at first, her and her contractors didn’t see eye to eye on how the kitchen should look. She wrote:
I am glad you like the kitchen and again thank you for your website and all your help!!!! My contractors hate you since day one! You couldn’t have had a better complement than that. They wanted to “build me a ‘nice’ contemporary kitchen with ‘cherry wood cabinets with a ‘nice’ beige granite countertop, and ‘nice’ beige walls” – eeeeek!
Melita, you did a fabulous job creating a kitchen with a vintage feel, modern vibe and all the comforts that make it a dream to use — and not caving to your contractor’s idea of what a nice kitchen should look like. It is obvious by the way you talk about your kitchen and the smile on your face that this labor of love was well worth the wait, time and effort that it took to find just the right pieces for your dream kitchen. Thanks so much for sharing your story, photos and sources with all of us in the Retro Renovation community. Yes: Passing it forward.
And Pam adds: Thank you so much, Melita, for your lovely lovely comments. They mean so much to me. xoxo
Doug Camin @ House on Rynkus Hill says
This looks great – I really like the metal cabinetry. Using non-standard materials for this type of a job really added a lot of character!
Robin, NV says
I love how personal this story is. Melita knows her house, her kitchen, and her needs and she made sure she got all of it. The backsplash is a lovely little hint of color and I like how it matches the glass shelves next to the sink. The white enameled sink with the hudee ring makes me want one too! It looks great against the grey of the countertops.
db says
Fantastic kitchen! Where did you find the glass quarter round shelves though? I haven’t had any luck w/ my search.
MELITA says
This was the one real contribution of the contractor. I just insisted on having them, and to his credit, he got it done. I will ask him and let you know. It took some doing, mostly because he couldn’t figure out how to attach them. I found the shelf holders on this site, an article about bathroom shelves with an ad for small glass shelves form Bed Bath and Beyond, I believe.
pam kueber says
Here is my story on how I did it: https://retrorenovation.com/2008/03/19/retro-kitchens-on-countertops-and-installing-glass-corner-shelves/
Melita says
Thank Pam! I hadn’t seen that story. Using an extra piece, a “filler”, “spacer”, to avoid the ugly long screws peering out of the back makes a lot of sense.
Cheryl m says
Container Store sells a glass corner shelf kit:
http://www.containerstore.com/shop/shelving/wallMountedShelving/completeShelfKits?productId=10008632
there are several options if you search at Amazon as well:
http://www.amazon.com/John-Sterling-KT-0134-1212SN-Corner-12-Inch/dp/B0042U2UYS/
pam kueber says
Thanks for the tips, Cheryl m. See my video — I show how we used brackets that are even more streamlined, meant for shower shelves.
Jay says
Very nice! Especially like the pale green tile and the glass shelves. How appropriate to use lab cabinetry, the kitchen was at one time thought of as a lab for food prep. Kudos for resisting the contractor’s sledgehammer attempt to get you to abandon your vision for the latest styles.
Dan says
I love those old gas stoves, but the pilot lights on them are a bear on the gas bill and make the kitchen hot in the summer (I had a beautiful Tappan for a while that had THREE pilots)
Is there a way to retrofit pilot lights to auto-ignite?
pam kueber says
Dan – consult with a pro on this issue. May also be a building code issue.
MELITA says
I simply turned the pilots off. No need to waste gas, produce more heat in the summer, and so on. I even have a cut-off for the gas, visible behind the stove. I turn the gas off after I am done with cooking and cover the stove. There is nothing wrong with using matches or a long lighter. Then, again, that’s the european way… I had never seen pilots on stoves before coming to the US.
lynda says
Very nice looking kitchen! Very creative to use medical cabinets. I would have never thought of that. Nothing bland or boring about your kitchen.
Melita says
Thank you! Four years later and I still feel great in it! I recently had an appraiser through the house and he was full of exclamations about the kitchen!
Stacia says
Great job! I love how you resisted the contractor’s efforts to put in a NICE kitchen! Haha. I am very curious to know what these cabinets cost in comparison to other choices. I understand if you don’t want to share that info, but maybe that would be a good topic for Pam or Kate??
Melita says
Apologies for such a late response Stacia. The cost was NOT PROHIBITIVE at all. Everything is relative, of course. I had replacement value insurance, which meant if I wanted metal I got metal. In our search for metal cabinets we had the option to scout for old ones and refurbish – too time consuming, nothing guaranteed and not cheap in the long run, getting SS cabinets to the tune of $30+K for the kitchen, which the adjuster was in the process of considering, and then we found Genie Scientific which did them for about half that. Our adjuster was elated, did not hesitate at all to give us the ‘go ahead’. Under 17K with shipping across country, from CA to MD – train freight, curb delivery. About 16K+. Not a cheap kitchen by any means, but then again… I see lots of folks splurging on appliances, which are a lot easier replaceable and skimp on the cabinets, which require a whole lot of work to change.
Mary Elizabeth says
Melita,
What a good job you did on your kitchen! I never would have thought of buying cabinets from a laboratory supply place, but it makes perfect sense. And I bet they are sturdy and ultimately functional as a result. Congratulations, too, for surviving the trauma of a house fire. Our first kitchen redo was prompted by an automatic coffee maker that went on early one morning, brewed a full pot of coffee, then burst into flame. That was back in 1989, but I still wake up at night at the slightest noise–a cat in the newspaper basket sounds like crackling flame to me. And yes, we are vigilant about replacing and rewiring outlets that are even slightly suspect, have smoke detectors galore, and make sure all the materials we use for our renovations are fire retardant. Will look up the Vent-a-Hood right away! Thanks for sharing your experience and resisting the contractors’ (and real estate agents’) litany of what is required for a nice kitchen. This year it’s still cherry cabinets and granite countertops, but what about next year or even next week?
Chad says
Haven’t lived through a house fire, but as I see how scary my house’s wiring is I’ve gotten paranoid about a fire, too. I’m a couple weeks away from a full rewire. Then my neighbor was using a smoker grill, and meanwhile I was thinking if my house is burning down it smells delicious!
Patty says
Before the Internet was so developed, I wanted to buy these types if cabinets. Being able to do our research online and shop online , etc. makes it so much easier to decorate outside the big box store. Very nice.
Sarah g (roundhouse) says
Great job Melita! Way to think ‘outside the box store’! It looks so sleek and modern but vintage at the same time. It takes some persistence with contractors at time but its so worth it in the end, congratulations!