What was inside all the boxes?
We now get to see!
Close your eyes. Imagine it’s 1948. You recently ordered a big set of Youngstown Steel Kitchen cabinets. The delivery truck has just arrived. The delivery men tote the big boxes into your garage. They begin to open them up. You are so excited!
Now: Open your eyes. It’s 2015 — not 1948 — but we all get to experience the thrill of opening up all the boxes! Yes: Today we get to see the very first photos of the big set of New Old Stock Youngstown Steel Kitchen cabinets that reader Ben recently discovered in storage. As you may recall, we first showed these cabinets — but still hidden in their boxes — in this story earlier this month.
They are just as pretty — just as shiny and new — as they day they were packed into their boxes. So pretty! So shiny! So new!
And woah, Nellie, hang on, because, there is a 1948 General Electric stove to go with. It is brand new, too.
Ben said the price tag was still on it: $270.
In case you didn’t catch that: Brand new. Reader Janet in ME piped right in and said it’s a GE Airliner. A GE Airliner! Woot! Our readers are So Smart. Thank you, Janet in ME!
Apparently, not one scratch new. It was all crated up.
Brand spanking new. Oh my goodness.
New new new new new. It doesn’t get much better than this.
But wait, it does get better than this. The best part, imho: New Old Stock Cusheen vinyl countertops to match up with the Youngstown Steel Kitchen cabinet bases.
There are a lot of steel kitchen cabinets around (of course, not NOS), and there are a lot of GE ranges around (ditto) — but pristine Cusheen countertops? These are flipping amazing.
Ben says that the Cusheen vinyl is adhered straight onto steel. As you can see in the photo above, there is a steel channel underneath and multiple short channels behind the backsplash to reinforce the structure. What I mean to say: There is no wood substrate to these countertops! They are Cusheen-on-steel. Ben says it’s 16 gauge. It’s honking heavy stuff.
You screw the countertops right onto the cabinets. I think those are the screws, above.
Note: The drainboard sink was used; Ben says it’s in great shape, though. Also: The sink front was used and needs some work; Ben says the paint has yellowed, and it will need to be repainted to match the other cabinets. Back story seems to be: The complete kitchen was purchased back in ’48 or ’49 with a remodel in mind. Obviously, the remodel never happened. But the owners used the sink base and the sink in another location. In addition, there likely were wall cabinets — but these were also used in another project, long gone.
What is the total tally of what was found? Ben has not made up a list — but he took photos of the boxes, and they are in the slide show, if you want to count.
Ben wants to sell these
What is going to happen to these cabinets? Ben wants to sell them. I really think they belong in a museum and am reaching out to my museum friends right away today to see if they can help get these things to a museum. Meanwhile, Ben is open to offers. He wants to sell everything as a set. (UPDATE: See below; sold. — great follow up story!)
Update: How the story ends
- UPDATE: The cabinets went to a museum — a result of our story! See how the story ends by reading this story here.
More about Youngstowns and Cusheen:
- Must see: “The Mullinaires” sing the praises of Youngstown Steel Kitchen Cabinets in 1953. Classique!
- See our story about Cusheen countertops here. It was an alternative to linoleum, available in a variety of rich colors.
- See the original Cusheen countertops in Brian and Keri’s kitchen here.
- Click here to see this late-1950s catalog showing these countertops — and lots of pretty Youngstown kitchens.
Yowza. Eight years nine-and-a-half years (yowza, I just checked — it’ll be 10 years soon!) into doing this blog daily. Just when I think we will run out of stories, stuff like this comes at us. Yay!
Thank you so much, Ben, for sending all the photos. What a great thing you did by rescuing these! Be sure to tell whoever buys them about RetroRenovation.com and to give them our contact info — we want to see where they land!
CONTINUE to next page to see the SLIDE SHOW — 80 double-sized photos:
Tips to view slide show: Click on any image… it will enlarge to 1000 pixels wide on your screen … click anywhere to move forward, and look for previous and next buttons within photo to move back or forth… you can start or stop at any image:
Kathy says
This website is always such great inspiration. I’m curious what movies/tv do RR readers love as vintage kitchen inspiration? I like Bewitched for the Early American vibe, and Hazel and Lucy for kitchens. I have yet to trudge down to the big library downtown to look for vintage home magazines.
Karen says
LOVE the “Thrift Cooker” feature!
pam kueber says
Yes, isn’t it AWESOME! And the fact that the paperwork is still all there!!!
valerie says
Love this!! Would look great in my house, especially the sink and stove!!
Eleanor says
Oh, Boy! The year was 1952 and the kitchen was Youngstown. Then 25 years later, I was truly never so glad to get rid of anything because we remodeled. But wait! After we moved an hour away, those SAME kitchen cabinets turned up in the garage of our new house as a work bench and storage place for tools. My husband NEVER got rid of anything!! It is now 2015 (63 years later) and those SAME cabinets have just gone to the dump. I think we got our money’s worth!!
Mary says
I absolutely love this! They don’t make anything as good as this! I wished I had this one!
Lucretia says
Just a question… if that’s a GE Airliner range (as the label says) why are there are the GE Stratoliner manuals for it?
Either way… Love this kitchen and I would live in it if I could!
pam kueber says
Not sure. But the stove itself has the Airliner on its control panel.
Dennis says
Very Nice if you want your kitchen to look like the 1950’s
pam kueber says
Uh. Yes. We do.
Ed says
You know, they lose most of their value once you take them out of the box. Or is that just Hot Wheels cars and action figures?
Douglas Camin @ House on Rynkus Hill says
Umm….wow. What an amazing find. This stuff is still out there and pops up every once in a while! Glad it got to be shared and documented!
cocoa says
My old house had some of these! When I moved in, there was this h****** [edited] colonial wallpaper in the kitchen and the cabinets were horribly yellowed and caked on with grease. I power sanded them down as much as possible and repainted them white. I stripped the wallpaper and painted the walls aqua. Eventually, I got tired of the aqua and painted them red. It was fabulous. I had the base cabinet with a side cabinet and some upper cabinets. How much I miss them!
pam kueber says
Hey just to note: We actually love us some colonial wallpaper here! H-word edited accordingly! 🙂