Who was the most influential residential architect of the 20th Century that you never heard of? Royal Barry Wills. Who was the most influential residential interior designer of the 20th Century that you never heard of? Hazel Dell Brown. I wonder if they ever met each other. If I had a dinner party time machine, these two would be At The Top of My List! Above: Let’s discuss Anatomy of a Kitchen Design — Hazel Dell Brown for Armstrong Linoleum, Kitchen Design 1941.
Mrs. Dell Brown was an Indiana home ec teacher hired in the 1920s by Armstrong to create aspirational rooms for their advertising. To understate it: She knew how to pull together a room.
In this little piece of 1941 taffy delight, she shows us how to judiciously combine colors with a bit of eye-popping pattern — polka dots done positive and negative in two colorways, oh my! — to create a happy, airy kitchen.
Hey, there’s even room for the Mrs. of the house to write a novel in between her time spent cooking and sewing up some more … ruffled upholstery.
Dell Brown also gives us an alternate color pattern that includes a ceiling “painted delphinium blue”. I have just decided: Somewhere in my house, I need a ceiling painted delphinium blue. Note: The mood board above illustrates how ya build a room’s color/design palette: START WITH YOUR PATTERN. In this case, it’s the plaid on the curtain. Ya pull all the colors for your room from that first piece. Ta da. Thank you, Mrs. DB!
- Do you remember the story I did about the drawings of Louisa Kostich Cowan, the protege of Hazel Dell Brown?
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Several things about this kitchen really jumped out at me. I absolutely adore the glass bricks, or do we call them cubes now? But I don’t think they would work in the frigid cold of New England. I wonder if she designed this kitchen with herself in mind, with the desk workspace and typewriter. And keeping the sewing machine right handy is so typical of housewives back then. There is a lower cabinet and dropped down counter to the left of the sink, and I think I see a stand mixer there. This was also a typical “concentrated” workspace as she calls it, but what we would now consider “dedicated” This lower counter area is perfect for people who knead bread and do a lot of hand mixing – easier on the back. The house across the street from me was custom built for a home economics high school teacher and she had an L kitchen with one long counter space just like it. The description under the photo says it uses “Rose Coral Linowall” which must have also been one of Armstrong’s products – I love that color. I always wondered how they put that floor down. Did they have to make a lot of seams for the inset borders? There must have been a lot of skilled floor installers back then! Very interesting design and designer, thanks Pam.
There are still folks today who will do linoleum cuts like the ones shown here… a real art form, I think…
Yes, Marmoleum comes in sheets and can be installed like that, but the trick is to find someone who can do it. I considered Marmoleum Click flooring (linoleum tiles that click together) which is a somewhat similar look but doable for DIY install, and comes in lots of colors, too!
I have a 1942 Sherwin Williams paint and interior decorating guide. Its a great big, oversized counter book from a store I think. There are pages full of decorated rooms, and it gives the colors that were used. Interior and exterior. Gorgeous book. It has the actual paint chip for Delphinium Blue glued in it. It was a special mix color.
WOW!
I could try to send you some pictures, if you’d like.
#4 in the mood board above is a sample of what delphinium blue looks like. Pretty color, quite intense for a ceiling, but could be dramatic!
This kitchen would be amazing to work in. The colours and styling are gorgeous. I don’t believe I have ever seen a window inserted into a glass brick wall before.
I need to save this one! They really knew how to utilize space very efficiently. Kitchens were really a women’s space then and they incorporated everything in there. Love the use of the pull-out shelf for the typewriter. The use of the glass block to pull in as much light as possible it brilliant. I am building the putz houses as quarter inch scale dollhouses with interiors and lighting. This kitchen will go into one of them. We are going to have a whole neighborhood under the tree this year.
I totally love this room too! It’s so workable and such a great layout of combinations and textures…you could also easily adapt this layout in a modern 21st century kitchen, like that nifty desk area, only imagine a laptop/tablet/charging areas, inspiration boards and one’s cleverly stored work accessories there. And maybe a “creating” area in place of the sewing machine for any creative hobby.
This would be ingenious for a SAHM–or any parent–who works from home since it provides a dedicated workspace AND helps you to be right there when it’s time to switch to parenting mode.
Or anybody, who works from home and needs to maximize space.
The Armstrong company has been doing the same kitchen design layouts highlighting their products for years. I remember seeing them in the Better Homes & Gardens and others in the 60s-70s and most likely later.
Armstrong had a way of incorporating their flooring into bathrooms and sunrooms and family rooms in stylish ways. I want to look at the Armstrong archives now.
Yes, it all started with Hazel Dell Brown.
Yes, and in the 70’s, Armstrong owned Founders Furniture and would feature the furniture in the flooring ads. I wrote to them about some of the furniture and they replied with the names of the pieces and where I could buy them. I bought a Founder’s wall unit with woven rattan on some of the doors. The wood was light elm. It is still in use today in our home.
Pam, the old sketches and/or photos of the vintage kitchens you share are the cat’s meow. Who wouldn’t want a glass block wall full of geraniums – a “taffy delight”. Nothing says 40s like the glass block and inlaid flooring, the streamlined modern look before MCM went full tilt.
Oh WOW. I have a wall in my breakfast nook the same size of that window wall, which has been plaguing me. Paint? Wallpaper? No, GLASS BLOCK THE WHOLE THING. Brilliant! And I just happen to have a palette of salvaged PINK glass block in my garage… (Oh my husband is gonna LOVE this one!)
If you do the pink glass please share…I lived in a two story townhouse from the 1940’s with a whole two story wall of that glass and I loved it. I would love to see pink done.
Well it’s going in somewhere. Always best to buy your building materials, and then decide what to do with them, no? Haha! I had thought an interior dividing wall, but now I have to figure out how to talk my husband into this amazeballs idea! (and my “talk” I mean, well… ahem.)
This makes me wonder – what happened to these old floors with these cool designs? Did homeowners really use these cool designs? I never see anything like these, and would think that at least a few would have survived. Our family home was built in 1950 and had those shiny asbestos tiles, the kind you find in old high schools.
Recently I saw an episode of Restored on the DIY Network where Brett uncovered the original linoleum in a 100 year old house. He asked the couple if he could restore it and they said yes! The lino looked lovely and did have some of these details of design shown in the top photos. Linoleum will last and last if properly taken care of.
“Linoleum will last and last if properly taken care of.” Yes, I remember helping my mom properly take care of it growing up. You need to sweep up several times a day (tracked in sand and grit can stay there), wash and wax it once a week, then watch the discoloration from the wax accumulate around the edges. This is where striping the wax comes in. I think we did it four times a year. Then the chemicals in the wax stripper (unless you use the vinegar and cream of tartar formula, which she didn’t know about then) damage the surface of the floor so that you then have to re-seal it with a special sealer recommended by the manufacturer. My dad did most of the DIY work at home, but I remember my mom’s glee at ripping up the old linoleum so he could replace it with easier to clean no-wax vinyl tile. I admire the folks on this site who have uncovered and restored linoleum floors. They are committing to a daily relationship with that floor.
New Marmoleum linoleum is much easier to care for. It comes with a sealant TopShield coat.
https://www.greenbuildingsupply.com/Learning-Center/Flooring-Marmoleum-LC/How-to-Maintain-Marmoleum
Thanks for that info. Marmoleum is not the squishy floor covering that can be cut accidentally with a knife, is it?
I assume, however, that when one restores the original linoleum you have to take care of it 1950s style. 🙂
At the back of the flooring store where catalogs of commercial stuff is you can find linoleum. Look for Armstrong or Forbo (marmoleum) or Johnsonite. Probably rings of samples there too. Like the song says, “love at first feel” ! The store can tell you who can Install it or the manufacturer will have a list online. The guy that the store recommended to me had a lot of pictures of his work which had some complicated multiple color inlays.
Directly after install I applied 3 coats of acrylic per Armstrong’s instructions and that keeps wear & tear down. And keeping a dust mop nearby.
I’m not going to go so far as “cool” designs but the house I grew up in had two tiles in from the wall of light with green splatters, then one course of dark green with light splatters and the center light again. That, for sure, was the dining room and possibly the living room also (Mom decided to put peel & stick carpet down in the late ’60’s) but I really can’t remember the foyer. Likely it was there when my parents bought it in 1956. Built in the early 1900’s, I think, as a riverside cottage (how we fit 6 kids and 2 adults?!), it had a cistern (I think, although I remember my dad kept his minnows in there) and another outside near the house.
So, yes, at least one modest home used linoleum tile to fancy up floors.
My 1952 ranch home has a huge window (5 1/2 feet wide) in the hall bathroom / laundry room made of those glass blocks. The very center has a tiny window that opens for ventilation. I love how much light it lets in without having to worry about privacy.
What a cute, tidy room. Today’s houses, in addition to a kitchen, have a designated office and a sewing/craft room!
I work in a grade school that was built in 1963. We have the original linoleum tiles in almost all of the classrooms. Our custodian dust-mops them almost every night, and the rooms are totally cleared out at the end of the school year and the floors are deep-cleaned and waxed during the summer. They look brand new after that’s done.
I love everything about this kitchen, except for the polka dots on the desk. That dark blue, marble-looking floor is amazing!
As a native of Lancaster, PA, I love Armstrong flooring. Many of my friends dads worked there and everyone I knew had Armstrong flooring in their kitchen and bathroom. My mom updated her pink and black tile bathroom floor and was dissatisfied with the product and Armstrong replaced it for free. My mother washed her kitchen and bathroom floor every day except Sat and Sunday. She felt like the indentations in the new vinyl floor trapped dirt and she could not get it clean! Every spring and fall, my dad cleaned and buffed their hardwood floors, he loved it when they installed wall to wall carpet. No more buffing!
I am looking for retro carpet for my 1971 built condo. I want plush avocado green and plush harvest gold. Ideas?
The glass wall for sure, but the polka dot desk is pretty snazzy!
I am still puzzling wuzzling over how to redo my 1950s kitchen, especially the window treatments. This one is a real contender — love the matchstick blinds and pink silk curtains! And the positive-negative polkie dots!
omg…I think we had that same color linoleum in our house when we moved in my mom’s house in 1968. The house was built in 1933. I’ve been thinking about going back to that so it was nice to see how it would look. thanks!
On Indianapolis’ north side, suburb Carmel has a main thoroughfare named Hazel Dell Parkway. Now we know who she was. Thanks.
Wow!
That’s a neat little piece of retro that isn’t easily torn down! Of course Ganesha Avenue in Southern California was changed to the more lovely Fairplex drive.
I really like how this kitchen had a designated space even for typing and sewing. I prefer this style to today’s large islands stuck in the middle. How often I’m sewing on a item and have something baking in the oven, course, writing thank you notes & checking email on the kitchen table. Thanks for this pic. It’s given me some great ideas for my next home. They were so practical back then.
@Katharine Carroll, I’d much rather have a nice kitchen table in my renovated kitchen than an island. However, I’m going to need to put my cooktop/rangetop or wall ovens in an island. Our kitchen is too small and u-shaped and by installing an island we’ll make it about double the size it is now. Kitchen tables invite family and friends to hand around and talk after the meal, they’re good for kids doing homework and us adults paying bills and other adulating, they can be great work surfaces for us short bakers, and they’re wonderful for aging in place. Our current kitchen table will be moved to the Florida room/sunroom for family dinners. The kitchen table needs to make a comeback.
My ode to kitchen tables — I am a fan of tables v. islands — from the early days of the blog — https://retrorenovation.com/2009/12/30/in-praise-of-kitchen-tables-plus-a-new-photo-gallery/
I love those tables, Pam, and the idea behind them! People share and live their lives more around a table than they are likely to around the best kitchen island in the world
There are currently a couple of stories on Houzz that us RetroRenovators might like. One was just posted and is about the glories of some vintage furniture pieces like telephone tables, roll top desks, dressing tables, and stereos. and the other is of a cool time capsule house in Austin with a teal kitchen, green bathroom and knotty pine panelling.