No Pattern Required

I know that redirecting your traffic is a big no-no in blogger world, but for those of you who haven’t read it yet, go over to Retro Renovation and check out Pam’s fantastic and ultra-detailed post on vintage metal kitchen cabinets, you will be glad you did!!!

Our 1956 Steel Geneva Cabinets

By the way, in her article Pam recommends VCT tile on the floor for a 1950′s kitchen.  If you haven’t seen pictures of our kitchen before, here it is before the VCT tile:

And here it is after!

Pretty big difference, huh????

Ohhh! You know we love to see restoration and period renovation on this site!  Everyone give a big hello to Ron, who recently sent me some amazing pictures of his “new” mid-century house.

Ron needs a little help with his kitchen cabinets, and I so I decided to share his story with all of you!

Ron writes:

In terms of color, the sky is really the limit for you! With your neutral countertops and the fact that you are getting a new floor, you could probably paint your cabinets any color you wanted.  I can’t speak for everyone, but I adore having colored cabinets instead of white.  But I love the white cabinets in my laundry room just as much as their blue kitchen cousins.

So, it is time that I start posting about some of the stuff Tom and I have been doing this fall!  During our trip to the UP,  Tom and I went to the Keweenaw Peninsula and stayed at the Laurium Manor Inn.   Well, actually we stayed at the Victorian Hall B&B, which is part of the Laurium Manor Inn’s little group of houses they have in their bed and breakfast empire.  The houses are all really, really cool with tons of great period detail.  Unfortunately, the period they are in is Victorian, which doesn’t really work for this blog, but it is still spectacular to stay there even if the renovations are ongoing and everything isn’t quite restored yet.  One of the most unique parts of the house, which I can’t resist showing here, is the ELEPHANT HIDE wallpaper from the dining room in the Laurium Inn.

Creepy, huh?  It was up in the dining room, so I had plenty of time to study it while we were eating breakfast. Bleh.

Anyway, the Laurium Inn was all Victorian, but the Victorian Hall had one section that didn’t fit in.  The kitchen had been redone in the 1960′s, and the owners hadn’t had time to refurbish it yet so Tom and I got to see it in its 1960′s glory.

Nice cabinets, don’t you think?  The hardware is unfortunate, but they were going for Victorian, so I will cut them some slack.

Original wall oven.  Does anyone know they exact date of this color?? 

The original stove, for a period touch in the kitchen.

And here is an Art Deco light that was in the Butler’s Pantry.  I ADORED this, so I had to include a picture.

Hope everyone is having a great Friday!!

So, I was digging through all of pamphlets and instructional manuals the former owner of our house had left behind for us and looking for the directions on how to operate the record player in the basement.  Seriously. I remember using a record player when I was little, but the model that is hooked up in the basement goes far beyond a simple record player. 

In any case, not only did I find the instructions for the record player, but a ton of other interesting instruction manuals as well. Including the original installation instructions that came with our blue Geneva kitchen cabinets.  I need to do a bunch of scanning before I upload the others, but here is the cabinet instructions. Enjoy!

Here are some pictures I took while out thrifting recently.  Not much to pick from, but I did like the look of this stuff!  Hope everyone is having a great Sunday!

The “new” retro Grape Nuts box!

I put this link up in Twitter yesterday, but it is so cool that it deserves another mention.

Sable sent me this great ad from Craigslist in Denver for an entire turquoise Geneva kitchen WITH built-in appliances.

Ack.

Look at this kitchen-aid dishwasher!  The thing is, I have a Kichen-Aid dishwasher in my blue Geneva kitchen too, but the blue part is on the INSIDE rather than the outside!  Bizarre, huh?

But this would be so very, very sweet in my kitchen!

But it doesn’t hold a candle to this feature:

What, it just looks like a row of cabinets, right?  Nothing special here.

Wrong!  It is a built-in fridge and freezer that just LOOK like upper cabinets!

Holy cow! And if I am not mistaken, I think that I glimpsed some of the wood-faced metal cabinets as well. You know, the ones that Pam just did a post about!?!

Wow. What a find, Sable! I hope someone can snap these babies up!

Okay, so this may not be the traditional Storybook, or “Cinderella” ranch with the Hansel and Gretel style gingerbread trim on the outside, but something about this ranch that is for sale in my neighborhood really feels like that style.  Maybe it is the great kitchen, or the rose bouquet wallpaper in the bathroom that makes me think of living inside a little cottage!

Love the exterior color, by the way. In any case, this house is 1581 square feet and is for sale for $135,000. You would have to put up with a one car garage, but otherwise this house is a great candidate for restoring to 1950′s glory!

Love this entryway tile!  The forest green is awesome and totally goes with the “into the woods” feel.

Super sweet and retro chic, I ADORE these kitchen cabinets.  The best is that they still have the original hinges that make them look like grandma’s cabinets.  I am betting that copper range hood is original! The wallpaper doesn’t look vintage, but it still cute.

The wallpaper extends into the dining room, where I am not so crazy about it, but I am crazy about that fantastic brick fireplace. Love the built-ins and the paneled wall. Hmmm…I wonder what color the kitchen cabinets used to be?

This bathroom looks redone, but check out the rose bouquet wallpaper!  It matches the curtains AND the shower curtain. Wow.  Now that is dedication to a pattern.  In any case, this bathroom could easily be redone to match the period, and the wallpaper would work, too!

Ohhhhhh…I love picture windows.  And you get a ton of neutral pinch pleat drapes.  Ahh…heaven.

So, hubby and I have just purchased a 1956 brick ranch home in Michigan, and afterwards found out that we were some of the luckiest people on the planet. When we first walked into the house, we were shocked at how vintage and fun everything looked. There were marble accent’s everywhere, a lot of original light fixtures and tons and tons of built-ins.  But what floored me the most was the spectacular kitchen!  It was full of the original metal cabinets from when the house was built, and I fell completely in love with it. Within days we had an accepted offer – and a completely new style that we didn’t even know existed!

Mid-Century Modern.

And now, everything we do is influenced by it. And why shouldn’t it be?  Our house is a picture-perfect vintage testament to how quirky and fun the 1950′s were, and how all of those great ideas shouldn’t be changed out or thrown away for something modern, but saved. By starting this blog, I will try to follow what my husband and I consider to be an important part of our lives now: restoring our vintage home.

The first thing was, of course, our fabulous kitchen. The first place we looked for information on where to start our restoration was the internet. A quick google of “Vintage 50′s Paint Colors” let us to www.retrorenovation.com , and all of Pam’s great advice. So much information can be found there! We found our paint palette in a snap (Sherwin Williams Suburban Modern Palette) and had some great leads on how to replace the filthy carpet in the kitchen and dining area. And it was something we had never even thought of: commercial flooring.

We ended up going with Armstrong’s Standard Excelon Imperial Texture  in Blue Cloud and Soft Cool Gray. It looks fantastic, as you can see from the picture.

If you are interested in more pictures of our kitchen, check out my flickr photostream. Also, Pam recently did an entry about our house and kitchen here. Please check it out!