Kitchen
Kitchen
Above: This is how the kitchen appeared when I bought the house. Its hard to see in these pictures, but the floor was light green linoleum. The kitchen still retained its 1940's flavor, which also looks very 1950's to me. I decided to do a '50s kitchen makeover (see pictures below). I had an island built locally, replaced the countertops with black Silestone, and laid a ceramic black and white checker floor. There was no pantry in the house, so I built one - the trim around the door was taken from inside a closet to match the rest of the house's trim (I still need to paint it). Almost all of the appliances are original working 1950s appliances. The only new ones are the grind and brew coffee maker, the dishwasher, and the microwave. I refurbished the 1950 GE refrigerator (paint and chrome) and the 1950 O'Keefe & Merritt Model 425-1 stove. I set up a breakfast nook with an original dinette set (re-upholstered chairs), a mid-fifties Frigidaire refrigerator, and a small table on which sets a Kenmore toaster oven/rotisserie. The breakfast area used to be like a grand entry for the home: the French doors open to the backyard and ship channel. Most of the original owner's entertaining before the seawall was built probably involved use of the backyard and its wonderful view of the water and ships, making this a highly visible part of the house. The back entrance and this entry are grander than the front entry to the house. The previous owner had their washer and dryer here. I moved them elsewhere and decided to use the floorspace as a breakfast area. I still need to either paint or re-paper the walls and make a backsplash behind the counters. Click here to learn more about the vintage appliances in my kitchen.
The kitchen has a built in ironing board cabinet, but the ironing board was missing when I purchased the house. I converted the cabinet to a spice rack, below. Several shelves can hold two rows of the smaller spice bottles, enabling this cabinet to hold all of the spices you could ever need to cook regular or gourmet meals.
Updated March 12, 2006