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Old 02-10-2017, 06:25 PM
 
2,076 posts, read 3,411,686 times
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I remember "that" green from my childhood! Plus yellow Formica counters. I'd forgotten the built in bread box until mentioned. We also had built in drawers for sugar and flour. I have no idea how old that kitchen was. The house was built in the early 1900's and I know the kitchen was an add on in the back, along with the bathroom. I'm guessing the late 1910's or early '20's as I remember my mom talking about how much fun it was to lay down in the bathtub when they first got it. As a kid I remember my mom always had to light the pilot light on the stove, one reason I never wanted to try that. I also remember after helping wash dishes, my mom would always scald the dishes with boiling water before we dried them. And all scraps went out to feed the pigs, another job of mine.
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Old 02-10-2017, 06:27 PM
Status: "Mistress of finance and foods." (set 21 days ago)
 
Location: Coastal Georgia
50,036 posts, read 63,384,408 times
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Well, my first custom kitchen had avocado appliances. My other choice was Harvest Gold. I didn't see either of those in the example. It was 1972, in my new, 4 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath house for the princely sum of $34,000.
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Old 02-10-2017, 06:34 PM
 
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,605 posts, read 57,568,971 times
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What's changed? I still use a 1953 Sears Washing machine, a Proctor Silex 1950's Ice Cream maker, and a 1928 waffle Iron that makes a LARGE waffle in 22 sec! (1 cord for each side = FAST heat). And of course my Bosch universal mixer that I have use everyday since the 1970's. (bought it used from a commercial baker).

Appliance repair? Seldom needed, but I will repair rather than replace with a 'throw-away' appliance from the 1980's.

I just wish I had the stuff from grandma's kitchen... (40" range with oven and roaster, Kerosene range-top oven for the crispy golden butter rolls, Hand water pump to the cistern below). I couldn't count the number of canned goods we put up every summer (hot bath and pressure cooking).

We still have a 'canning kitchen' (downstairs where it is cool) also a 'roll-out' range (on casters to use outside). I built a 'flip-up' rolling cabinet with extra counter and storage for all our canning supplies. Also use a food dryer built from a 4-H kit in the 1950's.

Last edited by StealthRabbit; 02-10-2017 at 06:44 PM..
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Old 02-10-2017, 07:19 PM
 
Location: Virginia
10,047 posts, read 6,327,763 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by StealthRabbit View Post
What's changed? I still use a 1953 Sears Washing machine, a Proctor Silex 1950's Ice Cream maker, and a 1928 waffle Iron that makes a LARGE waffle in 22 sec! (1 cord for each side = FAST heat). And of course my Bosch universal mixer that I have use everyday since the 1970's. (bought it used from a commercial baker).

Appliance repair? Seldom needed, but I will repair rather than replace with a 'throw-away' appliance from the 1980's.

I just wish I had the stuff from grandma's kitchen... (40" range with oven and roaster, Kerosene range-top oven for the crispy golden butter rolls, Hand water pump to the cistern below). I couldn't count the number of canned goods we put up every summer (hot bath and pressure cooking).

We still have a 'canning kitchen' (downstairs where it is cool) also a 'roll-out' range (on casters to use outside). I built a 'flip-up' rolling cabinet with extra counter and storage for all our canning supplies. Also use a food dryer built from a 4-H kit in the 1950's.
Same deal here. I have a 1953 gas Wedgwood stove/oven with constant pilot lights (great for "raising" bread and rolls), an enamel-topped table with pop-up wings, a Hoosier cabinet with a matching pantry cabinet, and a 1940's glass-front utility cabinet. Oh and a red Cosco pull-out step stool so I can reach the uppr cabinets. I did have a 1926 electric waffle iron, but I gave it to someone; however, I do have my old, heavy stand mixer with its' original bowls. And I use my Mom's Stieff Rose sterling silver wedding set every day - I even have her original order form from the Baltimore silversmiths.
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Old 02-10-2017, 08:05 PM
 
Location: near bears but at least no snakes
26,638 posts, read 28,466,335 times
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None of those pictures on that website link look like anything I remember. Maybe the 1934 kitchen a little bit.

We had a wonderful white enamel top table with art deco baby blue stripes around the edges. It had a built in silverware drawer and extra leaves that pulled out. I think the legs were chrome. "Chrome" seemed to be a very important word back then. The set of chairs that went with it was stainless steel? chrome? and had shiny blue plastic coverings.

My dad installed some linoleum pattern that was called "spatter" so that any spills wouldn't show up. He also changed the old fashioned cupboard door handles to some "modern" chrome ones.

He also installed formica countertops--wow, were we ever modern? But the real cutting edge feature was the on-off handle for the sink. He put in a single handle type much like most of us have today. Visitors joked that it was probably for beer since I guess it looked like what they use in a bar.

We had tie back curtains on all the kitchen windows. Our fridge had a tiny freezer inside that was big enough for an ice cube tray and that was about all. It was a Kelvinator. The kitchen was large and had double windows back and front because kids played outside in those days and my mother wanted to be able to keep an eye on us whether we were in the backyard or somewhere out front.
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Old 02-10-2017, 09:45 PM
 
Location: TN/NC
34,848 posts, read 30,929,707 times
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I still see some of this garbage in local homes. Many of these kitchens are complete guts and inefficient.
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Old 02-10-2017, 10:46 PM
 
Location: California
6,408 posts, read 7,612,274 times
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My Grandma used to save her cooking grease to making soap with. Oh my, she put eveything in that soap but I will always remember the smell it had as she grated it into the hot water to wash dishes. She had an old Maytag washing machine in the basement with a copper lined tub and wringer which I also used. We had many meals at her enamel table in her tiny kitchen.
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Old 02-11-2017, 07:47 AM
 
13,498 posts, read 18,101,133 times
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In the Forties our kitchens looked like those of the 1920s. Then in the Fifties our kitchen was remodeled with formica countertop, wooden cabinets on the wall and a linoleum floor. And, of course, it was an eat-in kitchen as we were a low-end working class family, and you ate in the kitchen except when company came.

My aunt, my mother's oldest sister, who lived on a farm, had a wood-burning stove, a pump over the kitchen sink basin and old fashion cupboards in her kitchen until well into the Fifties. Bringing a pump into the kitchen had been a big advance and beat hauling water from the outside pump, especially in winter. But then my family's friends who lived down the street in our town in the late Forties had exactly the same set-up - except they had piped in water.
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Old 02-11-2017, 08:13 AM
 
Location: The analog world
17,077 posts, read 13,272,374 times
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The first kitchen I remember had avocado green appliances, dark cabinetry, faux brick on the backsplash, and low-nap carpet on the floor. Don't know what my parents were thinking putting carpet in a kitchen, but it was very trendy at the time. As far as meals are concerned, I remember a lot of casseroles and stews made in my mom's trusty Crockpot. When my dad cooked, it was Chef Boyardee ravioli or pancakes.
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Old 02-11-2017, 08:53 AM
 
Location: Southern MN
11,925 posts, read 8,254,040 times
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Mom and Dad married after the Second World War and started their married lives in a basement house. The idea was that eventually they would build on it.


IIRC the kitchen was little but a hallway. It was crowded even to an infant's eye and both my crib and wooden high chair were included there. I can't remember the stove or refrigerator (suppose those were off-limits) but I do remember the food.


We lived next to a dairy state and weren't allowed to buy colored margarine. Ours came in a plastic bag looking like a pound of lard with a little red dot of food coloring in the middle. The idea was to knead the bag until the food coloring was distributed.


And I remember the first time Mom brought home a package of frozen food - Birdseye frozen peas. They must have been expensive but quite a treat.


It was my paternal grandma's kitchen across the street that was spectacular with its ponderous cast iron coal-burning stove, walk-in pantry and breakfast nook. She took orders for baking from the local townspeople and on Saturday mornings the whole downstairs would be filled with rising dough and cooling goodies of all kinds.


Just browsing through her kitchen gadgets was enough to keep me entertained for hours. She had everything - springerle and sandbakkels forms, wooden potato masher, coffee grinder from Norway, pastry cutters of various designs, potato ricer, sausage maker, wonderful cut glass cake stands, a collection of salt and pepper shakers.


My maternal grandmother still had an old wooden icebox in my earliest recollections.


My in-laws lived on a farm and they had seven boys whom they fed around an antique oak table which took up most of the kitchen. DH says his mother was so happy to replace that priceless antique with a new formica table with leaves. The oak table was retired to the grove. By the time we had thought to rescue it there was little left but firewood.
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