I bet you're all curious about how the apartment is coming along. Well, it's going slowly, but there have been some advances. I've been making plans and finding deals on some items that I'll be putting in the new kitchen when I remodel it. Some of those items are vintage appliances. Now, most people go all mushy when they install brand new top of the line appliances. Not me - I melt into my shoes at the sight of well preserved or restored appliances from yesteryear. I've been lucky enough to snag two of the three that I'll need for the new kitchen!
This is my new Caloric dishwasher. I believe it's from the early 1970's and is my latest find. I needed an 18" dishwasher for my small kitchen and thought I would have to go with a new one that had a panel front and controls on the top edge to keep the vintage quality of the kitchen intact - and then this came up on Craigslist! It's a simple, basic dishwasher, but it has a very retro look to it.
The controls are set into a brushed aluminum panel that's printed in black. I love the fine red and blue lines around the shiny chrome buttons. Everything is metal - including the interior, which is plastic on the later model dishwasher in my kitchen now. All this for just $30!
Now this little item will be the centerpiece of my new kitchen. It's a vintage 1960's Frigidaire Flair stove. These babies are the rock stars of vintage appliances. There are online communities devoted to them, they're well documented online, and one of them was featured in Samantha's kitchen on Bewitched for years. I found mine in Delaware. I did an event down there in April and picked it up the day after. It needs a bit of cleaning, but I'm up to the challenge!
I love the control panel. It's so glamorous! The stove features a gull wing glass oven door that opens upward and a pull out drawer with a counterbalanced baffle that has the burners on it. Look for episodes featuring the restoration and installation of these little beauties in the future!
Using vintage appliances in your home renovation can have many advantages over new. They're frequently built more solidly and are made to last longer than new ones, and can cost considerably less - like my $30 dishwasher find. They're also saving these relics from the landfills and not contributing to the consumption of our resources in the way that new manufacturing does. Above all, they make for a unique kitchen - one that no one else is likely to have! I've found mine on Craigslist, but you can also scour your local thrift shops and Habitat for Humanity stores for treasures, and keep an eye on the real estate section of the paper. When an old house is sold, the kitchen is frequently remodeled and you can sometimes get the old appliances for nothing! Now all I need is a 30", panel front Sub Zero refrigerator and I'll be all set!
This weekend I'll be in Denver for my appearance with Fresh City Life. If you're in town I hope you'll join me! It's going to be lots of fun.
This past Saturday night, my friend Michael suggested we go see a double feature at the Jersey City Lowes – Notorious and The Third Man. The Jersey City Lowes is an elaborate movie palace built in 1929, but more about that in another post. The films were wonderful, as usual, of course, but one thing has stuck with me since Saturday. The ceramic stove in Anna Schmidt’s apartment.
It was a bit of a mini obsession for me so I spent some time on Sunday exploring the Internet for them. Thanks to the design/lifestyle blog An Aesthete’s Lament, where I learned a little more about them, I now know they originated (not surprisingly) in northern Europe and are called a kachelofen in German, a kakkelovin in Swedish and a poêle en faïence in French.
The seeds of my obsession were planted when I was quite young. One of these glamorous stoves was used in a film that was a big influence during my formative years: Auntie Mame.
It’s heavily featured in one of the raciest incarnations of Mame’s Beekman Place apartment – part of the “only collection of its kind in the Universe” assembled by the fictional designer Yul Ulu. It’s especially interesting to see them used in such different films – the bleak, crumbling post war Austrian setting is so completely foreign to the frothy Technicolor interior of Mame’s apartment.
I think what fascinates me about the examples found in those films and the pictures I’ve assembled here is their quality of whimsy. They’re like tchotchkas on steroids. It’s as if someone super sized a salt shaker and it appeals to my desire for design touches on a grand scale – something I think every room should have at least one of.
Now these delightful little accessories (which I’ve heard are extremely efficient heaters) will set you back quite a pretty penny. I would imagine the examples here would run in the area of $100,000 now, if you could even find them. But they’re wonderful inspiration for an eclectic room. Create their effect with French provincial furniture accented with gay colored paint touches or upholstery and contrast it with sleek modern glass and steel and you’ll have a room to remember!
