Another Kitchen Restoration
Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 7:56 pm
Kitchens have to be renovated on the other side of the pond too.
My parents have rented another apartment for decades, using it mainly as an office. The kitchen was more or less our shop and storage and remained more or less exactly as we found it when the previous tenant passed away in 1990 and his partner ran as fast as she could. I'll post pictures but I'm at the farm right now and don't have the camera with me.
The kitchen isn't that large and L-shaped because when they built the house they walled off part of the kitchen for a water closed accessible from the hall. There's one window across from the door with a "California Cooler" underneath, a built-in ventilated cupboard for cool storage. On the left-hand side there's another built-in cupboard that goes all the way from the floor to the ceiling. It's oddly shaped because it's built around the curved stairs on the other side of the wall - on one side it's only 6" deep and on the other about 24". All appliances are on the right-hand side, which is less than 10 feet long. Double sink (white porcelain with a dark blue rubber edge from the 50s), 1950 fridge painted brown in the 70s, a chest of drawers and a gas cooker from the 70s, in quite decent shape but oddly placed. The cupboard below the window protrudes about 8" into the room so the corners on either side of the window can only be used for open shelves. For that reason the cooker sits about 8" away from the wall, creating a useless and hard to clean gap.
The only other piece of furniture was a HUGE freestanding cupboard, over 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide. The lower section is obviously older, probably from the 1920s. Two tall doors (5 1/2') on either side, the one on the left with shelves and an ironing board compartment, the one on the right with shelves and pull-out spice bins (probably a later addition as the small bins are all plastic). In the middle there are low double doors with one shelf, a kind of flip-down secretary hatch and a top section with sliding glass doors.
The upper part is dated on the back, 29 September 1932 and has doors with shelves. It's ridiculously heavy, solid wood body and hollow plywood doors but unfortunately no longer usable for kitchen purposes. The plywood is cracking all over and shedding the paint but worst of all each compartment stinks differently - perfume, washing powder, mothballs etc. We moved it upstairs and keep it for tool storage.
The right-hand wall has tile that could be original from 1915 and will probably stay although there are a few holes and surface cracks. Two tiles came off in one piece when we started stripping the woodchip wallpaper and will probably be reinstalled.
Heat was originally provided by a wood-fired cookstove that was removed long ago. When we moved in there was a wall-mounted gas heater that was replaced with a hot-water radiator in the late 90s. Unfortunately it's poorly placed and we'll have to move it. We'll also have to move the sink a bit because it's not centred under the taps. Thankfully my uncle is a plumber.
Stripping the wallpaper was a surprisingly quick job and done in under five hours just using a big brush and cold water. In some spots I managed to pull off whole sheets of paper! Now that the room is more or less empty we found several old wall designs. The original scheme is more or less lost but I think it was white paint with some kind of dark blue design. Then there's an amazingly well-kept 20s design, off-white paint with a 3-colour roller pattern of lines and spirals in purple, red and yellow. On top of that, probably early-30s, greenish-grey paint with a white and dark grey pattern, pretty ghastly if you ask me. We found these two behind the large cupboard the green was probably painted around the time the top part was added in 1932. Then there's a 50s pattern, green and orange flowers on a beige background. This is waterproof paint so we found it more or less in its original glory behind the wallpaper. My youngest brother loved it so much that we'll probably try to re-create it. I'd prefer the 1920s pattern but this isn't my kitchen.
None of the furniture except the built-ins will stay but I've rounded up a cool early-60s kitchen that I hope we can pick up early next week for next to nothing.
Before we can put that in we'll have to get all the plumbing done and lots of painting.
My parents have rented another apartment for decades, using it mainly as an office. The kitchen was more or less our shop and storage and remained more or less exactly as we found it when the previous tenant passed away in 1990 and his partner ran as fast as she could. I'll post pictures but I'm at the farm right now and don't have the camera with me.
The kitchen isn't that large and L-shaped because when they built the house they walled off part of the kitchen for a water closed accessible from the hall. There's one window across from the door with a "California Cooler" underneath, a built-in ventilated cupboard for cool storage. On the left-hand side there's another built-in cupboard that goes all the way from the floor to the ceiling. It's oddly shaped because it's built around the curved stairs on the other side of the wall - on one side it's only 6" deep and on the other about 24". All appliances are on the right-hand side, which is less than 10 feet long. Double sink (white porcelain with a dark blue rubber edge from the 50s), 1950 fridge painted brown in the 70s, a chest of drawers and a gas cooker from the 70s, in quite decent shape but oddly placed. The cupboard below the window protrudes about 8" into the room so the corners on either side of the window can only be used for open shelves. For that reason the cooker sits about 8" away from the wall, creating a useless and hard to clean gap.
The only other piece of furniture was a HUGE freestanding cupboard, over 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide. The lower section is obviously older, probably from the 1920s. Two tall doors (5 1/2') on either side, the one on the left with shelves and an ironing board compartment, the one on the right with shelves and pull-out spice bins (probably a later addition as the small bins are all plastic). In the middle there are low double doors with one shelf, a kind of flip-down secretary hatch and a top section with sliding glass doors.
The upper part is dated on the back, 29 September 1932 and has doors with shelves. It's ridiculously heavy, solid wood body and hollow plywood doors but unfortunately no longer usable for kitchen purposes. The plywood is cracking all over and shedding the paint but worst of all each compartment stinks differently - perfume, washing powder, mothballs etc. We moved it upstairs and keep it for tool storage.
The right-hand wall has tile that could be original from 1915 and will probably stay although there are a few holes and surface cracks. Two tiles came off in one piece when we started stripping the woodchip wallpaper and will probably be reinstalled.
Heat was originally provided by a wood-fired cookstove that was removed long ago. When we moved in there was a wall-mounted gas heater that was replaced with a hot-water radiator in the late 90s. Unfortunately it's poorly placed and we'll have to move it. We'll also have to move the sink a bit because it's not centred under the taps. Thankfully my uncle is a plumber.
Stripping the wallpaper was a surprisingly quick job and done in under five hours just using a big brush and cold water. In some spots I managed to pull off whole sheets of paper! Now that the room is more or less empty we found several old wall designs. The original scheme is more or less lost but I think it was white paint with some kind of dark blue design. Then there's an amazingly well-kept 20s design, off-white paint with a 3-colour roller pattern of lines and spirals in purple, red and yellow. On top of that, probably early-30s, greenish-grey paint with a white and dark grey pattern, pretty ghastly if you ask me. We found these two behind the large cupboard the green was probably painted around the time the top part was added in 1932. Then there's a 50s pattern, green and orange flowers on a beige background. This is waterproof paint so we found it more or less in its original glory behind the wallpaper. My youngest brother loved it so much that we'll probably try to re-create it. I'd prefer the 1920s pattern but this isn't my kitchen.
None of the furniture except the built-ins will stay but I've rounded up a cool early-60s kitchen that I hope we can pick up early next week for next to nothing.
Before we can put that in we'll have to get all the plumbing done and lots of painting.