Painting the Kitchen Cabinets White

Last year, my husband gave me a kitchen cabinet redo for my birthday. I wasn't sure we wanted to paint the cupboards, but this past April he decided that it was time to jump in with both feet and just do it.  Now that they are finished, I LOVE them! 

 

It was a weekend of hard work but totally worth it!

 

Before...

 

During...Hard at work.

 

Saturday is over and the bottom cupboards and drawers are finished!  Time for bed.

Sunday we put Back to the Future on the TV for background noise, and set to work.  We listened to all three of them!

Finally, our work was completed.  Yea!

 

The kitchen feels a bit more vintage with its white cupboards and vintage décor. 
 

 

Below are the before and after pictures.

Well, that's all for now.  Until another time, have a happy, vintage day!

Catalog Shopping for Household Goodies

Back in the day, there was no ordering items from the internet, but there WAS catalog shopping.  Here are a few miscellaneous things from my 1950 Sears catalog.

 

For the home seamstress there were pages of colorful fabrics.

 

 

I like the turquoise and gray one above, along with the purple and blue with circles.

 

Let's look at china.  I LOVE blue set with roses in the center.  My grandmother had a set of the "Nantucket".  It's very pretty too, in person.

 

Below is a closer look at the blue set and the Nantucket next to it.

 



 

Pricing in 1950.

 

 

Some lovely table cloths.  I have the fruit table cloth in blue.

 

Some CUTE kitchen curtains.  I like the red ginghams, top, third from the left, with ruffles, the best.

 

 

Finally, check out this adorable stove.  I like a white porcelain stove.

 

 

Well, that was a fun little shopping trip down memory lane.  Until another time, have a happy vintage day!

 

The All Electric Kitchen

Today I stumbled upon another fun 1952 movie created by Edison Electric Institute to promote all of their wonderful new electric appliances. It's actually more like the 1950s form of an infomercial.

The show is pert-near a half hour.  If you watch it you'll get your daily allowance of corn...the dialogue is pretty lame, but I like kitchy, corny things from the early 50s so I look past that and drink in the set designs and clothing. 

The girl's black and white checkered dress is ADORABLE!  And I love the saddle shoes she wears at the beginning.  The house is modern for the 1950s.  The family even has a dishwasher.  I just about fell out of my chair when I saw the stove.  It had a built in pot in which the mother was cooking stew.  I looked up "stove with built-in pot" on line and found one...a Kelvinator.  (Sorry I don't know who the picture is from and it's not the greatest quality.)

Any way, on with the "show".

 

That's all for today.  Until another time, have a happy vintage day. 

Red White and Blue--Just For Fun

Even though the month of July is at its closing, just for fun, I thought I'd repost this "Red White and Blue" photo from a couple of years ago.

 

Our kitchen has a dark blue wall and I really like the Red White & Blue color scheme. 
We are actually thinking of doing something like this to our kitchen.  (Photo from Pinterest).

 

 

It's just taking us awhile to "pull the trigger" so-to-speak.  It would be a mighty big change and a lot of hard work, therefore, I don't think we will tackle it this year...but maybe next summer!

 

Until then I will enjoy my kitchen as it is with all of it's happy little Red White & Blue accents!

 

 

And here's a photo for my mom, of the fun little Androck sifter I bought at the flea a few years ago.

 

That's all for this girl's ramblings. Until another time, have a happy vintage day!



New Table Cloth

A couple weekends ago I stopped into Vintage City and saw this cute little red and aqua colored table cloth!  It's a square rather than a rectangle, but I think it works well at an angle. 

 

If you Google "Vintage Red and Aqua" you'll get about a thousand results.  There's no denying it, red and aqua seems to work together, and decorating with them is a popular trend.  I never thought I'd decorate with the two colors, but now I totally see how they work!  I'm not going to go overboard though, just a couple little aqua items should do.

 

Now, because I only have one other little item in this aqua-turquoise color (the tea cup in center of table), I'd like to come across something that will match the table cloth.  A turquoise bowl or vase, perhaps, or maybe something in that mauve-y pink. . 
That's the fun part, the hunt...the search for that perfect item that says, "pick me, pick me!"

That's all for now.  Until another time, have a happy vintage day!

 

Vintage Chrome Table

Last weekend, a beautiful, 1950s, chrome, pedestal, kitchen table came up for sale at Vintage City (my favorite little vintage shop).  A table like this has been on my wish list for quite some time, therefore, there was no time to waste.  I bought it sight-unseen!

Well, actually...

Hubby stopped over to Vintage City to look it over, and he said it looked great.  Next thing I knew, we had a new table! 

 

First, we had to remove the built-in table that had served us well for 10 whole years.
 

The old table came out easily and wasn't as difficult as we thought it might be. We risked ruining part of the floor, but it was only screwed to the flooring with three screws!  Why didn't we try doing this a long time ago!?

Here we have put the legs back onto the new table.  It's fairly easy to take the legs off and put back on for travel or storage. 

I love the fact that it's a pedestal table.  If someone needs to sit at a corner, there are no legs to get in the way. And it has a leaf! 

For our first meal at the vintage table, Daughter and I had toasted-cheese sandwiches and soup.  We talked about and wondered what the first owners of the table might have had for meals, including their first meal.  Did they live on a farm or in a town.  Was it a small town?  Did it come from a cute little house on the outskirts of Willow City?  I suppose we'll never know.



And here is our new little table decorated with a vintage tablecloth!  I did some rearranging and put our wine rack in a different spot and placed some vintage goodies on the lower shelf of the china hutch.  I put Grandma Eva's Pyrex bowl on the bottom shelf too.  We'll see how that works.


The tablecloth is a Simtex and I bought it awhile back at (you guessed it) Vintage City.

While browsing the web for information about Simtex, I stumbled upon an awesome blog called Tabletop Time.  The author collects vintage dishes and sets up numerous, beautiful table settings to photograph!  It's fun to see all of the color combinations she uses.  I think it would be so much FUN to decorate a table!

So, that's one of the things I have been up to this past week.

Hope you all have a great week and until another time, have a happy, vintage day!

Shelf of Vintage Goodies

The area above my computer desk got a make-over the other day.

 

I forgot to take a before picture, but this old picture (with my kitty in it) will have to do.

 

 

Decorating this wall is a bit difficult because of the light switch.  As much as I love the art print, framed in black, it just doesn't mesh with the vintage feel I'm going for, in the kitchen.

 

So, off to Hobby Lobby daughter and I went to buy a shelf.  We found a shelf that would have to do.  It's a bit larger than what I originally wanted.  But I suppose a larger shelf just means more space for goodies, right?

 

We also looked at reproduction signs at Hobby Lobby.  They have an awesome selection of repro signs!  As much as I'd like to have something NOT reproduction, "real" vintage signs just aren't in my budget.  Besides, it would be a challenge to find a "real" vintage sign that speaks to me...it could take years.
 

 

This Pepsi sign seemed perfect.  It had the dark blue color on the top and bottom that would match my blue kitchen wall perfectly.  A person can't go wrong with red, white, and blue decor.

 

 

And it fit inside the frame's brackets.  We wish the sign was just a bit smaller, but it works.

 

 

Also found at Hobby Lobby was this really cool "chalk" paint. 

The paint I bought was a little too red, so I added a little yellow craft paint and it came out just right!

 

 

I used the little sanding card to distress the paint afterwards.  That's something I'd never done before and I found out it's not as easy as the experts make it seem.

 

Here is the finished shelf.

 

Now, let's just hope I can keep my kitty off of the shelf.  I want so badly to put my little star bowl up there, but if it fell and broke I'd be really blue.  So the cream colored bowl will have to do.

 

 

That's all for today.  Until another time, have a great, vintage day!

1940s Safety in the Kitchen

I get such a kick out of these vintage "Home-Economics" type of videos on You tube.  This 8 minute video is about kitchen safety.  It's fun to see the vintage kitchens at work and the tidy way the cupboards are arranged.  There are no sippy-cup avalanches in this 1940s kitchen, just neatly stacked dishes and the cutest little toaster you ever did see! (at minute 6:48).  And I just love the little step stool she uses at 7:28.  If we are ever lucky enough to have a vintage kitchen, I will have to invest in a step stool.  

I hope you enjoy the video!   

 

I think I'll clean out one of my cupboards now.  Have a happy vintage day!

Flickertail Museum House

Come on in and have a seat at the kitchen table. 

 

 

I was just getting lunch ready and I hope you'll join me and the children.  I'll just grab some bread and peach sauce from the pantry...(Can you imagine this pantry below full of canned goods, flour, sugar, and jars of veggies and fruits that the lady of the house had put up for the winter?)

 

 

...And some leftover turkey bits for sandwiches from the icebox.

 

 

I'll put the baby in the high chair...

 

 

Thank goodness I did my baking yesterday while it was cool.  I baked this week's bread and a layer cake.  Today is a much warmer day so I won't be using the stove.  But there's a nice cross breeze between the windows.  

 

 

I'll send Edith out to the garden for some lettuce and tomatoes and we will have a nice salad with our turkey sandwiches.  Salt and Pepper?? Why, of course.  Charlie bought me these new little shakers in town just last month.

 

I'll just grab the dishes out of the cabinet and set the table.  (I love the four little drawers and figure there were probably napkins or silverware stored in them.)

 

 

It's time to holler out the window for the children to come in and wash up for dinner.

 

 

 

After dinner is over and the dishes are done, we can send the kids back outside then sit for a spell in the living room.  Maybe we can catch Big Sister on the radio, while I get some mending done.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by today!  See you soon!