Gallery
Tudor
Kitchen
With its crisp white cabinetry, gleaming retro appliances and color-matched glass-tile backsplash, this new "Fabulous Fifties" kitchen makes a bold yet beautiful statement.
The sleek and stylish Northstar appliances from Elmira Stove Works are clearly the stars of this show, transforming a simply functional space into one that's quite a kick. While the appliances may look like vintage models, they're actually twenty-first-century versions with all the bells and whistles the modern cook requires.
The snazzy mint green of the appliances is repeated in both the glass tile of the backsplash and the drawer and door hardware of the cabinets, for a coherent, unified look.
The other stand-out feature of this stylish kitchen is the large apron-front fireclay sink with its handy integral drainboard. The look is finished perfectly by the Chicago deck-mount faucet with cross handles and built-in soap dish.
Overhead is a conical chrome-and-glass light fixture in brushed nickel; for task lighting over the sink, a slim coordinating pendant. Both are antique reproductions from Rejuvenation, as are all the light fixtures throughout this home.
And finally, on the floor, to both temper the bright candy color of the appliances and return us gently to Mother Earth, a solid-oak hardwood floor in a warm, natural finish.
Before we leave the kitchen, a short diversion to comment on a particularly pesky and recurring issue that always crops up when trying to recreate or restore a period kitchen: the dreaded appliance dilemma.
Capturing a vintage kitchen look is actually a relatively easy task until it comes to the appliances, specifically, how to blend an authentic old-house appearance with the unavoidably modern look of present-day appliances. This issue is further exacerbated when the old house at issue, or new "old" house, is a 1920s or 1930s model.
There are several approaches to this problem. The first, handed down by the self-appointed experts, is to just use new stainless steel appliances. The puzzling logic behind this approach is that stainless steel appliances somehow "fit" better with period kitchens than, say, their counterparts in standard white. Of course, we ourselves have followed this line of thinking more than once but were never fully satisfied with the results.
A second alternative is to seek out refurbished originals. We've actually done this, too, and while we just adore the look, we don't adore the sacrifice of modern functionality. If you've ever accidentally gotten a snortful of Easy-Off, you can relate.
In our opinion, the best approach, although certainly the most expensive, is to go with brand new retro-style appliances, as we did here. This approach sounds straightforward enough, at least until you go shopping. When you do, you'll run into the second part of the appliance dilemma, to wit: When it comes to retro appliances, there are only two "period" choices available: Victorian and Fifties. And that's it, folks. Unhappily, at least as of this writing, there is no Roaring Twenties range or Flapper Era fridge out there at the appliance mall, just waiting to cap off your otherwise perfectly appointed period kitchen, alas. All us old-house lovers should band together and boycott the appliance industry until they get off their collective pedestrian duffs and get creative!
But back to our 1920s Tudor Revival cottage. Clearly the Victorian set wouldn't do so, by default, we ended up with the Fifties version. But how to reconcile a Fifties kitchen in a Twenties house? Well, we just decided to rewrite the "history" of our little cottage and pretend that it got a kitchen makeover in 1953. That'll work.
