(Click on the pic for larger image. Image borrowed from Vintage Ads by Dee. I know this is not a pic of a Western-Holly oven, but Google did not yield any. What does that tell ya?)
On HGTV this weekend, a couple looking for houses rejected one kitchen because it featured a built-in Western-Holly wall oven with the classic porthole design. "It's so outdated," was the potential buyers' paraphrased comment. Arrrrrghhhh!!!! Nothing peeves me more than design shows that smash out pink or acqua 50s bathrooms, or trash original retro kitchen fixtures from the 20s-60s. If I see one more granite/stainless steel/laminate kitchen nightmare, I will scream! We need a show for us retro design lovers. Maybe something called...I don't know...Keep It the Way It Is, You Design-Challenged Neanderthals?!?!? Not that I'm a little bitter or anything. I mean, I am all for repainting, changing out rusty hardware and replacing clearly broken fixtures. But why can't broken fixtures and appliances be replaced with new old stock? After all, what are sites like Antiqueappliances.com and Antiquestoves.com for, anyway?
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19 comments:
You are so right and I couldn't agree more! Wait until they find out how difficult it is to keep stainless steel clean - fingerprint marks show up everywhere! :-)
Yay for retro kitchens!
Thanks for stopping by my blog and becoming a follower, love your blog too!
Oh my gosh I know!!! I thought I was the only person that LOOKS for an old "outdated" kitchen from the fifties lol.
Oh my gosh I know!!! I thought I was the only person that LOOKS for an old "outdated" kitchen from the fifties lol.
I watch very few design shows on tv because I'm tired of seeing really wonderful retro homes being destroyed to make them contemporary. It makes me sick.
My ultimate dream is to own a 40's-50's home with all the original appliances/fixtures!!
And 20 years from now, they will be bemoaned the way we complain about 50's "updating" of earlier stuff!
I have a big heap of British old magazine with stacks of these sorts of pics in -- your blog has inspired me to crack on and start using them for inspiration. Thanks. I'll keep you posted if I manage to get anything done.
You would SO love my little girls' retro pink play kitchen set! It makes me think of I Love Lucy!
The amount of English Rose kitchens I have seen hacked to bits in skips is scary. All to be replaced by some 'modern therefore better' monstrosity : (
Oh I tagged you, by the way, check my blog x
The more I think about this, the more I keep coming back to my original position: a blog without comments enabled is not a blog. I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but it definitely isn't a blog.
Diwa,
Comments are enabled for my blog, I just screen them first as an anti-spam measure.
Those shows make me SO angry. Along with the shows where the "experts" say the old windows must be replaced.
Maybe we should petition HGTV regarding these shows.
When we were househunting, I was trying so hard to find a house that hadn't been ruined...uh, remodeled, by previous owners. Found one, now totally happy! HGTV didn't start out so bad, I used to happily watch lots of shows, but now... ug. I feel the same way as the rest of you - why don't these people just leave the great old homes ALONE?!
I still have one of those built in style ovens in our house, and i actually love it, the things is older than me and still works perfectly...yay for retro kitchens!
Oh, you hit a sore spot! We got a 40's house, with many original features. We LOVE vintage, but we STILL tore out some of the original (or older) features because they were just so burnt/beaten/scarred or they were just cheap and unfabulous. We kept other features, and re-did some. I still wrestle with those decisions, but I'm happy with the final result. Check it out and comment either way, I'd be curious to see what vintage aficianados think: http://doghouse.coyoteyip.com
It will be really hard to keep those steel clean, all you have to do is teach your children how to help in doing little chores and teach them how to keep the house clean
We bought an old house recently with a beautiful Western Holly oven (built into the wall style) that we can't figure out how to turn on. I didn't think it was broken because the home inspector said the appliances worked, but we can't figure it out. Know anyone who can fix these things?
thatgirl,
Thank you for posting. I don't know anyone personally, but you could try some of the antique appliances links in my retro links section. Good luck!
I like old fashion kitchen but not the ugly trash can.I prefer some shiny simplehuman stainless steel trash can.
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