KITCHEN DETAILS

It wasn't easy finding retro-inspired accents for our retro-inspired kitchen. Especially on a tight budget! We didn't want to spend loads of money on things like lights, fans, etc. I wish we could have found real vintage fixtures at thrift stores, but that just didn't happen.

Nevertheless, searching long and hard got us some amazing deals like these!

The Star backplate from Rejuvenation was so quintessentially '50s! We used it as small drawer and cabinet pulls: 

Also from Rejuvenation, the "Astron" pendant light is mid-century inspired and adorable over the sink (ours is the green but you can get lots of other combinations):

The fan was hard to find because the cute vintage-look ones were really pricey -- $300 for a fan??? I don't think so. Finally we got this one, the "Middleton" from Home Depot. The white color blends into the ceiling, and at least the "schoolhouse" lampshade is a genuine vintage style:

I'm glad we didn't spend loads of money on small things, but still got great style! No-one should have to shell out half the price of a new stove on a lamp or fan, know what I mean? And nowadays you really don't have to.

IKEA'D!

When the Ikea installation people came to put in our new kitchen, I just had to take a pic!

The kitchen designer had told us everything would probably be done in a day, but it took three days. Made me kind of glad we didn't have a big kitchen!

BARE WALLS

Seeing the cupboards removed from the kitchen was really weird! They had been there since the '60s, so it was like they had a life of their own.

Now you see them:

Now you don't:

 

I thought I'd be so happy to see the cupboards gone, but the opposite happened: their absence hit me hard. I thought about all the people who'd lived in the house since 1951, what they would have done in the kitchen. Housewives cooking for their families, college-student renters drinking beer, so many different people before us. 

Thankfully my husband managed to get the cupboards re-hung in our little garden shed, so all was not lost! They're good hardwood cupboards, so I'm glad they got saved and re-used.