Setting up house in the 1940s

[Paisley]

Thanks for the money-saving tips, everyone!

I went to a plumbing store that stocked vintage supplies, and they were just as expensive as the showroom where they sold new stuff.

However, I do have a store near my home that sells refurbished appliances--I got my portable dishwasher there a year and a half ago. It was the only portable DW they'd had there in years.

 

[Sweet Leilani]

I've posted these photos before, but here's our kitchen:

It's more of a 50's look, I suppose, but I have a lot of Golden Era touches, like my son's 1930's highchair, the 1940 Mixmaster, lots of vintage linens and ceramics. Our color scheme is pale yellow walls, white cabinets, chrome or nickel hardware (exposed hinges are a must!) and cherry red & jadeite accents.

If you are trying to add vintage touches to a rental, I would suggest starting with appropriate curtains, then accessorize with appliances, linens and possibly some framed vintage magazine ads.

 

[Rosie]

I love your kitchen. Your cake saver and the baby's high chair is great!

Guys, overstock.com has some great prices on faucets, sinks and such. I'm thinking of remodeling, to de-modernize the house and I've seen some pretty nice things on there.

In my basement, I have one of those older fridges but my mom says it may not work. I'd love to pull it up the stairs and have someone take a look at it, do I contact a "regular" repair man? Will he know what to do with such a thing? I'll go snap a pic now.

 

[scotrace]

Scot, that backsplash is beautiful! definetely something I would love for the new house as well.

You might change your mind after the first bottle of Simple Green needed to clean the cooking grease. And over the sink? Solid rust already.

It's pretty where it's still shiny though! lol

 

[Rosie]

Okay, do keep in mind that this thing has been in the basement since WAY before I was born, maybe as early as the '60s:

There's a decal on it. I thought it was a sticker my dad or someone put on but, it looks as though it were placed there when it was made [huh]

it's a GE

 

[scotrace]

I dunno, a little Bondo, get rid of the sticker, some paint...

 

[The D.A.]

Sweet Leilani--Please stop posting images of your kitchen, as it's going to cause me to spend even more money on that auction site!

Seriously, your kitchen (and, indeed, your entire house) is beautiful. I especially like the color scheme. I've been eyeing some aluminum canister sets like the one on your kitchen counter, but so far I've been able to resist. Any idea when such canister sets started appearing? The late '40s or the '50s?

As you suggested, I'm basically just accessorizing in the kitchen with vintage small appliances, decorations, etc. The house is a '90s ranch, so it wouldn't fit the character of the house to make any drastic changes. Then again, the ranch style hasn't changed that much since the late '40s. In fact, I was surprised to find some pictures online of some of the first suburbs and the houses looked just like the ones in my neighborhood. I've been concentrating on stuff from the '30s, but maybe I should aim for the late '40s.

 

[Snookie]

Sweet Leilani -- Your kitchen is great! It has a wonderful sense of your personality in the decorating style, but I like that you have such classic elements in the cabinetry etc. I'm sure whoever lives there next will love it too!

Rosie -- I've heard that old fridges are really bad for the environment, but I do know several people who have them (great for tight spaces!). Does anyone know if old fridges are bad to use, or just bad when you try to dispose of them? It would be fun to get it working, and have a basement soda fridge, if nothing else.

 

[BonnieJean]

Yep, some old fridges are very bad!

Some friends had an old 1935 fridge that finally bit the dust and as my hubby and a friend were looking to see what the problem could be they noticed that it was leaking some kind of gas at the bottom. Turns out it was sulfur dioxide gas that was commonly used for fridges around that time--nasty stuff. They then evacuated the room and let the gas dissipate, or so they thought. It got dropped when moving it later and there was still some gas left that created a low fog along the ground. You don't want to breathe the stuff because it causes you to choke and gag. I'm not exactly sure of the total health hazards with this stuff, but just be careful with those old refridgerators. Make sure you find a repairman qualifed to work on vintage refridgerators. We learned a lesson, the hard way, but fortunately no one seems to have any long term effects from the "gas spill".

 

[LizzieMaine]

I talked to the guy who sold me my thermostat about this back when I got my old fridge, and he told me that sulfur dioxide was rarely used by the end of the thirties, and not at all by the end of the war. It rarely leaked, he said, but when it did it was definitely noticeable!

 

[BonnieJean]

So I guess our friends had one of the last of those types of refrigerators. My hubby said the tag on it stated "manufactured in 1935". I accidently got caught "downwind" of the leaking gas, but quickly got out of the way. Its like a really rotten eggs smell (the sulfur), but it quickly made my lungs tighten up and I was choking--even for that brief time. We consulted our local HVAC guy and he's the one that told us to be careful about the gas. He said its rare that those types are still around and working. We just mistakenly thought the gas leaked out fast. This happened a couple weeks after it was left alone to air out. Apparently some of the gas didn't all escape. It was kind of eerie too. It was the middle of a sunshiny day and here was this white fog-like gas creeping along the grass. (We had stored it in a garage and then it got toppled over) Reminded me of the movie "The Ten Commandments" at the part where the angel of death crept over Egypt.

I love those old frigerators, but I think I'll save up for a new vintage-styled ones like those in the links in this thread.

 

[Rosie]

Wow thanks guys. I NEVER go into the basement. There is LOTs of stuff down there. Even today I just ran down, snapped a pic and ran back up. This weekend I'll check to see if there is a date on the fridge. I think with A LOT of elbow grease, it would be cool.

 

[Sweet Leilani]

Rosie, thanks for the compliment! We have an old fridge that used to look a lot like yours- it can be fixed up to look beautiful for about the cost of a new fridge. We had some dents removed and had it painted at an autobody shop (about $250). Add a new compressor (with safe refrigerant) and wiring for about $300 and it should work fine. Still, it may cost a little more to run than a new fridge, but like LizzieMaine said, it will probably last forever.

It's an early 40s Hotpoint (we added the Coke script, obviously):

Inside:

Snookie & D.A., thanks for the kind words- I don't know a lot about Kromex (the spun aluminum canisters) but I would guess that they started being made in the late 40s and continued into the 70s. I bought most of mine years ago at a local antique store for about $25 total. I bought the cake stand in 2 separate pieces (stand and cover) at yard sales for 25 cents each. I've really gotten into collecting anodized (colored) aluminum lately, you can see some pitchers on the shelf above the highchair. Maybe it's my cheapskate nature, but I just can't buy it on the bay- hunting for it on the cheap at yard sales and thrift stores really makes it worthwhile for me. Hammered aluminum will probably be my next big thing- I'm really starting to see a lot of it around. (But remember- never cook in or serve hot food in aluminum vessels- there is a potentially toxic effect!)

 

[Rosie]

Leilani, thanks for posting those pics and sharing that info, cool. Now I'll just have to convince someone to drag it up the stairs, to an autobody shop and re wire it for me. lol

 

[fortworthgal]

Hammered aluminum will probably be my next big thing- I'm really starting to see a lot of it around. (But remember- never cook in or serve hot food in aluminum vessels- there is a potentially toxic effect!)

Hammered aluminum is easy to find and extremely plentiful around these parts. I own quite a bit of it, because I constantly find it at estate sales for 50 cents! I also collect wood serveware, white restaurantware, and USQMC china. And I have a ton of Club aluminum cookware, along with some original Club cookbooklets. Again, same thing - I find it all so cheap I can't pass it up! I feel like I'm getting a reward when I find something for $1 at a garage sale, rather than paying $20 plus shipping on ebay.

Kinda on the same topic - I'm curious about Descoware. I have a massive collection of flame Descoware and Le Creuset. Their design and construction seems very similar, but I can find almost no information on Descoware other than the fact that it was a Belgian company that went out of business at some point possibly in the 1970s. So many of my old 40s and 50s cookbooks show Descoware being used - it is clearly recognizable. Anyone know very much about it?

 

[scotrace]

(But remember- never cook in or serve hot food in aluminum vessels- there is a potentially toxic effect!)

I'm quite surprised to read this. Most restaurants and professional chefs cook with aluminum pans for the excellent heat conduction - where does this come from?

 

[Sweet Leilani]

The USDA will not allow food to be processed in it. (I'll see if I can find the bulletin.) Most restaurants are inspected by the local health department, as opposed to the USDA, so they would not be subject to those rules. I used to work as a chef, and I know we used tons of aluminum saute pans- I guess it would just cost too much to switch to stainless, so they let it slide.

This was the best info I could find, quickly:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/water-eau/drink-potab/aluminum-aluminium_e.html

It does say that aluminum cookware should not be considered harmful except in certain situations, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. The USDA, of course, always prefers to err on the side of caution, hence the prohibition.

 

[scotrace]

Wow! Very interesting - thanks!

 

[Mike in Seattle]

There are a lot of old wives' tales and urban myths about aluminum, and none of the pan out. (Pardon the pun). There's nothing about this on the USDA's website. If the USDA had outlawed aluminum for use in food preparation, Reynolds Wrap and all the other brands of aluminum foil, disposable pans and the like would have been pulled from store shelves immediately. You wouldn't find pies, fresh or frozen, on the shelves because guess what - that's what they're baked and sold in. The same holds true for a lot of frozen foods. Adios Stauffer Lasagne! As mentioned, the majority of cookware, especially that used in commercial food preparation, is aluminum as well. Farberware, Creativeware, Mirro, All-Clad, Calphalon and so many more brands of cookware found in virtually every home, restaurant, fast food outlet and hospital in the world are made of aluminum. If you're worried about mythical dangers of ingesting aluminum, stop using antacids, deodorants & antiperspirants because you'll come into contact with higher doses from those than you ever will from cookware.

One of the many things that the government completely fails at is keeping secrets. Seriously, had the USDA or the FDA or some other government agency outlawed or even suggested a limiting of aluminum in food preparation, do you think it would not have made every newspaper, TV or radio news program, cooking magazine and website for weeks, if not months?

 

[Foofoogal]

Hello all. Not to be a party pooper but many of the items suggested need to be used with caution.
As an antiques dealer I sell most everything and I collect everything. Each person has to use common sense and take into account their own life styles.
I used to have an old beautiful Chambers stove but my niece leaned up against it and burned her belly pretty bad for instance as the front gets very hot.
Baby beds, high chairs and older items also have safety issues. Especially so with baby beds. The bars were spread too far apart generally and should not be used.
I sell lots of China and dinnerware and some have crazing which are small fine cracks and should be used with caution. A suggestion would be to use paper doilies and/or use for display only.
I think the aluminum thing is still being debated or looked into. It has been suggested there is a link to alzheimers though we all still drink out of cans. I have no clue one way or the other.
I would suggest any appliance or lamp be checked out by an electrician or new cords put on. I just found out that in Canada one cannot even sell an older lamp without cutting off the cord because of safety.
Mainly keep the children safe. Sandy.
Even older dolls made out of celluloid or any celluloid for that fact can be flammable and should be protected from heat. :eusa_doh:
http://www.sandysfancypants.blogspot.com