Restoration Recipes

RETRO RECYCLE

Brian and Kathleen Vanden Brink created their kitchen on a $3,000 budget using salvaged 1950s Youngstown cabinets.

When Brian and Kathleen Vanden Brink bought their 1919 two-storey farmhouse in Camden, Maine, it was, in Brian Vanden Brink’s words, “a real dump and practically falling down.” After jacking the house, securing the foundation, and replacing the roof, one of the first projects the couple needed to tackle was renovating the kitchen. Contractor Phil Sideris took the existing kitchen right down to the studs. “The only thing we kept from the room was a 1950s Youngstown sink,” says Vanden Brink. With a budget of $3,000, the couple needed to get creative with cabinetry. At the same time that Sideris was demolishing the Vanden Brinks’ kitchen, he was renovating his own and was throwing away the original Youngstown steel cabinetry—the same company that made the sink Vanden Brink chose to save. Sideris offered the cabinets, which were in fairly good condition, to Vanden Brink for $100. Vanden Brink refinished them with metal paint enamel and added metal half-moon pulls before having Sideris install them.

Now that they had a 1950s theme, the couple worked from an old kitchen photo to replicate design details. Sideris built open shelving to store their 1950s pastel Luray ware and a scalloped light valance over the sink. In keeping with the mid-century theme, the couple painted the kitchen a creamy white. They inherited a 1960 GE electric stove from Brian’s father who hauled it all the way from Nebraska for use in their retro kitchen. “I remember when that stove was first delivered to my childhood home,” says Vanden Brink. Peter and Paula Stone, the couple’s close friends, came for a visit from Colorado and brought ceramic tiles as a housewarming gift. The Vanden Brinks installed them as the kitchen’s colorful backsplash. Although the kitchen doesn’t have all the latest amenities and gadgets of the 21st century (they finally broke down this year and bought a microwave), Brian and Kathleen are quite cozy in their modest, colorful ’50s kitsch.