Slowly working our way into the early 20th Century...
A little inspiration for kitchens of the '20's. Generally speaking, I dislike architecture of the '20's, however, the kitchens were spot on! Possibly, this period was the apex of the perfect home kitchen.
So, I know it's been a long time since my last blog post... I'm sorry about that. Long story short, I had an accident, shattered my wrist, had a long recovery, and since then, I've been busy with work and trying to get a house ready to move into. There will be more posts about that coming later, as we turn an old house that has had many terrible updates over the last 100+ years, back into a nice place to live!
One of the features of the newly "de-modeled" home will be a 1920's style kitchen with original period appliances! Until then, we are dealing with things like an OPEN CISTERN under the floorboards and a strange LACK of any foundation in one part of the house. Oh joy!
Unsealed, open cistern under the flooring. No, not weird at all!
So, let's take a moment to discuss what I'm going to change about this house... The house was actually built in the 1850's, however, since I don't particularly care to go without indoor plumbing, we're going for a late 1920's "update". Exterior-wise, the cheap asphalt roof will be coming off and will be replaced with a metal roof. Metal roofing was really popular from the turn of the century, until about the 1950's. It is now making a come-back as people are realizing that they are only now, 80-100 years later, actually having to replace those early roofs... The house is mostly solid brick, but it's been covered in aluminum siding. I suspect there's a lot of spalling and other problems with the old brick walls, which is probably why it was covered up. This is more cosmetic than anything, as the walls are about a foot thick, but it probably prevents us from exposing the brickwork. The siding is quite worn and damaged in some areas, so something will have to be done. Maybe we will replace with wood siding. Who knows? The interior is mostly getting gutted. Most of the old plumbing had solid concrete poured around it, so re-working it is a nightmare. Instead, we're going to actually move the kitchen to another room!
So, after stalking Craigslist and inheriting a few pieces of antique furniture from relatives over the past year or two, I have acquired a nice gas stove, (already set up for natural gas, which the house also has) a General Electric Monitor Top refrigerator, (that works great!) a pie safe, and a late-teens/20's hutch cabinet with glass doors. I still intend to find a Hoosier cabinet and a nice enamel-top work table. Also on the hunt for a good farmhouse sink.
Our lovely "Estate" brand gas stove. It is almost like new! This was a lucky $250 find on Craigslist.
The fascinating thing about early appliances is that they were built like tanks and were very efficient. Remember that 90 years ago, electricity was just coming to rural America. The "grid" was small and fragile. There was no concept of massive, meter-spinning appliances because the power supply couldn't handle that. The entire concept of a refrigerator was a new convenience. Self-defrosting, ice-makers, and cold water dispensers would come along much later when the grid could handle such power-sucking devices. So, yes... You have to unplug the refrigerator every 3 months and defrost it. We've been experimenting in our current (modern) home with this old GE Monitor Top. It is currently being used as a beer-fridge and overflow for birthday cakes, etc. It takes about 24 hours to fully defrost it. That means putting whatever's in the fridge on ice for a day. Not that big of deal, especially if you do it on grocery day when the fridge is almost empty anyway! There's no sitting in front of it with a hair-dryer... Just unplug, stick a dishpan under the condenser, leave the door open, and walk away! As for efficiency, this 1931 GE fridge costs about 1/8th of what it costs to run my 2007 Whirlpool fridge with auto-defrost, even with the ice-maker disconnected!
This is not my fridge, but very similar... This one looks better than mine because I haven't restored the cabinet of mine yet.
I am pretty sure that there will be a lot of other cool projects related to this house, but for now I'm struggling through the necessary renovations in order to start doing the fun stuff! For now I'm enjoying the plethora of late 19th and early 20th Century artifacts that are surfacing as I tear out and replace the original floors.
Some of the artifacts that have been appearing in the dirt as we work. Early clay marbles, as well as glass ones, glass, abalone, and brass buttons, pieces of very old glass bottles and vases, and lots of pieces of eating utensils.
A bigger picture of the project area. This room will eventually be our early 20th Century kitchen. I have no idea what they thought they were doing with those floor joists! (And if you look to the very back, you can see the top of that open cistern mentioned earlier...) At least I will be very happy knowing that the floor is new, solid, and will last several lifetimes by the time I'm finished! (Not to mention all the new wiring and plumbing! I like the early 20th Century, but not cloth-clad wiring!)
Now, I know you're probably all thinking, "What happened to this blog? It was so cool and all about reenacting, and now it's become a home improvement blog?" No. The next article will be really cool. I promise! I just wanted to give everyone a glimpse at what's going on around here and part of why I haven't posted since April. I've got some great outings planned for this winter and I'll be chronicling them here in the coming months. Summer is "make a living" season... Winter has a lot more play time! However, there will be other house-related articles, but hopefully you'll find them entertaining as well, since it all has to do with the early 20th Century!
Thanks for reading!
