To start the new year off with a bang, feast your eyes on this gobsmackingly gorgeous kitchen.
I don’t even remember how Joe Oliver and I became acquainted, but I’m so glad we did. Joe operates Retro Stove & Gas Works based in Chicago and shares my love of old kitchens. Two days ago he sent some snapshots from a recent repair job in a kitchen that’s a treasure trove of original detail. I’m hoping Joe’s customers will allow me to include their kitchen in the book I’m writing for Lost Art Press. In the meantime, here are a few photos provided by the homeowner to whet your appetite.
You can read more about this kitchen and Joe’s approach to repair work at his blog. My favorite quote:
Not all 7 1/2 hour service calls take the same amount of time to prepare for, thank God. Most take between 30 to 60 minutes. Occasionally, however, the needs of a vintage stove push your friendly service technicians to extremes. So when you require help for that 3/4-century old stove which hasn’t required a dime for repairs all the years that you’ve owned it, please grant us some understanding when we charge a service fee to show up at your door. We have probably earned it.
Classy! It gives real meaning to that American old expression: Now you are cooking with gas!
(Sorry if this posts twice)
Nancy,
When you were visiting your adopted home did you every go the Geffrye museum or Dennis Sever’s House?
I think you’d like them.
St.Jonn
I visited the Geffrye Museum, which I LOVE! I hope to visit again next time I’m there. Funnily enough, my favorite part of the place was outdoors. The period garden rooms are to die for. I had not heard of Dennis Sever’s House. Will look it up online. And definitely my next trip will include meeting you in person.
The ‘kitchen’, for want of a better word, is tiny, dark and in the basement. Worth hanging around to let your eyes adjust. It was my favourite part of the house; now that the kitchen is the focal point of many homes it’s hard to imagine living like that!
I’ll show you around if we don’t make it over to the states first!
St.J
P.s. Did the owners deliberately match their Le Creuset to the bezel on the timer of their stove?
That’s attention to detail…
I don’t know, but well done, noticing this detail!
Now that’s a neato kitchen! I’m looking forward to the new book!
That’s really fine!
That stove alone is amazing, put it in that setting and is is perfect.
“It’s a busy room” but in a great way!
The quote at the ends looks like something that should make it into a supplement at the end of the next printing of “Making Things Work”
Yes, I appreciated that he had the guts to point it out.
I purchased an identical stove in 1994 from a used appliance store in Kansas City. It worked perfectly and I remember the owner of the store telling me that, “that piece of art has been thoroughly checked and it is as sound as the day it rolled out of the factory.” We used it many years and it is still in service in an refurbished farm house. The rest of my kitchen wasn’t nearly as nice as the one you featured.
That piece of art, indeed. How lovely.
That wall is amazing. My great aunt’s house still has all the original decor. Lots of mustard, cream, brass, and uh….space heaters. It is the grooviest fire hazard in Louisiana.