Vintage Kitchens of the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s

1930s: The Steam-lined -Depression Era "Modern Kitchen"

By the 1930's, the kitchen was being transformed from the old fashioned kitchen to the "Streamlined-Modern Kitchen" with time salvage features, better assosication and much improved ventilation. The "all-electric kitchen" was promoted in popular magazines with numerous advertisements showing newly designed small and major appliances. Mixers were the homemakers dream now designed with numerous attachments that could sift flour, mix dough, grate cheese, squeeze lemons, whip potatoes, shred, slice and chop vegetables and even grind knives. "Depression Green" was the "in" color used on the wooden handles of kitchen utensils, on kitchen cabinets and tables and on kitchen wares. Often accessories were cream and green replacing the white and black look of the former decades.

Chrome Dining Chairs

Other popular color combinations in the 1930s were Gray and Red or Crimson, Silver and Green, Pearl Pink and Blue, as well as the use of checkered patterns on textiles. Kitchen wares such as canisters and Bread boxes tended to be softly painted with possibly a straightforward decal.

Vintage Kitchens of the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s

In 1935 the National Modernization Bureau was established to promote modernization throughout the country. Manufacturers competed for better designed appliances and kitchen accessories. Color began to enter the kitchens of the thirties and articles in magazines featured decorating tips on color schemes and how to merge the kitchen into the rest of the home. Kitchens were no longer work stations but gaining as much attention as the rest of the home. Small and large appliances were available in color and Sears and Montgomery Ward featured colorful kitchen wares and "japanned" accessories such as canister sets, range sets, cake savers, bread boxes and waste baskets.

1940s: The Postwar Colorful Era

The Post War kitchen of the 1940's began to become house convention places and now tables and chairs made of chrome bases with enamel, linoleum or plastic tops could be added to a more spacious kitchen which replaced the smaller work centered earlier kitchens. Separate formal dining rooms were being replaced by kitchens that could accommodate the house and guests. The kitchen was becoming a very tantalizing space and traditional colors dominated the interior décor palette. Magazines advertised products for your "Gay modern Kitchen". Combinations of red, green and yellow or red and black were popular as well as brightly colored tablecloths, textiles and curtains. Flowers, fruits and Dutch motif were in vogue and found on shelving paper, trim, decals and kitchenwares. Appliances continued to be produced with streamlined designs, rounded corners and smaller proportions. The blend washer/dishwasher was introduced as well as the garbage disposal and freezers for home use.

1950s: The Atomic Era-Pastel Color-Space Age

Dramatic changes would occur in the kitchens of the 1950's as space age, atomic era designs and materials entered the scene. The fifties kitchen featured plastics, pastel colors such turquoise or aqua, pink and yellow (cottage colors), Formica and chrome kitchen table and chair sets matched formica kitchen counters and were easy to keep clean with messy minuscule ones. After the war there was more time for free time promoting kitchenware's and accessories for picnics, barbecues, parties and the home bar.

The introduction of color T.V. In the 1950s brought full color into America's living rooms where homemakers could now see all the tantalizing products and appliances available to them. Following World War Ii, there was a new generation of plastics and time for "gracious living" and entertaining. Kitchens and homes saw the transition from glass, ceramic and tin products to numerous types of plastics which made casual living easier. Melmac and Melamine dishes, Lustro-ware and Tupperware storehouse accessories and "thermowall" for picnics were a huge success. Vinyl was used for tablecloths, chair covers and furniture and bark cloth with boomerang and abstract shapes was popular. Tablecloths and dishcloths continued to be brightly colored and souvenir textiles were added to the home with tropical, Southwestern and Mexicana themes. Poodles, roosters and designs with kitchen utensils, tea pots and coffee pots decorated potholders, appliance covers and linens. Appliances were built-in and came in fifties colors such as turquoise, soft yellow, pink and copper.

Vintage Kitchens of the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s

How to Decorate a Living Room With a Dining Area

Whether you own a home with a great room or a condo with a combined living room and dining area, it can be a challenge to decorate a living room with dining area so that the two areas remain separate, but complementary.

Where does one start? Do you start in the dining room and let it resolve the look of the two spaces? Or do you start in the living room? Should they be the same color? Should they have the same furniture styles? What about fabrics and textures?

Chrome Dining Chairs

There seems to be more questions than answers, that's for sure. But it's not that hard to work with these two spaces, if you take some time to resolve exactly what's prominent to you and make a few basic establish decisions that will set the tone and direction of your decorating plans.

How to Decorate a Living Room With a Dining Area

The first thing to reconsider is how the two rooms flow together. In other words, you don't want them to look different, but complementary. So the styles and colors should work together. They don't have to be the same mind you; they just need to originate a nice visual balance.

Perhaps more prominent is the color task of the two rooms. Because they normally share common walls, you should pick a wall color that works with both rooms. If you have the luxury of buying new furniture, you can elect a main color for the fabric of the sofa that will work with a second and third color. You can then use these secondary colors for the occasional chairs in the living room and the chairs in the dining room.

This allows the two rooms to blend together while retaining their own personality.

With the walls, you can use a main color on the walls that run seamlessly from the one room to the other and then add a second accent to a shorter wall, such as a wall in the dining room. Just be sure that these colors work with the fabrics you've selected. You don't want guests to ask when the circus is arrival to town. Remember, it's prominent to keep a visual flow between the two rooms, not originate two separate rooms. If you want to do that, build a wall instead.

The same principle works for all your accessorizing as well. For example, all the window treatments should match. If you use one type of blinds in the living room you should use them in the dining room, too.

Even though the two rooms need to be tied together, they don't have to be identical. For example, you could go with a nice modern sofa grouping in the living room and accent it with an ebony dining room table in the dining area. That said, you don't want to put a heavy oak dining table in the dining area and try to force it to live in harmony with a black and chrome entertainment town that can be seen in the living room. There's a fine line between eclectic and gaudy.

To added define the spaces, use different lighting. You can go with a nice chandelier over the dining area and then select lamps for the living room that pick up basic elements of its design. If the chandelier has a nice brushed chrome surface, you could add table and floor lamps that use brushed chrome accents in the living room, even if the main color is different. Just be sure that the lamps are useful as well as stylish. Good lighting is requisite for creating dining areas and living rooms that are functional as well as beautiful.

As you look at ways to decorate a living room with a dining area attached, resist the temptation to think of the two areas as being different visually, even though they serve very different purposes. You'll find your decorating task a much more pleasurable sense if you do.

How to Decorate a Living Room With a Dining Area