You've got the same problem I have...old kitchens didn't have alot of room in them. I've got about as much counter space as you do and I hate it.
I think a kitchen has to function for the family that lives there first and fit the house second.
If I were you I'd seriously think about bumping out a wall and scraping everything...just start over. You might have to wait awhile to afford it BUT in the long run you might be happier.
There's not a thing in that kitchen that works for me except the sink.

I love the idea of a 1940's kitchen. Not so keen on 1950's. Turquoise and pink my two least favorite colors. LOL. I dont think your kitchen looks THAT bad. Ive seen worse. With a little paint and a new range hood and floor it could be charming.

You definitely have to keep that stove and sink. They are too kewl. I can see a 1940's red and white kitchen with a red and white checker board floor.

Im guessing funds are tight. I would paint the range hood white. Hoods are cheap but this one may be an odd size and you will save having an electrician rewire a new one. Paint everything else white. Dont use cheap paint it doesnt wash or wear well. Since you dont have much counter I would splurge on a new retro formica or linoleum countertop.

Id do my curtains out of vintage tablecloths. And hang up vintage towels and potholders.

If the walls are white you could do a red and white border for a pop of color. Theres tons of new stuff in red and chrome that would fit. Also lots of vintage at flea markets etc. For cheap art you can buy old magazines and frame 1940s adds.

Personally I like the cherry motif that was popular back then. Target has red and white dishes with cherries and Ive seen tons of retro borders with cherries. Dont forget your aluminum canisters and bread box.

Almost forgot. I see a table to the right of the sink. Would a dishwasher fit there. Also I see a pantry thru a door maybe one would go in there as a last resort.

Darn those Edwardian architects! I guess one question you have to ask yourself is how much work do you want to do/how much money do you want to spend? OK. That was two questions.

You may be able to fit a dishwasher where the base cabinet to the left of the sink base currently is. Dishwashers are only 24" wide, so you may have room. And your water is already there because of the sink -- you'd just have to cut some holes in the metal sink cabinet to run the necessary plumbing. I would worry about putting it there as-is, though, because you may have a door clearance problem with the DW and the oven. But go ahead and measure -- it may work.

If you're able to do more work at this point, though, what is on the range wall to the left of the range (little table there)? Is there a door on that wall? If not, I can see the range sliding down to the left a bit, which will open up some space on it's right for additional cabinets/drawers and countertop. You can then be sure you have clearance for the dishwasher to go to the left of the sink.

Heck, at least you have some remaining wall to the sides of your sink -- I don't. Our attractive portable dishwasher (complete with formica butcher block top) is across the room from the sink . . . permanently hooked up to a ginormous utility sink. Yep, a utility sink. Right in the kitchen. I hated it at first, but it comes in handy for cleaning paint brushes and washing small, muddy dogs!

Oh, and I have metal cabinets, too. A full ca. 1956 Geneva kitchen. In my 1925 Mediterranean Revival home. I wanted to rip them out the day we moved in, but finances prohibited such a drastic action. I've actually grown to like them now, and their retro vibe.

I would take out the wood paneling and the tile ceiling. Hopefully what's underneath would be in decent shape! You can get lots of vintage kitchen ideas from the Old House Journal; the magazine was very helpful to us. They have a web site, too. And reproduction light fixtures for old kitchens are at Rejuvenation Lighting, both catalog and web site.

Love your cabinets, jakabedy. And the fridge! wow.

My long-term thought is to rip out the wall on the right in the last pic, enlarging the opening to the formal dining room. Get rid of the kitchen table and build a long island w/ storage on the kitchen side and a bar eating area on the dining room side. This would accompany a total kitchen remodel- new cabinets, storage solutions, etc. But it's way in the future-- both because of $$ and because we want to think slowly and carefully about what we want in a kitchen, as we're both enthusiastic cooks.

I've found an autobody shop who will redo the metal cabinet beneath the sink for under $175-- IF we can get it removed and to them. I'm tempted to use a bright color enamel on that but think that white might be smarter and more period-appropriate.

There is a doorway just beyond the little table on the range wall-- I'm thinking about a microwave cart in the table's spot for now. Not pretty or ergonomic, but workable.

Thanks for all the thoughts! It encourages me that you all aren't too revolted by the kitchen. I wasn't really either, but my husband is cringing big-time. :)

I could easily live with that kitchen. I would probably try and do without a D/W for a few month until I had lived with the space. I'd paint the cabinets white as well as the woodwork. I wouldn't even mess with the paneling, I'd paint that too. I'd put a bit more effort into the flooring. That said, you don't have to keep that hood. It looks like a late 60's coppertone and I'll bet it's only 36". I have a stove the same size as yours (Mines an O'Keefe & Merritt) and my contractor put up a flat type fan on our soffit where a hood normally would have vented out. I hardly ever turn it on.

You can find great light fixtures on eBay and they are easy to rewire. I have bent glass towel bars for hanging kitchen towels. There's lots of vintage stuff which is not too expensive, but still fun.

Gloria

Paint, paint, paint, paint, paint. I am in the same boat. My kitchen was last redone in 50 years ago. I hated it with a passion, and a total kitchen redo isn't on the books for at least 5 years. One night, I realized that it was all going to get gutted, so who cares what I do to it. Pulled out some old paint cans and bought some $1/roll wallpaper from the double discounted bins, some melamie for temporory storage shelves and- Voila! A $125 face lift. I do still want to remodel. But at least it is now livable.

Paint the paneling. You can also fill the lines with spackle to get a smoother surface. You could do the chair rail thing about 1/4 from the ceiling, paint below white, fill the cracks above with putty and walpaper an appropriate styled pattern. If you really want the painted paneling to look good, fill the joints between the panels with paintable caulk before you paint. It allows for the expansion/shrinking wood thing. (the putty/spackle thing is for the preformed ridges in the individual sheets). I can see it look good with white paneling, red trim with chair rail and retro wallpaper above.

You can also paint the floor and put some satin poly on top, it will buy you a few years also.

You know what? I think your kitchen is pretty darn cool! I LOVE the sink, the range is great, and the cabinets are actually nice and funky. I can join everyone else as being in the boat of having a dreadfully outdated kitchen and not wanting to completely redo it yet. I don't want to spend money until I'm sure of what I want.

I completely agree with those in favor of painting for now. It is a very cheap fix and it should help you be much happier with the room until you can afford to make big changes, and are sure of what you want to do.

I have really nice 1960's (blech) plywood cabinets in my kitchen, but the layout isn't so bad, so I'm planning to paint them and just wait and see. Good luck, and post pictures when you make changes!

I'd have a lot of fun with that kitchen! When they're in that condition you are free to be as creative and daring as you like! In fact when I was shopping for a house I preferred ones with trashed out kitchens VS. the ones which had been remodelled to someone elses bland and blah tastes... but for which I still wouldve had to pay more $$$$ because of it being new.

Anyway... take down the panelling, learn plaster repair skills-- unless the old plaster has totally failed but that's not too typical. Often they put up panelling in the 60s just to be modern and they didn't want to bother with the old plaster anymore. Paint walls some nice rich color-- green, yellow, or maybe even red? White or cream doors/ trim. Take down that goofy corner cabinet and the vent. I've NEVER had a vent over my stove and guess what-- you get some grease spatters on the walls but you just clean em up and maybe repaint occassionally. Unless you're in the habit of doing a lot of deep fat frying do you really need a vent? On the wall the stove is on put in open shelving. On shelves you can store bowls, pottery, store stuff in containers, etc.

Lower cabinets-- are those metal? Repaint, or, I have seen old metal cabinets and furniture sandblasted to silver metal and finished w/ clear finish. Looks kinda cool and industrial. Counters- get some old fashioned real linoleum and metal edging trim and re create the old fashioned linoleum counter. Flooring-what is it now? If its old highly porous asphalt tile (like I had) that can be easily painted... use a good bonding primer as first coat. Or, what's the wood underneath? If good, strip or stain. If not so good, paint.

In general- Ive gotten LOTS of gratification in my old house by just getting rid of the 100 years worths of junk and crud-- panelling, dropped ceilings, layers of floor coverings, etc. and stripping it down to basically what it was. In fact this approach CAN be your permanent solution too... as others have said paint can do wonders esp. if the colors are carefully chosen and work well together and if you do a good job w/the sanding and prep work.

Ha, I finally found it. The September 2006 issue of Old House Interiors has a wonderful article on a beautiful 40s red and white kitchen. I was hopeing that that web site would have some pictures from this issue, but they don't. I'd look for it, though, the article (p 30) is great.

Here is a link that might be useful: Old House Interiors

Thanks, everyone-- you've been very encouraging. We made our offer last night, should hear back by Monday. I'll be sure to post pictures of our "temporary remodel" when we get to that point.

Assuming we do get the house and get to that point! :)

Thanks again--

fuzzy

Hon,
That kitchen is very doable... It could be very charming with just a little work. The cabinet to the left of the sink could be the dishwasher spot. (We did that in our last house. Easy plumbing to boot!)

The paneling wants to be painted - I wouldn't even bother to fill in the cracks... The curtains are begging to go.

Stay on the look-out for a real vintage stove - from the 30's,40's or 50's and paint the exhaust. New floors can be cheap.

I love how bright it is and love the room for the large table. What are the countertops... they look great! (Mine were Harvest Gold...)

We had the same problem in our house - but I made mine to look 40's too. Painted the walls yellow to go with the bad floor. And used red accents. I have a great old 40 kitchen set. I'd be very happy with it if I could get a new floor. Thinking of black and white check. It's something we'll be getting soon.

dainaadele, Did you paint your floor, too? That looks great! What kind of paint did you use?

Aedinger: Yes, the floor is painted and it was kind of trial and error.

I cleaned with a serious grime remover (TSP?), painted with black oil based enamel and put 3 coats of poly (oil based) on top of that. The whole thing only required about 1/2 a quart of black and 1 full quart of poly. It is not solid black. I swooshed some paint on one area in black, then used plastic grocery bags to kind of reverse sponge it off, pulling off enough that little specks of the floor underneath showed through. I can't remember if I went over with black for 2 or 3 coats, but I stopped when I liked the result. The first coat looked absolutely horrible.

The mistake I made was putting gloss poly on. The floor gets way too many fine scratches showing up on the poly. Should have just used satin and been done with it. It has held up 3 years so far, no chips. We don't have kids, but we are not gentle users either. I did all the black and one coat of poly in one day, two more coats on day two, and then we only walked on it with socks for several days after that.

dainaadele----I think you could still put a coat of satin poly on top of the glossy to kill the shine. I've done it on furniture, not a floor, but it worked fine for that. I gave the glossy a very, very light sanding first.

dainaadele- forgot to mention that I love the updates you made to your kitchen. aedinger asked the same question I had about the floor-- it looks great.

It's funny how the decorating magazines, etc. make you feel like you can't redo your kitchen without thousands and thousands of dollars. You proved 'em dead wrong. Thanks for sharing!!

if you get this house, you really need to live in it a year before you start major remodels. it took us 2 years in our 4square to come up with an intelligent kitchen design. we did re-arrange things several times.
check in the basement and see if there are any signs from previous remodels-- holes from gas/water lines. Our final
kitchen plan after 2 years was identical to the orginal lay-out-- all the holes for gas, electric, plumbing and heating
were right where we wnet to put everything. we bought our cabients, fixtures, appliances after we decided where evrything was going to go and what we liked. medium oak, beige tile, atainless appliances, off-white flooring (major error), almond countertops. each time an item wen on sale
we bought it and stored all in the basement. we waited until we installed to order the counters.

we moved everything out of the kitchen. hooked up the microwave in the dining room. stripped it all to the four walls, and scrubbed it all down on saturday. Sunday we painted, walls, wood work & ceiling. Monday I laid the sheet vinyl floor. Tuesday I put in all the base cabients.
replaced to stove, fridge and rehooked up the sink. plywood went down as temp counters. Wed i installed the ceiling fan--i was desperate, the recessed light over the sink and the
wiring for new electric above the backsplash. Thursday I
hung the upper cabients and the stove hood. Friday they came to measure for counters and i put away all the dishes and stuff. Two week later the counters got installed-- done by home depot. i finished the tiles work for the backsplash,
and installed the new sink and faucet.

we could have eaten out for the 1st 3 days if necessary. I'm not really handy when it comes to house repairs. but
i got top of the line cabients for 40% off, got the flooring
for 60% off-- it was a discontinued pattern. Tiles for backsplash were also very cheap ($ .25 each 4x4) all from
open boxes-- had to pick thru one by one), saved about
$150 on the stove and $200 on fridge, bought the ceiling fan at the end of the summer sales saved 25%. The sink was a
display model (30% off) and faucet we got 10% off because we opened an account at lowes. The only labor that we paid for was for the countertop installation that I didn't want
to try doing alone. my wife helped to take stuff out of the kitchen and paint. I watched out twin 4 year olds and did the rest by myself since i was working 3-11 shifts at the time. After 15 years it's time for more work-- tile floor,
solid surface counters, a dishwasher, new faucet and disposal. then a gas range and electric oven and a new
fridge. ill do the floor, others can do the rest.

hope you get the house. but live with the kitchen first
until you know what you want. do like the red/white deco scheme you have in mind. you might consider 'quilted' steel
backsplashes and a stainless hood.

diggerb