Can you tell us about the room? Is it one side of the kitchen or a separate DR? Is that a turquoise fridge on the right in the first picture?

You have some very nice, very cool stuff there. Maybe too much though?

A layout would help, even a primitive drawing...

Congrats on your ebay win! I like the mid-century vibe with your refrig and hoosier cabinet. Perhaps it would look more balanced by swapping the hoosier and hutch. The hoosier across from the refrig seems to make more sense, so I'd try that before foregoing that fabulous hutch. Placing a few green items and others in blue tones in the hutch will help tie those pieces.

Is the cabinet w/ the liquor bottles on top still there or is that the wine cabinet that has been moved? If the space is now vacant, then you can center the hutch on the table and have a bit of room between the hutch and hoosier.

Could you switch the locations of the Hoosier and the hutch, and then turn the Hoosier 90 degrees?

Thanks for the feedback so far. It is an eat-in kitchen, about 150 square feet or so. The whole house is just under 1200 square feet.

Yes, that's a Big Chill fridge in Beach Blue!

I like the idea of maybe putting the hoosier on the back wall.

Here is the other end that has been done for awhile.

That current liquor cabinet we got about 2 months ago at an estate auction. The little wine fridge was next to that.

This is from about a year ago. We had these horrible plastic bins that need to go, so that's why the hutch can help a lot with getting rid of those for good. We just haven't been able to find something for that space. The Hoosier contains a lot of barware and some completer pieces for the silverware and china.

Hmmm. Was so looking forward to you finding the hoosier pantries. I do love the table and chairs, hutch, not so much.
What about taking the top of the hutch and using it on the other side of the hoosier. Right now my oak hoosier is in the dining room, I'm typing on it right now. Those of us who LOVE these things learn to accommodate them to our needs at the moment. How about moving the hoosier to a bedroom for a little office space. Just some thoughts.

I've had no luck finding just the hoosier side cabinets!
Also, the hoosier will not fit on the wall with the doors. ARGH. We are so tight on space, I don't know where I would move it. Maybe we can revisit that for perhaps the guest room. No room at all in the MBR.

The antique store where I had a channel back chair reupholstered would probably be interested in the hutch should we decide we don't like it.

How does the hutch work without the top? (not that that helps your particular problem)

I don't think the hutch and the table are a real "set" like some of the Heywood roomsets are. The dogbone chairs and the radiused edge on the table seem to predate the banded doors and the floating top.(I think it's Heywood "Triple Crown").
I think they made this until the early sixties and the dogbone chairs are early to mid fifties.

However, that doesn't mean they weren't purchased together, since they overlapped in production. But I feel like you wouldn't be breaking up a set if you sold the china cupboard. I always felt like the top seemed a bit heavy for this piece even though its glass, if that makes any sense.

I can't really help but wanted to say I love your kitchen and if you want to get rid of the hoosier you can send it right to me in CT... :)

This might sound odd, but can you post a picture of the hoosier drawers? I think I have a set of bedside tables that match that midcentury drawer style. I would give them to you if you're close and like them.

Just a thought!
Christine

Thanks, Pal. As you probably know, H-W still makes the crown cabinet and the dogbone chairs, LOL. I have no idea how long the PO had these pieces or what was their history.

Club, I can add you to the list of people who want the hoosier! I just don't have the heart to give it up.

Time for bed! I've got the day off tomorrow, but I've got to hit Zumba in the morning. I appreciate all the comments.

Ditch the hutch, keep the Hoosier. I think Palimpsest hit it right on the nose, the hutch and table aren't a set. Same wood, same color, etc. but wrong style. Sell the hutch on CL and let me know if you want a picture of the cabinets I have.

Is there a way to private message so that everyone doesn't see the info?

The new Heywood Wakefield started production in the early 1990s after someone who dealt in the original vintage pieces bought the rights from the bankrupt company.

I didn't know they reintroduced this hutch, but I looked it up and the new one does not have the bubble glass--it specifies flat glass, so yours is from the "real" H-W company, not the 1990s originated limited reproduction company.

Great kitchen!

I agree with jaysmom - keep the hoosier and use the hutch somewhere else. I think it's just too crowded with both in the small area and the hoosier doesn't stand out as much as it should.

In 1955, the year I married my first husband, we bought the identical table and chairs that you have. Used it for years and loved it. Did not buy the hutch. Could you use the bottom part in your living room as a table behind your sofa or anywhere you need storage?

Thanks, everyone. They are actually not exactly the same shade either. The hutch is "blonder" if that's a better way to describe it. The table and chairs are more of what I would think of the traditional honey wheat.

Jaysmom, I have no idea how this 90's technology message board works! My email is my screen name at yahoo.

Christine, here are the hoosier drawers:

Grandmaof3, that's so cool! Behind the sofa would have been a good place for it, but we just got this vintage two-piece chest (was actually part of a Drexel Counterpoint hutch set, ironically) about 2 months ago! You can see where the wine fridge used to be in the kitchen.

So, no, I am not kidding in that we are running out of room.

I love the Hoosier cabinet, but not with the mid-century pieces. I am a huge fan of mid-century homes (love your couch!) and also contemporary, traditional, etc., etc...:)

I sort of think you are mixing too many disparate styles. The kitchen seems on the modern side except for the wonderful retro refrigerator, then you have the mid-century table, chairs, and hutch (like those too), and the early 20th c. Hoosier. Don't suppose you can add on to the house? ;) If not, I think I would try to find another spot for at least one item. Maybe if you pick the one that truly makes your heart sing and then go with that, it will work better. So frustrating to have all those marvelous pieces and not enough room! I have found that often, less really is more, especially when you are mixing large pieces of different eras.

I prefer the hutch to the hoosier cabinet.

I agree with jaysmom49. Lose the hutch. It actually distracts from the interest in the room. You can repurpose it hopefully and if not, sell it. I think it's okay to mix it up, you have some really nice mixing going on...but in this case less is going to be more :)

Hi, gsciencechick, just wanted to say congratulations on finding your H-W set! And you got your dogbone chairs too. It looks great!

I don't have any good advice unless it is to swap the bottom part of the hutch with the Drexel chest behind your sofa (because the chest looks smaller and might fit better in your kitchen). I agree with the other posters that you shouldn't feel obligated to keep the hutch if you decide it won't work too well in your space. But really I just wanted to pop in because I had been wondering if you'd found a table yet, and I'm glad you did. :)

Once again, thanks for the feedback. Yes, we would love an addition, but that is definitely a longer-term goal. There are several homes our size and style that have done this, and it looks good. I like that our house has a single floor plan compared to a lot of other homes in our neighborhood which are tri-level.

We'll get some feedback when MIL comes today, and we'll think about it over the long weekend. In general, I agree that either the hoosier or the hutch have to be moved.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, everyone!

I agree with NorthCarolina. That piece behind the couch along the wall looks to narrow to me. I'd put the bottom of the hutch there and see where that other nice piece could go. Since we haven't seen the rest of your LR, we can't make any suggestions but I could see that small piece as a great TV stand. Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Oh well, MIL was no help at all because she says leave it as is. We'll keep thinking about how we can make all the various pieces work.

Would you consider putting the liquor cabinet under the LR pass through so it would be across from the french doors, centering the hutch on the table and putting the hoosier to the right of the hutch? The other option is to switch the LR chest with the hutch but you'll still likely need to locate the liquor cab under the pass through. I think the hutch may be more handy next to the table.

I like the shape of the table and chairs, but not their color in your space. If they were the classic blonde wood, or much darker, they would work better with your white cabinets. There's just something about that caramel shade that is wrong for your space. Would you consider refinishing them? Painting them? And your Hoosier cabinet is a great piece, but the too kitchy two tone is distracting and wrong for the rest of the elements, as is it's boxy shape. It's vibe is from the wrong era to go with the furniture and the refrigerator. I'm not against mixing eras if the shapes work, but that particular Hoosier doesn't have enough of the Deco curves that some of them had (and that the fridge and table and china cabinet have) and that's why it's feeling wrong.

Your style needs something more like this.

{{!gwi}}

And that's why I vot to get rid of the Hoosier and try to make the set work. Paint the china cabinet that green of your sofa if it's not in incredibly good condition that would make it valuable.

You have some cool retro stuff, that's for sure. And I totally get trying to make it all work, that used to be me trying to cram a room and a half worth of furniture "finds" into one not-big-enough space. I'm still not quite over it, but I'm a work in progress!

A comment and a suggestion...

First, the suggestion. Have Mr. Muscle move out one piece, either the hutch or the hoosier. Outside, another room, or whatever. Clear your room of junk or plastic bins or whatever other clutter you wouldn't have out if you were trying to show your house. See what you think. Sometimes, you really have to come to a parting of the ways with furniture. And no matter how cool or how nicely refinished or how rare, a piece that doesn't work for you and ADD something to your home needs to find another home.
I had this in my dining room:

It was a Santa Barbara California ebay find for $99 maybe 5 years ago. It never fit my style. It stored my dishes but not nearly as well as the prior buffet I sold to make room for this. And it always bothered me on some level to have something that didn't work with anything else in the room. Last month, I put it on Craigslist and sold it the first day for much more money than I paid for it. My dishes that were inside are sitting in a rubbermaid tub on the floor. Don't care. Glad it's gone.

Now, the comment....
While sometimes people came for dinner and exclaimed over my antique buffet, the room just didn't work with that piece. No one said, "What a pretty dining room you have!"
When you have too much furniture crammed into a small space, even the good pieces or the nice antiques, actually detract from the home. Better to let a cool piece go to a new home where it can add something good.

Red

The Hoosier in it's present form, just screams "country cute". You half expect to see old milk jugs full of corn stalks and red gingham everywhere when you see that Hoosier. It just doesn't work with the wink and a nod sophisticated mod vintage look that the kitchen and sofa have going.

I love the dining set, and maybe with the Hoosier gone, it will look more at home when the china cabinet isn't crowded into a corner. But, it has warm tones, and most of the rest of your items are cool color based. To really make it work, you will need more of that warm brown wood tone elsewhere in your kitchen and living room. Change out the blue pendants to amber brown ones that match the set and add in a wood blind above the sink. Look for some fabric to add a few pillows on the sofa in that brown and use the fabric and some velcro to make a straight panel curtain to hide the washer and dryer from view when not in use.

Thank you, lots of good ideas. I think we have something we can work with. Of course, I am coming up on the last week of classes and then finals, so these are my busiest weeks, sigh. In the meantime we found some space for the wine fridge in the home office.

1. We absolutely need the storage in the hutch, so we are going to try to keep it and center it on the kitchen wall and see how that looks. I will try a good cleaning on all the pieces, but they will eventually need refinishing. I do not want to paint them. They are in original condition, so they definitely show some wear.

2. The bar cabinet can move to the LR corner where there is currently a corner rack with photos. Perhaps the wine fridge will also fit in the LR next to the bar cabinet, or it can remain in the home office, or we can maybe get rid of it. That corner rack will move to the corner of the kitchen by the french doors so that wall is not totally bare.

3. I just can't part with the hoosier. It will work in the guest room since the BR set in there is more cottagey looking. Plus, we plan to paint that room a pale green (SW Celery). It can fit in one of two places. Although DH thinks it's weird to have a kitchen piece with a flour sifter in a BR, but I've told him people do use hoosiers as desks like jaysmom. It is not like I use the flour sifter anyways.

So, it will probably be a couple of weeks until we get this done, and I'll post some pics at that time. Once again, I appreciate all the feedback.

Love your hoosier- I'll be looking forward to pics of the redone bedroom when you get it in there! Mines been everywhere BUT the bedroom; I have an oak one that has been without it's top as my kitchen island, years ago, then with the top back on as a game cabinet in my family room, my last place it stored serving pieces and table cloths in the dining room, and in this house it's been in my basement studio with art supplies..now I can't wait to move it up to my LR when the room gets painted where it will serve as my desk and bills/paperwork and laptop station!! --Penny

Good decision to move the Hoosier. If you do drink more than a bottle of wine a week, then a wine fridge is something you want to keep, but maybe create an actual bar area (with some Mad Men type barware) in another space. If, like me, you're not a big imbiber (the same bottle will stay in my fridge for a couple of weeks) then the wine fridge is taking up precious space in what sounds to be a fairly storage challenged home. Do you have a basement? Nothing wrong with a classic "wine cellar" type location for it.

On your fabulous DR set, recover the seats in a mod print fabric that has the blues of your kitchen and the brown of the set in it.

Sorta like this or something with similar tones.

{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

Then cut some masonite to "just fit" as the backing of the china cabinet, wrap the fabric around it and just push it into place as the background of the shelves. That's an easy way to get your kitchen's colors onto the pieces and make them more at home in the space while you wait to refinish them. I do think the suggestion of a wood blind for the kitchen and some fabric for the sofa in the brown would also make them feel more a part of your space.

Since you're keeping them both, you might try this...

Swap the Hoosier and the hutch... then...

Put the Hoosier in the corner and turn it 45 degrees so that it's in the corner of the room.

Visually, this will separate the Hoosier and the hutch, connect the hutch with the table, and give you more room to walk.

Do you need to have the extenders in the table, or can you take them out? If the table is a smaller square, it will give you more room.

You might also experiment with turning the table onto a diagonal. Just for traffic-flow reasons...

Best of luck!

Thanks, live_wire_oak! I love the idea of putting the fabric in the hutch since I was definitely planning to recover the chairs. The blinds in the kitchen are wood, but white wood (JCP basswood). However, they do match all the other blinds in the house, so not sure if one darker wood blind would stand out or not?

H-W actually sells fabric by the yard on their site, but I am certainly open to anything in a fun, retro print.Good point on bringing in some browns. I've recovered chairs before, so I know I can do it. The seats should just easily unscrew from what I can see.

Yes, we do drink a decent amount of wine, but we are drinking more reds than whites lately. Normally, we just leave the reds out vs. put them in the fridge. This week we used the fridge for the reisling for TG dinner.

Put the hutch on the wall behind the couch. Center the hoozier on the wall. Put the wine fridge back on one side of it and balance it with something appropriate on the other side. The console table in the LR is small enough to be relocated elsewhere. Just a thought.

Mclarke, we have already turned the table on the diagonal like you mentioned. It does help with daily traffic flow. Our previous table was about the same size but oval so not as much interference. What you see in the pic is WITHOUT the two leaves that came with it! It does have drop leaves. For everyday we are keeping the drop leaf closest to the french doors down. If we keep both down, the table is too small. If we were ever to put in both leaves, we'd use almost the whole kitchen and would have to turn it to go lengthwise towards the sink.