I live in a 1920s house and my kitchen is 11 x 10 with two windows. I'm sure the "taller" window was where the sink was originally (one of those porcelain jobs with the drainboard on the side) and the other window which is lower was perhaps where a table went. The back hall which has an outside door also goes down to the basement. It's in this back hall where the icebox once stood. When the post WW 2 owners "remodeled", they turned the dining room closet into a bath and took most of where the icebox was and made it part of that half bath (it's still a tiny bath but imagine if they hadn't!) I would not have put the toilet where it is because rather than being centered it's a little close to one wall -- I think that was because that was where the drain was for the icebox. The kitchen has been remodeled twice -- once post war where they did put cabients in and painted everything pink! And again in the mid 80s when they took those cabinets out and put 1980s oak cabinets in as well as kitchen carpeting. We took out the carpet and refinished the original wood floors, kept the cabinets and painted them after we removed the center panel of the upper cabinets and put in glass. I think it has the "feel" of an original kitchen or at least what we think might be an "old" kitchen. When we got the house the door between the dining room and kitchen was gone but the "holder" was at the top of the jamb. I went to an architechural salvage with my measurements and found a perfect door which even included the bottom mechanizim -- for all of $40!. Here is a picture of the kitchen looking in from the dining room. Showing the lower window which is over the sink. And that is an original window.

Here is the other window which I think perhaps was where the sink originally was:

Martha

Small...galley except for the addition where the refrigerator and cook top, grill and ovens are!
Had an oak floor at one time....and then some ugly asbestos tile....and now slate!
There was a darling little breakfast room, just big enough for my antique 40 by 40 antique drop leaf table and 4 cane seated chairs. And over the sink there was...still is...2 windows with a very deep sill...perfect for growing violets!

Martha, beautiful kitchen and I LOVE the windows.

Lindac, we've read so many of your posts and the antiques you have. Would love to see some pics of your home.

I have a 1920s home and 10 x 10 kitchen. I recently remodeled it, keeping things like the very functional built in breakfast nook and oak swinging door to the dining room. The ice box was originally on the back landing; that area now has an upper cabinet with coat hanger below it. The last time the kitchen had been remodeled was in the 1980s but it is so small that you could easily tell where everything had been originally. I was unable to save the original maple floor but had oak laced in to match the dining room floor and you can't tell the difference--kind of amazing.

Emory your sounds so much like mine! Our original floor is oak and we still have that and had it refinished (after the original linoleum backing was scraped off and the awful kitchen carpet was pulled up) Could we see pictures please. Would love to see what your remodeled kitchen looks like!

Thanks Martha! I've lived in old houses all my life and have updated several kitchens. This is one of two that got an extensive remodel. By the way, I find that the size of the kitchen is perfectly adequate!! It is amazing to me that newer homes have such gigantic kitchens. I had the choice whether to tear out the nook to add more cupboards but didn't give it a second thought. I spend a lot of time in the nook, drinking coffee and paying bills :)

At some point, probably the 1980s remodel, the radiator was removed from under the sink (very typical in houses around here) and put on the back porch area (where originally the ice box stood). I left it there as it, too, is completely adequate, and there's really no other place to put it. Refrigerators and radiators are the bane of old house kitchen remodel--somehow you just have to make it work!

Here's a link to my "finished kitchen" album.

https://goo.gl/photos/zEF7ftoRCLgRVpmG9

Emory -- love your kitchen and what you did with it. It looks original but with fittings befitting the 21st century. I don't have a nook and don't think this house ever did (because of the info from the lady who lived here in the 20s) but the house across the street is similar to ours and it does have a nook (and also an attached garage -- imagine that!) --

frog -- love your kitchen! And especially your stove!

thanks!

What great kitchens you all have. Martha, yours is so charming.

Emory, you did a brilliant job of making it look original, and frog, I envy your stove, especially the deep well cooker.

It's gotten so hard to find houses where the kitchen hasn't been totally destroyed, especially by converting the house to the ubiquitous open plan.

writers block -- I agree and although you want it functional you don't want a 21st century kitchen on a 19th or early 20th century house. And so many people do that!

Not quite antique, but maybe vintage? I think my stove is from the 70s. My house was built in 1940. I'd love so much to see an original photo. One time I was fishing out things that had fallen behind a lazy susan type cupboard. I was using a mirror and flashlight and saw behind the cupboards is yellow plastic tile and an outlet. So these cabinets haven't been here forever. I would love to update, but keep a vintage feel. This is a photo from when we had the house on the market a few years ago....My kitchen isn't usually this clean.

Tracie -- How cool is that! Whoever did your kitchen I think did pay homage to the 40s if it isn't original. Looks like the kitchens of my aunts that had 30s and 40s kitchens! BTW, to see what they really looked like you can often find 40s decorating books -- and don't forget there is prewar and postwar 40s.

Very cute kitchen Tracie. Your kitchen looks like it was renovated in the sixties. I had that style of cabinets in a previous house. And I think your stove is earlier than the 70's. If you take the model & serial numbers, you may be able to date it.

Oh, I'll have to find the decorating books! I've figured just rolling with what's already here would be easier than redoing everything, anyway. :)

I was trying.....Something....At one point. It just didn't work out. I don't know what's what period and what goes with what. But it made me happy, so... :)

Love these kitchens! Our 1908 house's kitchen was 10 x 11, unfitted, with just a wood stove and a sink... and a trap door to go to the basement. In the 1920s-30s a bank of inset cabinets were added along the wall with the trap door, which is still there under the flooring. The kitchen was at the back of the house, just in front of the back porch.

In the 1980s the home owner's father added a two story addition to the back of the house, incorporating the back porch. The addition is nicely done, however to get to it you must go through a small door in the kitchen that is right next to the stove. This resulted in a traffic nightmare since the new family room is in the addition.

In 2013, we took out the wall that was the dividing wall between the kitchen and the old back porch/new addition. This allowed me to add a long island separating my kitchen work area from a walkway to the addition. Not only did it give me much more counter space, but solved the traffic pattern. I refinished the old cabinets, which go to the ceiling and are wonderful. I have tried to keep it from looking too new. The kitchen is now 22 x 11 and I love it. I don't have a picture to post.

Emory, if you're still following this thread I have a question about your kitchen. I showed your link to some friends of mine who are negotiating for a cute 1923 cottage that is a true house of horrors within. It still has the original cabinets but they are probably not salvageable, alas.

Anyway, they were vastly charmed with your photos and asked me to ask you about your cabinets. Were those totally custom? If not, can you share what brand? Thanks very much.

writersblock, that's a nice compliment! I did a ton of research/intercomparison, mainly of three competing companies, and went with Shiloh. Shiloh has fans on the kitchen forum and I found the construction and service I received (from a local builder/supply store) excellent. I've been using the kitchen for about a year now and am 100% satisfied. I can't remember the exact name of the color but it is the off-white. Thanks again for asking. I'd be more than happy to share other details if they want.

Thank you so much! They'll be thrilled. I do have three more questions for you:

1. That's a relatively petite corner base cabinet. I wish more companies offered that size. Does it have carousels or just shelves inside?

2. How big is your sink?

3. What kind of DW did you get and do you like it? The options for 18" are so limited.

You know, I've been reading the kitchen forum since around 2005 and I have to say that this is possibly the best small kitchen reno I've seen at GW. You did a brilliant job of making it look like an updated original kitchen rather than a 21st century kitchen in an old house.

Flattery will get you anything writersblock! I am pleased you like it. I did the design myself--not hard to do in a 9 x 10 box--and a skilled handyman did the work for me. I shopped very carefully and intercompared every last item so it was the best quality I could afford at the best price. I have no regrets at all.

Here are some details, including the answers to your questions. Happy to share!!

Dishwasher--18" Bosch. I could not put a larger size there. I'm single and so happy with this choice! Bosch is a great line of dishwashers--I've had them before. It has the third silverware rack and is very very quiet.

Green Mountain Original soapstone countertop

Horus Tiffany crackle subway tile--bought online.

Shiloh soft white Square Flat Panel cabinets, flush inset. The panel style matches the other built in cabinets in my 1923 home--eg. the laundry closet upstairs. Shiloh supplied all the trim as well.

Fischer and Paykel Active Smart counterdepth fridge

36" Lazy Susan with two lazy susan shelves in wood. In fact, this was the larger of the two sizes of Lazy Susans that Shiloh offers and the more expensive one (the other has plastic shelves). There was a BIG issue about whether the door to the outside and the door to the kitchen were big enough to get it in the kitchen at all! It was within about 1/2", and the delivery guys grunted and I sweated all the way--but we made it. In a small kitchen it gives tons of storage for pots, pans, and small appliances.

IGY-2318-18, 18 gauge SS undermount sink. The dimensions are 18 x 23 x 9. This is not an expensive sink yet equal in looks at durability to some of the far more pricey ones. My countertop guy supplied it, but I also found it (and bought the sink grid) just by typing "IGY-2318-18" in online. It is plenty big for me--a full cookie sheet can fit in easily and it is nice and deep.

New red oak floor. This was a big expense. I wanted to keep the original maple floor but it was terribly beat up. In the end, this was one of the best decisions I made. The new floor now blends seamlessly with the 100 year old dining room red oak floor.

That's all I can think of...feel free to ask anything else! Hope it is helpful.

I'll show you our kitchen, part of our circa 1820 Federal period home in Massachusetts. The kitchen, however, is not in the Federal portion, but in a Colonial period structure at least 75 years older that was either built onsite or else drug in from somewhere nearby. The town has no records that indicate which. In any event, the two were joined.

Nearly evrything you'll see in the pictures (and a great deal you can't see) was built onsite in the very same space. Only the soapstone countertops, quarried a couple hours away in Vermont, were installed by others, the same guys who quarried it. Otherwise, I did it.

When we bought the place, the Colonal period structure stood no more than ten inches off the ground, atop six large fieldstones. In this part of New England three feet of snow could easily sit on the ground all winter, and pretty much everything made of wood that lay within four feet of the ground was rotten and had to be replaced, very first thing!

It would have been quicker and cheaper to have simply torn it down but, because I've been a professional house restorer all my working life, that simply wasn't an option. Problem was that I was busy working on other people's houses, so I supported the older part of the house on jacks, gutted it inside and out, wrapped it in tarps, and sealed it off from the "new" part of the house. It stayed that way for most of four years because I could only work on it nights and weekends (and then only when it wasn't too, too far below freezing). Only when the structural issues were addressed, a concrete foundation poured, new timber framing to support the roof, a new floor, new walls, ceilngs, doors, windows, etc, could I finally get around to building a kitchen, although we had been "designing" what we wanted in a kitchen since Day 1. Of course, I also had to put together a "temporary kitchen," and its associated plumbing and wiring, in an adjoining room that was still reasonably sound structurally, a room which at one time probably had been an "open hearth" kitchen.

I must mention that my wife had to be regularly reassured that this project would, ultimately, all come together (provided we stayed together). We did, and it did, though I'm not going to tell you how long it took. Suffice it to say that she doesn't know any other woman who had to wait so long for a kitchen, or would have waited that long, but because I was doing all the work myself, the ever-evolving kitchen plan ended up giving her pretty much what she wanted.



The room is 17x17' about half of which is a natural cork-floored food prep area. The rest of the floor in this part of the house is wide board White Pine, (as is the original floor in the Federal part of the house). Not seen in the photos is a five-burner cooktop on a double oven stove. The single-door refrigerator isn't as large as many, but there are only two of us, so it's more than enough. There's a stacked washer/dryer enclosed next to the refrigerator, and an extra-deep sink (primarily to bathe the dogs) opposite the island. Even though there is almost no "high" cabinetry on the walls, there's what seems like a lot of storage space in the cabinets, and a separate pantry too. All that "empty" space in the room is primarily for socializing because when we have friends over, the kitchen (as is often the case in New England country houses) turns out to be where everyone seems to want to gather.




The adjacent breakfast nook just beyond the french doors is not big enough to seat more than six at dinner, just 8'x12', but we're well along addressing that, because restoration of the other adjacent room, 12'x17' (which had housed the "temporary kitchen" for many years) is nearing completion (unless I decide that the tongue and groove maple floor has to be replaced...). Never having had a proper dining room we don't know for certain yet how we'll use it, but it would be nice to sit by the fire.



I want to add one other note. When it comes to antique periods we are not purists. The house, when we bought it, showed a history of "improvements" made by various owners beginning in the 1880s (judging by style and components) right up through the 1960s. We didn't want to erase that history by turning back the clock to 1825; didn't want to live 1825-ishly either. Although many of our furnishing do date back to the early 19th century, we have and enjoy a lot of things made during the next hundred years, and a few made more recently, even much more recently. We live with what pleases us, so when it comes to our home, and especially to those parts of our home where we spend a lot of time, we choose to not be slaves to period. We'd rather be slave to things, and people, and activities that make us happy.

In a kitchen especially, if food prep for yourselves and for your friends is one of the things that makes you happy, then plan and build your kitchen around that. This is the 21st century, and for us, being happy is a lot more important than living in a museum.

Thank you sooo much for taking the time to post all that, Emory. It's really helpful. My friends thank you, too.