Here are examples of what I mean.

These are all from Craftsman houses. None are my kitchen.

I think (don’t know) that someone went to a lot of care to make the over-range cabinet true to the house’s original doors and trim, down to the wide grain and very close crown moldings.

These are new cabinets, no-one was doing this kind of full overlay in 1910, but check out the wood counter, ornate sink, and what I’m guessing were the original and wonderfully quirky floors and tin ceiling.

Look at that ceiling! And what are likely original built-ins by the original sink. This may be an almost entirely original kitchen. Back then, this would have been a lot of ”fitted” cabinetry to find in a modest kitchen.

Probably original too. If so, then those cabinets are likely solid wood, built in place, no plywood or MDF anywhere. Yet somehow they haven’t warped themselves off the walls in 100+ years of use. Imagine that.

This is a new kitchen, and it looks spectacular to me. The cabinetry has details and volume worthy of fine furniture. The lowers are not free-standing, but look like they are. And that irreverent backsplash - sure, it could have been a slab of stone, but now it is so much more.

Even in house without a style you've listed, the common situation that is ignored is how the kitchen furnishings related the open and connected living and dining space. A kitchen designer does not design the living room cabinetry or trim, furniture or colors. Maybe the wall color. Often narrow hardwood is carried into the kitchen when wide plank engineered would be the preferred choice if building the open plan space new.

I'd bet 90%+ of houses in the US have no distinct architectural style or merit, so that's why most kitchens you see here and elsewhere are just an amalgamation of what's currently popular. Even MCM-era houses were largely designed primarily with cost, not style, in mind.

For kitchens with architectural integrity, take a look at the work of Gil Schafer, an architect designing relatively faithful reinterpretations and renovations of historic homes from many eras. Details that distinguish his kitchens from the run-of-the-mill: combining inset doors with slab-front overlay drawers; exposed butt hinges; patinated or living-finish metal finishes; utilitarian-style decorative features like lighting, fixtures, and hardware; painted wood floors; not necessarily buying into modern tropes about what "good" design is; little if any recessed lighting. The through-line from the materials/look/feel of the kitchen to the rest of the house is always clear.

Below are some examples of kitchens and the houses they're in:

House built 1960, no real changes except for countertop appliance. (Fridge is far left.)

I accidentally posted the last photo without realizing it was taken before the glass cabinet doors were on- I don’t have open shelving.

sushipup, your MCM kitchen looks so light and simple, such clean lines.

Chinacat, I can’t show your kitchen to my wife because she’ll want to know why we aren’t doing that with ours! I love your colors, cabinets, and that range!

I used to be a purist about exactly this kind of thing. These days I'm just grateful that someone hasn't torn down the old house and is instead living in it the way they want.

We live in our kitchens so differently than we used to and it often doesn't make sense to put in what would have been original.

The last home I owned was built in 1852. There was no indoor plumbing and the kitchen was a shed in the backyard with a large brick fireplace. No thanks! When we renovated the kitchen from a bad 1990s redo, we used 3 sources of inspiration: 1900's butler's pantries, wide heart pine floors as they were in the rest of the home, and Hitchcock tables and chairs as they were in the rest of our home too. Nothing about it was remotely like the 1850s.

Old large homes often had kitchens where hired help worked and no seating for a family. Stoves with no ventilation. Separate pieces of kitchen cabinetry. Nobody wants that these days. (Although I know you want the separate cabinets John!)

I'd rather see something more modern in concept with toned down finishes than the craftsman themed last picture you posted John with the in your face faux Craftsman finished hood.

@chinacatpeekin Damn I miss the great old stoves in the Bay Area! Your kitchen is perfection. You have a lovely stove but a quite modern custom hood, a nice sink that is likely not at all what the original would have looked like, I bet there was an enamel counter with build in drain board, lower cabinets that are much more ornate than what would have been there, but these probably bring you so much joy, and a large eat in area too. Great job!

Yep, Gil Schaffer is wonderful. Rita Koenig does an excellent job of decorating a lot of his interiors.

My previous house was a Spanish style and I did a stained wood kitchen in 2018 and picked slightly detailed doors with some distressing. I matched the stain to the existing wood beams.

When I told my KD I wanted a stained kitchen, he was so excited because he had only done white kitchens in the previous 7 years ... his market is mostly west side LA, with everyone wanting white cabinets with white marble. That made me pause for a moment, but I stuck with stained, which suited the house style. I did use Taj Mahal quartzite to lighten the space and a Spanish inspired backsplash from Encore Ceramics.

Few more inspo pics I found - all these are in 1905-1915 ish Craftsman or Shingle Style houses.

Copper counters, dark wood, wavy tile, wall mount bronze faucet, and I think that is a rustic floor?

Glorious woodwork, and while the round islandette may not be a worker she sure is a looker. The funny thing is, people are practically throwing ”brown” furniture like that away, you can buy unloved examples all day for $50 and restore them to beauty.

I wonder if Wm Morris patterns and pantry halls will come back? The arched details don't look Craftsman to me, maybe this was a transitional style. Regardless, it is diaphanous and lovely.

This is a bit more Standard (Very Nice) Kitchen but what really draws me is the leaded glass and contnuous wood floor.

chispa, I’d love to see more Spanish/Mission Revival kitchens. I lived in L.A. in the 80s/90s, those houses were everywhere and many had not as yet been White Kitchenified. I especially remember the glossy rounded Mexican tile floors (so deadly with bare wet feet) and exposed dark wood beams.

I have a log-sided house on a few acres, though it's not built in any particular architectual style. My home color palette is greens, browns/wood, and warm whites -- not exactly rustic, per se, but maybe more organic or naturalistic, I guess.

This was my last house. I had a niche in the dining room, so designed and installed built in cabinets. This home is a 1910 Craftsman-Colonial.

Plain & Fancy Built In Buffet · More Info

This is a Craftsman in my neighborhood. I recommended they keep the uppers as they were still beautiful. Their bases had been hacked and partially replaced at some time in the past. So we just replaced the bases and countertops.

Shiloh Cabinetry Green Paint · More Info

I love OLD HOMES....I've always owned one. Current home is a 1925 Craftsman Colonial. So kind of formal, kinda Craftsman.

Plain & Fancy Kitchen - Dayton Ohio · More Info

I'd add that many older American homes have lived many lives, complicating the question of "authenticity". Take mine - it started life in the 1870s as a barn for, I think, sheep, goats, or other small livestock. It was converted to a house around 1900 - though it may have initially been used as a ballet or artist's studio (?) rather than a residence. It was added on to and apparently in use as a residence by the 1930s or 40s, which is when much of the original trim, hardware, doors, and windows appear to date from.

So what should the kitchen look like? I didn't try for a period affect (which period?), nor did I go the barn route (you'd never really know the house was a barn unless you are an expert). I just tried to keep it as timeless as possible with natural materials and living finishes. I kept in mind that the house has always been a humble cottage, so nothing "fancy" seeming, yet it has a degree of formality to it, so nothing too "cottagey," and I really focused on utilitarian-looking hardware and fixtures, so nothing too "decorative," but trying for the hints of whimsy you so often see in early 20th-century architecture. Who knows what I achieved.

John Liu, here are some inspiration photos I used when planning my Spanish style 2018 kitchen project. I knew I wanted to use Taj Mahal quartzite and at that time it was hard to find any photos of TM used with stained cabinets. Lots more photos now that the light stained white oak cabinets became popular.

I actually got samples of most of these backsplashes! Loved the Tabarka tiles, but didn't think I could live with their bolder patterns.

Spanish White Mediterfanean · More Info

Callinan Spanish Remodel · More Info

San Carlos Spanish Villa · More Info

Mediterranean Touch · More Info

Chinacat, I love your kitchen too! I love the chunky shelf behind the glass doors! I shall remember that! Why not go chunkier.....that looks so much cooler than a standard 3/4" shelf.

I think this house is from the 1920s, in Portland OR. That was when the Craftsman style was fading here, and being taken over by the steeply pitched roofs, small entry landings with arched doorway and often curved walls with a subroof, beams or brick exteriors (here, not much brick), more arches inside, and narrow tall windows of what I think of as French or Norman Revival but apparently is more correctly “Tudor Revival”?

For those not old house geeks, see this architectural style guide - although, it is local to my city, so you won’t find Saltbox, Cape Cod, Shingle, or other styles from other regions.

https://www.arciform.com/blog/a-century-of-style-portlands-architecture-from-the-1850s-to-today

I don’t know the style of this house, but the picture is interesting as I wonder if this kitchen was formerly an enclosed patio or mudroom? The step up to the dining room, clad walls and ceiling, brick floor, and small windows all have that feel.

This kitchen is in a 1910 PacNW Foursquare. Not a Craftsman or so influenced, a plain and simple Foursquare. It is an old-timey kitchen, like many of us grew up in, but very functional - big sink, drawer stacks, tons of overhead storage, that beautiful range, fuss-free wood countertops.

This house is described as a “Tudor of the Arts and Crafts Era”. An East Coast or Midwest house, I think.

The arches carry over inside, including the arched sink window valance that OP’s are frequently urged to discard - might our advice be different if we saw the other arches and knew it was a 1920 Tudor?

One thing I do wonder about, though, is how original the “original” kitchens in the most faithfully preserved old houses are, really.

Built in cabinets, refrigerators, sinks built into bases, cookers safe to place next to furniture - these all arrived in the 1920s or so. The 1928 Tudor may have come with these things, but the 1910 Craftsman, 1890 Queen Anne, etc very likely did not - unless the owners were quite well-off indeed, as wealthy houses had at least built-ins before the rest of us.

I think many of those houses started life with "unfitted kitchens" and acquired their so-called original kitchen later in life. They were, in a word, renos.

But they were renos in a time when cabinetry was made custom, one-off, often on-site, by skilled woodworkers, and thus could be and often was crafted to fit the style and era of the town, neighborhood, and house in which the craftsman was working.

Not clicked from an onscreen catalog based on context-null inspo pics curated by a kitchen, real estate, and design/decor industry and community always steering us to a "new timeless look", then cut and glued on an assembly line halfway across the country or around the world, to standardized forms chosen for ease of production.

In a way, I look at a seemingly "totally-original" kitchen in a century+ old house and see it as a lesson in how to do a really good, sensitive, harmonius reno - because that's what it might well be.

And while I ranted about the ”Standard Kitchen”, we in fact have such a variety of styles and materials available - and true custom cabinet shops - that we are just as able to give that stately Queen Anne, elegant Tudor, or rustic Craftsman the kitchen she deserves, as was the master carpenter who last reno’d her kitchen back in 1930.

I live in a 1965 house and the original kitchen was long gone and had been replaced with white melamine prefab cabinets which were falling apart. They were shimmed with bits of cut up cardboard box. I think the demo and installation probably took one day each and must have been very cheap.

I redid the kitchen and it has square 9" recessed lighting and a teardrop shaped fixture with a large spun aluminum collar in the center c. 1965, new old stock. The new floors are commercial VCT. The cabinets are veneer plywood 3/8" partial inset with exposed ply edges and exposed Amerock hinges. The counters are laminate mostly with a run of stainless steel. (They were going to be all stainless steel, but I ran out of steam). White ceramic knobs, white faucet, copper and stainless steel cooktop. It has soffits by necessity. It does have a fully integrated paneled DW and refrigerator, although I nearly got the built-in rather than integrated Subzero with the older style louvers. (It was a lot heavier and I didn't like the doorswing or freezer as much).

It's much nicer than the original kitchen would have been, the veneer is grain matched rift sawn oak, the appliances are nicer, and the cabinet interiors are in a custom color. But I did everything I could to make it look like it could just possibly be original, and I took some cues (like the door style and white knobs) from what some vintage kitchens from the architect looked like, and what the few notes from plans said.

Some people really don't get it, because it's so obviously out of fashion and it's not even the current popular pseudo MCM style.

Ooooo pics please?!

Once housing developments took off the character of the house became unimportant. Most people couldn’t afford to build custom, and builders needed to get less affluent people into home ownership. It’s pretty elitist to judge people on the house they choose to live in, or the amount of money they have available for their renovations. Honestly, I don’t know how people afford housing now; I couldn’t afford to be me if I had been born 20 years later.

I don’t see anyone judging anyone here. If the suggestion is that many Americans live in aesthetically banal houses for cost reasons, I do not really agree. While housing costs are indeed historically high right now, American houses are 2-5x larger than equivalents in other developed countries and we seem to have no issue replacing kitchens and baths on a 20-year cycle. I often see people posting new houses with two full kitchens, yet with builder grade finishes. Seems like a choice to me! But I digress.

I think we are not talking about judging everyone's kitchen. The subgroup of people here who obviously have the funds to redo kitchens, sometimes very expensively. And honestly, usually the more architecturally interesting (and probably expensive, in most areas) houses, have very expensive kitchens that frequently veer very far off (flashy-ly so) from what the rest of the house Is.

Of course this is also problematic, because many of those same houses never had a kitchen that matched the style of the house anyway. They had a kitchen that was a relatively utilitarian space for people to work in, whether it be the family or a housekeeper. The kitchen certainly didn't get the attention that the dining room did, millwork wise. Personally I think that it might be kind of hard to decide exactly what sort of kitchen belongs in houses like that.

Most ordinary houses without a lot of architectural detail inside can take all sorts of kitchens, but I do think there is a trend to go a bit overboard these days. You see lots of very ordinary row houses and tract houses where I live with marble and quartz and polished nickel, and chandeliers and sparkly bits and pieces and the rest of the rooms are beige or grey and generic throughout the rest of the house. To me this seems a bit backwards.

There’s a wide range of kitchen reno spending on KF. From penny pinching DIY to five figure countertops in six figure renos in seven figure houses. I sure don’t see any judging of people by their income going on here.

Sure, looking at someone’s slab that costs more than one’s last car might have one judging oneself, but that’s just life.

To me, the more constrained renos are more interesting, and being true to a house’s distinct style (if it has one) is a particularly interesting constraint.

I’m kind of interested in what might it look like if one tried to hew even closer to the *actual* original kitchen in an 1880 or 1910 house.

I don’t mean total authenticity, like iceboxes, servants, and polio, although the third may be coming back and I might not mind the second.

I mean can you have freestanding sinks, cookers, worktables, cabinets, hutches, with a more-or-less period look concealing all the mod cons and storage we want in today’s kitchens?

This leads, of course, to “unfitted kitchens”. A topic for another thread, someday.

My maternal grandparents had a metal sink cabinet, a metal cabinet next to a free-standing two oven gas stove, and a refrigerator. A small set of built in wooden shelves, and a closet. That was it. Most of the prep was done on the kitchen table. It had wainscoting, linoleum, and a light fixture with a pull string. That's it. It was a large utilitarian Victorian house and eleven or twelve people lived there. (Usually one older female relative at a time)

My paternal grandparents had a pump sink in the kitchen, a small refrigerator in the pantry, a free standing gas stove, some shelves and a bit of counter next to the stove until 1965. They got electrified after the war, and before that ran a generator.

My great aunt's house built in 1810, had a summer kitchen (no kitchen in the 1810 part) attached to the back of the house with a monitor top refrigerator, a wood cookstove, some built in cabinets and I think a wringer style washer until 1966. Then she got a modern kitchen with a propane stove but still had the wood cookstove.

Many of the early 19th c. houses had a cookstove built into a hearth well into the 20th c. Many of which had a later gas range put in front of it with a vent going up through the chimney.

The modern/"sanitary" kitchen didn't really appear until the 1930s and a lot of people didn't really have a modern kitchen in today's sense until after WWII.

I did have a great aunt who lived in a house with a buzzer under the dining room table, a true butler's pantry and a kitchen in the basement with a cook and a housekeeper well into the 1950s. But it was a Very utilitarian kitchen, fully equipped but meant for staff. We looked at a house here that still had the same setup when it went on the market maybe 15 years ago. A fancy kitchen in fancy houses like this is really a modern construct, and technically a really fancy kitchen that matches "front of the house" pretty new.

I still think these houses look better with something that may be high end but utilitarian.

Ppset, I’m mostly with you - and that’s how I’m sort of going myself, a utilitarian kitchen fit for a well-equipped and valued (hopefully) domestic servant - but my heart still goes pitter pat at a beautiful, subtly detailed, historicity imbued, vintage appearing kitchen that breathes the same era as the house.

The grandparents and great-aunts kitchens you describe remind me of cabin and summer house kitchens from long ago, when summering meant mosquitos, moldy camp cots, harried parents wrangling herds of dirty children disgorged from seatbelt-less station wagons, who they couldn’t wait to put to bed. Oh, and fireflies.

Especially the metal cabinets!