1950s kitchen hardware details

Our house was built in 1950 and we've designed - okay I designed, but like, with as much input from Wax as she wanted to have since she has preferences but often says she can't have opinions in a place like this - a kitchen influenced by the 1950s. Light blue cabinets, for example, and the black-and-white checkered linoleum floor, the Retro wallpaper by Boråstapeter, and the dash of stainless steel counter. It's not a reproduction kitchen - the upper cabinets are a different color, one wall has open shelving, and the backsplash is going to be tiled in blue, plus about half the counters will be butcher block.

However, I still want the cabinet pulls to be 1950s style.

Unfortunately, when we first bought the cabinets last year, I not only bought the wrong amount of pulls, I bought the wrong kind of pulls. We bought these first ones (Ikea Eneryda), which have a chrome finish (correct!), and which I incorrectly thought were adequately similar to the flared base of this common style from the 1950s and 1960s here and in Sweden (string pulls with tiny little face plates, I guess you could call that?).


L: Ikea Eneryda; R: 96mm string pull from helakauppa.com

I've read lots more and looked at lots more images since then and I know now that those Eneryda are actually Victorian or Edwardian in feel and can pass for the traditional styles that were common until the 1940s such as the dog's-bone pull.


dog's-bone pull from helakauppa.com

Most of the 50s retro custom kitchens by Jalokaluste here in Finland (we stan) and Järfälla Kök in Sweden use a combination of string pulls, Funkkis (functionalist) pulls and finger latches, and wooden "waterfall" shaped handles (which I do actually like, but only on the vintage-style inset doors). (I love the finger latches and we're using some on the built-ins in the dining room, but I didn't want to put them in the kitchen as well. I don't like the face plates or the inset funkkis handles.)


L-R: 30s functionalist belt pull with plate; 30s functionalist finger latch; "waterfall" profile pull in birch (all from helakauppa.com)

Anyway, the shiny string pulls are out of stock in the store I found but Ikea has a less-accurate brushed finish. But alternatively there are these curved ones that are a bit more 60s: the high-gloss arc pull and the Venus pull. I haven't decided between those three.

fic summaries: 'that sounds like a fascinating original novel but WHO did you say??' ed.

1. History professor and lifelong bookworm Mycroft Holmes retires and leaves London for what he hopes will be a rural idyll. What he gets is a broken leg and the friendship of the postmistress who directs him to the local library in an attempt to broaden his literary horizons. She fails to mention her hope that librarian Greg Lestrade will provide more for him than a few good books.



2. Greg Lestrade is the Senior consultant cardiothoracic surgeon in charge of heart transplant patient, Sherlock Holmes’, care. Mycroft is Sherlock’s mysterious older brother and a prominent member of the governing board for the private hospital Greg works in. Detective Inspector John Watson is Sherlock Holmes’ partner but Mycroft seems determined to keep John and his brother apart.



3. Stricken with PTSD and anger management issues ex-army man Greg Lestrade considers himself unemployable until the owner of Sherrinford Nurseries takes a chance on him. Greg discovers he has a gift but the owner, Mycroft Holmes, and the world's most aggravating client could easily disturb his newfound peace.



4. Mycroft Holmes is coerced into playing piano at a ballet class for a friend of his mother's. There's a young man named Greg Lestrade in the class getting ready to audition for the National Ballet. Cue shy glances and a considerable amount of blushing.



5. Sherlock is the younger sister of the Emperor's closest advisor, his Tea Master. For impudence in the Imperial Court, she is exiled to a far eastern province to oversee the harvest of the Emperor's prized white tea, called Silver Needle. There, she falls in love with one of the white-gloved peasant maidens designated to pluck the tea.
   
   A once upon a time, love at first sight genderswapped AU romance.
   
   Series Part 3 of Twelve Cups of Tea Words: 26,666