I couldn’t do much with this room, except clean it, tear out all unnecessary things and paint it. I think it turned out pretty good, definitely an improvement!
So this is how it looked when I moved in. Enjoy this blurry before photo:
A lot of weird/dated stuff in there. I took out the loose laminate floor on the first day. The panelled ceiling is such a mystery to me. I get it that they put it up to hide the damages from the original kitchen demolition, but they just ended up destroying the ceiling even more! The apartment have a slightly higher ceiling height (2.60 m) than usual, which makes it quite airy, so why you would ever want to lower it is beyond me. The only reason I can think of would be that maybe it was trendy and super-hip to have panels back in 1989 when the apartment was renovated, but I’m not sure…
I did manage to get the support beams that held up the panels down in the end, but my god, did it take time. I almost gave up somewhere in the middle of it.
I decided to paint the walls in a light mint green shade. Coincidently I discovered that the first layer of paint on the kitchen walls were in almost the exact same shade!
This 1970’s brown lamp works great with the walls.
The cabinets are in a pretty good condition. But they’re super low. And small. Another big WHY. You could easily get twice as much storage if you had them up to the ceiling.
I want to do a total kitchen renovation at some point in the future. I’m eyeing Kvänum’s retro fifities kitchens. I don’t even want to know what a kitchen like this would cost to put in, but one can dream, right?
I’m not a huge fan of the slanted/tilted cabinets (and they probably wouldn’t work in my small space), but love the color of these.
These plain cabinets in light green would be cool though.
1950’s kitchens are somewhat of a special interest of mine. Back in my university days I even wrote a few papers on them.
Back in the 1940’s Sweden was in dire need of cheap, fast and functional living solutions. Hemmets Forskningsinstitut (should be translated as something like The Household Research Institute) was formed in 1944 to modernize the living situation and make the household more effective.
The institute analysed just about everything in the home, from washing dishes to space needed to store the average family’s towels and linens.
The standardisations created by the institute lead to every apartment in Sweden built in the fifties and sixties (and that’s probably half, if not more, of all apartments in Sweden) to have very similar kitchens. Even to this day the original cabinets can still be found in many apartments. And the standardisation, although tweaked a little bit over the years, are still in use.
There’s always IKEA for kitchens, but I’m not sure, I feel many of the kitchens from IKEA are just TOO modern. I want something timeless, something that will not feel dated within a few years.