1930s Kitchen Furniture

Color

• Kitchens of the 1930s used muted tones in their designs. Cool blues and muted reds and yellows were commonly paired with a monochromatic black and white.

Design

• Kitchens in this era featured Shaker-style cabinets, characterized by plain, box frame panels on the doors. Look to salvage companies or specialty stores for rolls of unused linoleum indicative of the era. Magic Chef stoves were a must-have of the day. To reinvent the look of the 1930s appliance today, look to antique stores, some of which specialize in the original model; however, some models have been altered so that the stove does not require lighting every time it is turned on.

Materials

• Kitchen furniture was made primarily of chrome and had smooth corners. Wooden pieces were painted to match the décor of the room. Green and red were two popular hues. Furniture pieces rested on patterned linoleum floors, many of which bore a strong Art Deco look. Alvar Aalto was a prominent designer for this period, noted for his sleek designed stools, among other pieces.

Considerations

• To more fully complete or complement the 1930s look, incorporate period pieces and original artwork from the era. Colored glass pieces were a big decorative element of this period, and today, Depression-era glass is often quite expensive.