One of our favorite and most adored possessions is our vintage Kelvinator refrigerator!
Of course, his name is Kelvin!
We walked into a thrift store one day (and went our separate directions immediately, as is our pattern) and each fell in love independently with Kelvin! And then we were SO delighted when we discovered that what we each feared the other would view as silly was a mutual passion!
We can't understand why Kelvin hadn't already been snapped up but he was still there, waiting for his new home, and had been there long enough to have been reduced to 66% off. We paid $29.30! I guess no one had the right spot for a vintage fridge. But WE did!
Kelvin immediately became the focal point of the Taylor house kitchen! The color scheme for the kitchen quickly became "Kelvinator Green" and red which is basically Coca-Cola colors! As Coke stuff was already a passion, this was PERFECT!
Here's a shot I'm a little embarrassed to show because it's so "in-process" rather than so "finished and perfect"! I took off all the horrible plaid wallpaper and haven't gotten to finish with the next step in my plan for the kitchen! The top 18" of the wall will be beadboard (ok, beadboard textured wallpaper but you probably won't be able to tell when it's done) painted Kelvinator Green. The lower 4' of the walls (on either side of Kelvin) will be corrogated tin. The shelves will all remain white.
Kelvin worked when we bought him but now needs a little coolant refill -- probably to be paid for with garage sale $. But, even if he never cools anything ever again, we still love him and will find something to store in him!
Here are a few shots of Kelvin's details!
Also, meet Kelvin's friend: the cutest set of drawers around, as far as I'm concerned (though I'm well aware that you might not share my crush)!
I fell in love with these vintage drawers at the thrift store. Mark talked them down to $4 for me. When the thrift store guy loaded them into the truck for us, he suggested that they would make good kindling if they fell apart! Clearly he had no vision! I had the slab of granite laying around and it was the PERFECT size to go on top! And the combination fits perfectly in the space next to Kelvin and adds much-needed counter space in our tiny kitchen!
BTW, it looks a little mauve in the photo but the rug on the floor is actually woven brown leather which is actually really neat and 100% dumpster (as in FREE)!
Another design element in the kitchen is black board paint. Here is a shot of the other side of the kitchen (still sporting that awful plaid wallpaper but soon to be Kelvinator Green instead) that shows the original vintage cabinets with their blackboard-painted insets. I use these for these grocery lists, menus, and notes. That curtain is going to go somewhere else soon!
On the other side of the kitchen is the door to the back sun porch. It's hard to see (so I made the picture BIG!), but each panel has a day of the week written on it in chalk. I love this!
So that's where we are so far! Stay tuned!