Design Around #19:Chestertown Buff & Rosemary Sprig.

12 years ago

***Do not post your designs in this thread. A second thread will be posted for finished designs in a week***

For the next Design Around This, we will be designing around two current, top-selling Benjamin Moore Paint Colors, Chestertown Buff (in the top 20) and Rosemary Sprig (one of the top green shades)

Oops, thats incorrect, sorry. We will be designing around two of the most vilified appliance colors of all time, Harvest Gold, and Avocado.

Avocado appliances were introduced about 1965 and were available through the seventies until around 1980. They outlasted several other color experiments, and ranged in color from a sage-y green to olive to a true avocado, although I think the most common was less true avocado, and closer to the others, regardless of the name. In the latter part of the seventies it was called spring green.

Gold appliances popped up around 1966-67 and were available well into the 80s. They also varied from a rather intense gold to more of a deep yellow color.

As an aside, the introduction of black appliances around 1985 was referred to in the media as the Darth Vaderization of appliances.

I think there are several approaches to this project any of which would be appropriate:

1960s-70s redux: creating a kitchen appropriate for a mid century house using gold or avocado appliances that would appeal to, rather than repel the modern sensibility.

Historic preservation: a full on 1960s-70s style kitchen using currently available finishes to recreate a vintage style kitchen.

Gold or avocado in context. Creating a thoroughly contemporary kitchen (or a period kitchen from some era from Edwardian to Craftsman to Moderne to contemporary Old World) where you feel that these appliance colors would work better than white black or stainless.

Here is a link that might be useful: About the DAT Threads.

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Comments (17)

formerlyflorantha
12 years ago
That is NOT the color of the "gold" appliances.
palimpsest
Original Author
12 years ago
But regardless, two very popular paint colors (or shades similar but not in the top twenty) are in the same family as the hated appliance colors.
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palimpsest
Original Author
12 years ago
BM Yellowtone

BM Golden Delicious
cj47
12 years ago

ACK...those are the colors I chose for MY kitchen.
(Sherwin Williams Hubbard Squash and Ruskin Room Green)

:-)
purplepansies
12 years ago
Ok, just to be clear - we don't HAVE to use "old" gold or avocado appliances? We can use modern appliances in one of those colors or a similar color?
palimpsest
Original Author
12 years ago
Old appliances if you can find good pictures, blocks of similar color to indicate the avocado or gold appliances, or new gold or avocado appliances, if you can find them. All are fair game.
seashellsandpearls
12 years ago
Well,
I'm not looking to redo my new (to me)kitchen appliances in these colors, but I have chosen a fabulous paint color for my open floor plan, early seventies, ranch home. It is Behr Retro Avocado... and it is, truly, fabulous! very rich and saturated..deep and yet, clean. Not muddy at all. I have used it to paint the living room, dining area and galley kitchen.

Check it out...I really, really love this color!

Sea
lavender_lass
12 years ago
Pal- LOL! Great intro to the thread :)
marcolo
12 years ago
The stove on the left looks like a surprised mustachioed Frenchman.

What really made these appliances for me was the band of "antiquing" where the color deepened around the door edges. Good times.
angie_diy
12 years ago
Oh, yes, I remember that antiquing. Oh, boy.

I will be really flattered and impressed if anyone chooses to purloin either of these images (Pal's concern about lack of straight-on shot notwithstanding):
palimpsest
Original Author
12 years ago
Kohler had cast iron colors to coordinate with appliances.

Kohler Harvest Gold: up to 1990

Kohler Sunrise/ BM Chestertown Buff (this is why I thought it was a hybrid of sorts)

Kohler Avocado -up to 1979(I find this Very dark compared to the appliances)
cawaps
12 years ago
When I was a kid, our refrgerator was white and our range was coppertone, but I had forgotten until I saw Pal's photo that our washer was harvest gold. The color didn't exactly have the same design impact on our back porch, surrounded by the recycling and cleaning supplies, that it would have had in the kitchen.
debrak_2008
12 years ago
sorry to hijack for one moment....

cj47, Your kitchen must be (or will be) beautiful as those are great colors. The Ruskin green and Squash do not look the same on my monitor as they do IRL. We just repainted those colors in a rental property (used to be my moms house). We have SW roycroft adobe in the dining room, ruskin green in the adjoining living room, and squash on both ceilings. Looks fabulous and when we just had an open house everyone loved it especially the new tenants. Is your kitchen done? is it posted?

to all, can't wait to see the designs you come up with!

Debra
palimpsest
Original Author
12 years ago
Here are some kitchens with avocado appliances that aren't that bad:

From "Katy Streams her Consciousness" blog:

A church rectory kitchen from "Strange Closets" blog

An updated kitchen from "Kudzu" blog

Some double ovens. My parents house has these in white, they still work.
cj47
12 years ago
DebraK, thank you for your kind words! :-)

Cj
marcolo
12 years ago
That church rectory would look almost perfectly current if you simply swapped out the table and chairs. Stainless BS, check; slab cabs, check; fresh green color, check. The appliance controls are the real giveaways.

And in the other pic, that Modernaire-looking hood paired with mosaic tiles must be making a couple of people feel a bit uncomfortable right about now.
palimpsest
Original Author
12 years ago
Every church-related building I have seen has been sturdily and beautifully constructed, if a bit utilitarian and stodgy...which has a certain stylistic longevity.

I really like the Kudzu kitchen with that Modernaire-type hood. Somehow stainless would be a poor second, and white or black wouldn't work at all in there.

I went to a Catholic university and during my tenure there there was a major overhaul to the furnishings of one of the dormitories. One of the priests (a relatively "cloistered" type who served in some position where he had little contact with the outside world) who sat on one of the committees toured the dorm prior to the capital outlay. He was "appalled" that the furniture in the dormitories had deteriorated to the extent that it needed to be replaced in "only 20 years".