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These days kitchen d?cor comes in all colors, sizes & eras. There is more. The newest trend in kitchens today is the retro kitchen design look. Painted cabinets, glass knobs, & vintage linens combined with new appliances that have a retro look can give you a completely unique & functional kitchen. This kitchen design trend includes everything from chrome & vinyl kitchen tables & chairs to the familar kidney shaped glass coffee tables that were prominent in the 1950’s & ’60s. The kitchen retro style uses bold colors, shiny chrome, sunny yellow, jadeite green, along with checkerboard floors & vivid patterns. You can find this fascination with the 50s & 60s everywhere. This period is also known as ‘mid-century’.

Some reasons for this trend are that people are rejecting the throwaway mentality. They like for things to have a longer shelf life with more endurance & permanence. They want to go back to a time when appliances were built to be serviced & repaired, not immediately replaced. They want appliances to be built to last.

Many kitchen design professionals consider the original mid-century designs to be very good designs, & now a whole new age group is just becoming familiar with them.

Chrome & vinyl dinette sets can fit in perfectly with this 50s nostalgic look, & manufacturers today make these 50s retro kitchen tables in a bistro, booth or regular dinette style.

You can buy 50s retro kitchen tables that are brand new & include such features as chrome frames & vinyl seats & backs with laminate tops. You can select from a wide array of colors for the cushions.

But if you really want a more authentic vintage look, you can buy an actual vintage piece from this time. It’s possible to find this furniture in good condition for around $500.00. If you like to restore furniture you can get some 50’s furnishing cheaper & fix them up. restoration. You’ll also find that the colors & styles of the vintage pieces can not actually be duplicated.

There are stoves & refrigerators that are new, but look as if they were made in the 50s - in colors such as candy red, flamingo pink & buttercup yellow. These are retro reproductions of 1950s appliances. They look 1950s on the outside but are totally 21st century on the inside. Retro reproductions can make a dramatic design statement without having to sacrifice performance & convenience to get the look of this period.

Or you could consider going with refurbished appliances that are the actual vintage appliance that have been cleaned & rebuilt with some new components.

Of course one major problem with going with refurbished appliances is that you have to sacrifice a few luxuries like the advantages & the ease of a self-cleaning oven, as well as having such features as electronic ignition & sealed burners. However - these features affect the simplicity of cleaning the stove; they have nothing to do with how well the stove cooks. There is more. There is one significant perk, however: Most appliance refurbishers are now able to offer color matching, thereby giving you a unlimited selection of colors to coordinate with your new kitchen.

James Mahoney is the author of many kitchen design articles, visit at Kitchen Designers Ideas.com. He also publishes a news letter on kitchen design.