50s kitchen, bakeware back in style

At the stroke of the new year last year, Chris Potts kissed his girlfriend Colleen Murphy, took a sledge hammer and started traveling back in time."If I'm going to do it, I have to dive in," he told himself, as he started to take down a wall in his Fairless Hills, Pa., home.What Potts did over the next few months was turn the couple's galley kitchen and small dining room into an expanded kitchen with the look of a 1950s diner, complete with turquoise-colored seating booth, jukebox and coin-operated telephone.Potts trimmed his soffits and moldings in gleaming stainless steel and, with the help of a friend, tiled the floor in black-and-white porcelain squares that shine like ice. Refurbished metal stools surround the turquoise Formica countertop.
A mural on the dining room wall depicts a mid-century gas station. He framed it and added a sill to make it look like the view from a diner window."Vintage" Pyrex bakeware and Homer Laughlin diner china complete the '50s look.The only thing missing is Fonzie.Potts is used to refurbishing old cars; this was his first house renovation project."My first love has always been old cars, now it's anything from that era," he said. "I knew in my head what I wanted it to look like but I didn't have plans. This is my first home improvement project."It wasn't easy. The couple had to hunt for the discontinued Formica they needed — buying samples from countertop stores and even purchasing some on Craigslist from someone in Utah.
The stainless steel trim was custom ordered. They visited several tile stores before finding what they wanted.Murphy picked out the cheery robin's egg paint color but left the "creative" work to Potts, who formerly worked as an automotive service manager."He will tinker with something to get it right," she said.The metallic sheen of the decor goes great with the new stainless steel appliances the couple couldn't do without. Dark, streamlined wood cabinets with pewter handles give the kitchen an appearance that's crisp and refreshingly new looking despite their incorporating elements that are 60 to 70 years old.As the couple searched for dinnerware in the turquoise color that brings the room together, Potts developed a hobby that may now turn into a business.He started collecting old Pyrex pieces and has found that these kitchen staples that almost every baby boomer remembers from childhood are now becoming collector's items."A year ago, I didn't know what Pyrex was," he said.As he searched for specific colors in bowls and bakeware at thrift stores and antique shops, he came across others in colors and patterns that he knew were good buys, or matched pieces he already had. "Instead of coming home with car parts, I was coming home with dishes."It was the chase of finding a new piece in a different color at a reasonable price," he said.