KEEPSAKES Vintage kitchenware back on the front burner and center table

The colors, the styles, the nostalgia -- kitchenware collectors love it all.
KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE
Sometimes it starts with family keepsakes, hand-me-downs from the women in your past.
A kitchen towel from the 1950s, printed with bright red tomatoes. A wooden cutting board from the '20s, so worn its slim edge is frayed like cloth. A primitive bundt pan from the 1890s, made of tin, slightly rusted.
Other times, you're drawn to a design style -- 1950s kitchenware is hot now; actually, '50s anything.
That's how it started for two Milwaukee-area antiques dealers who also are collectors, Sara Wright and Laura Burger.
The '50s style is followed closely by '30s and '40s design, both in their personal preferences and in consumer demand, they say.
Nostalgia also feeds the demand, Wright says, referring to the 1950s.
"It was a pretty happy time," she says. "A lot of bright colors, the age of innocence, rock 'n' roll, drive-in movies."
While the appeal of vintage kitchenware springs from many sources, people who turn a few nostalgic pieces into a growing collection eventually face modern-day reality: How do you display your prizes without creating clutter? How do you incorporate them in your kitchen without losing essential work space?
The following display ideas are from dealer/collectors, an interior designer and a nationally known authority on culinary collectibles. Some of their tips take little time to replicate, using just a hammer and some nails.
Setting a period style
Wright, who bought a 1930s bungalow in 1998, designed a 1950s diner-style kitchen around the retro culinary items she owns. The kitchen is yellow and red with plenty of chrome. It's one of several period rooms in her home.
To display collectibles in her kitchen, she uses a period towel rack in chrome, two industrial-style chrome restaurant racks with open shelving, and a period white-metal storage piece, called a pantry.
Among items on display: a '50s Osterizer blender with a chrome beehive base, a wall-mounted Coca-Cola bottle opener, period kitchen towels, cookie jars and several sets of '50s nested Pyrex milk-glass mixing bowls, white inside and finished outside in red, green, yellow and blue, along with nested Pyrex casserole sets, plus several refrigerator sets. The latter have lids and were used to refrigerate, bake and serve food. Often sold with refrigerators, they were made from the '30s through the '50s.
Wright owns I Saw Designs, specializing in Art Deco through Mid-Century Modern furniture and collectibles.
Of her penchant for the 1920s through 1950s, she says: "I'm very drawn to chrome and leather -- shiny metal stuff intrigues me the design was thought about, it's high design."
Remodeling for display
Creating display space for her kitchenware collection was one of the reasons Burger recently remodeled the kitchen of her home.
An antiques dealer and estate-sale handler, her personal collection ranges from the Victorian era to the '50s. She especially likes 1930s to '50s utensils, pottery and soft goods, such as towels, potholders and tablecloths.
"The colors are so joyful, especially in the dishes and china. I love the fruit motifs, especially in the kitchen chalks [the word for contoured plaques of apples, peaches and other kitchen symbols].
"And the wooden handles of rolling pins, pancake turners, potato peelers -- painted red or 1940s green. I just love that distinctive '40s creamy green."
These add warmth to her kitchen, says Burger.
Burger's twin sister, interior-designer Linda Richmond, designed the kitchen overhaul. Richmond incorporated the following display vehicles in the 19-by-16-foot kitchen:
ULighted cherry upper cabinets with glass doors and glass shelves -- one or two is probably plenty.
UAn extra-wide plate rail to show a wide variety of items.
UWindow seats, where Burger places baskets of '40s and '50s soft goods.
Using slim shelving
Linda Franklin, a nationally known author and expert on kitchenware, displays her treasures inventively in her Baltimore home.
Of her techniques, she says, "I do NOT like to have kitchen collectibles suspended from beams or the ceiling. This makes them airborne grease collectors, and who can see them?"
Instead, she recommends:
UNarrow shelves for showing rows of similar items -- old implements also can be hung from them.
UAbove-counter surfaces, such as the top of the refrigerator. Franklin does this in her own home. She also uses a 1950s spotlight to light the wall behind. "It looks fairly dramatic," she says.
U"Over the kitchen door is a great place for something very sculptural, like a handmade spouted tin cake mold."
UOther rooms also can be decorated with kitchenware. "Most collectors of kitchen items use any room of the house they feel like for displaying collections.
"I have some things in the living room mixed in with other folk art and homemade furniture."
The fifth edition of her antiques book, "300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles," was published this year by Krause Publications of Iola.
In 896 pages, she gives highly detailed descriptions and prices for more than 7,000 items, plus sketches, photos, old recipes and advice on identifying reproductions and fakes.
Old items, new uses
Kitchen collectibles have roots in many eras.
Dealer/collector Barb Seth, for example, is drawn to the country style, thus an arrangement of cooking utensils from the mid- to late 1800s hangs above the kitchen sink in her home.
Some items hang from another collectible -- a wooden rack for drying hog hocks. One item, iron ice tongs from the 1920s, performs a contemporary function.
Seth uses it as a paper-towel holder -- she inserts the points of the tongs into the hollow ends of the cardboard roll.
Finding new uses of old items interests Seth.
For example, old half-round wall-mounted salt boxes are ideal for holding today's coffee filters, she says. Meanwhile, one of her customers recycles old soap savers (made of wire mesh or perforated metal) to hold potpourri and small guest soaps in the bathroom. Soap savers, gadgets that held slivers and small pieces of bar soap, were swished through dishwater.
To use and display vintage collectibles, she says, "Your only limitation is your imagination."
XThe book, "300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles," is $29.95. It can be ordered from www.krausebooks.com, by calling (800) 258-0929 or by writing Krause Publications, PR03, Box 5009, Iola, Wis. 54945. There is a $4 shipping charge.