A PROUD LOT

July 25, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

These homeowners wouldn’t trade their vintage appliances for anything

By Jamie Knodel

Dallas Morning News

DALLAS

Long before granite and stainless steel dominated kitchens, chrome mixed with high-gloss, playful color was the look.

These kitchens and their appliances of years past have droves of fans.

The owners of vintage appliances are a proud lot, quick to show off a refrigerator’s special features, discuss the steps they take to keep a stove shiny or share a charming story about a previous owner.

Many aren’t afraid to fiddle with this or that part to get their equipment back in prime working order, and the ones who leave repairs to the experts have had little trouble finding a professional to get their appliances humming once more.

While all of the vintage appliances we found are in older homes, there are plenty of collectors who put vintage appliances or reproductions in new construction.

Meet homeowners who live with appliances that have sailed past the half-century mark.

A red showstopper

Appliance: 1950s-era Chambers high-back stove

The proud owners: Van and Elsa Moushegian of northwest Dallas

Its colorful past: When the Moushegians bought their house, the seller was sure to tell them about how, when he was a boy, his father gave his mother the stove to mark a special occasion. The seller had moved the stove to a couple of other houses but didn’t have a place to take it to the next, so it stayed and became the Moushegians’.

Bells and whistles: Instead of four burners, the stove has three. In the place where the fourth would go is a deep well, which works like a built-in slow cooker.

“I’ll do tamales or beans in there,” Elsa says. “I can put them in before I go to bed and cook them overnight or start cooking them before I go to work in the morning.”

There’s also a broiler and griddle. The oven has a retained-heat cooking option that the Moushegians rave about.

After preheating the oven at a very high heat, they’ll put a roast or some other type of meat in and keep it on for about 20 minutes before turning it off. The meat stays in the oven and the door stays shut for several hours.

“Steam comes out when you open the oven,” Van says. “Because it’s so well-insulated, it all comes out steaming and supertender.”

Up and running: “The real beauty of the stove is the way that it’s so easy to clean — it all comes apart so easy,” Van says.

Sticking with vintage: “The first time I saw it, I thought it was just decoration. I didn’t realize it would still work,” Elsa says. Once she started cooking on it, it was love. “It cooks better, and I’m happier with this stove than I was my previous modern one.”

Pretty in pink

Appliance: 1956 or ’57 General Electric refrigerator and oven

The proud owners: Lee and Melissa Higginbotham of northwest Dallas

Its colorful past: Lee Higginbotham inherited the pink appliances when he bought the 1957 house from a friend’s grandmother in the ’80s. It was a model home when the neighborhood was first developed. The pink sets the tone of entire kitchen; Melissa’s mother, an artist, painted the cabinets to complement the pastel appliances.

Bells and whistles: “It was the latest and greatest that 1957 had to offer,” Lee Higginbotham says. The refrigerator features a foot pedal beneath the door that opens the door for cooks who have their hands full. The pastel appliance, complete with turquoise lining, has a copper lazy Susan for shelves, and the shelf height is adjustable.

Up and running: Though the oven is 30 to 50 degrees off and its clock no longer works, the Higginbothams have learned to adjust. The fridge, which Lee’s partial to, has required only normal maintenance, he says. That includes defrosting it every so often and cleaning the back coils.

Sticking with vintage: Lee says he’ll cry on the day the fridge no longer works. He keeps an even older fridge, which isn’t running, in case he needs to mine it for parts for his beloved pink GE.

The Higginbothams have a thing for vintage, but only in the kitchen. “We had no problem replacing our pink bathroom,” Melissa says.

They have a few other pink-and-copper vintage accessories for the kitchen, including the canister set that came with the house, a cake carrier and an ice crusher.