Hoosier Cabinets

We're in the middle of renovating a kitchen just now and there's a bit of a debate going on about the best way to go about it, in terms of the design. I can't stand fitted kitchens and prefer a free-standing kitchen with a slightly retro 'shabby chic' feel, but I'm outnumbered by my housemates who want a fitted kitchen -- their argument being that people expect a fitted kitchen and that if we don't have one we'll be at a disadvantage when it comes time to sell up.

I get their point but -- apart from the fact that I don't like the look of fitted kitchens -- I also think that even half-way decent ones are hideously expensive. We checked out what was on offer last week and almost fell into a dead faint at the prices. And it is most probably likely that whoever moves in here after us will just haul all the kitchen out and install one to their own liking. So I might get my way with the free-standing idea, even if it is just for economic reasons.

I'm sure we could have a pretty good kitchen for a few hundred quid, if we shopped at thrift stores and reclamation yards. I'd love an old Hooiser-style cabinet and I bet we could pick up one real cheap. The Hoosiers were popular in American kitchens in the first part of the last century (someone even wrote a book about them) but we had similar type cabinets here in the United Kingdom. We used to have a lovely old cream-coloured 1930's one in my last place but someone threw it out when they were 'modernising' the kitchen, replacing it with a horrible set of cheap units.

Above is an image of an old Hoosier from Hoosiercabinet.com -- who supply all the original canisters and jars which would have been included with the old cabinets.

Anyway, I'm going to have a look around next week and see if I can come up with anything interesting.