Help: American Diner my kitchen?

[Venari]

Hi guys...

I'm thinking about redecorating (who am I kidding, just decorating) my kitchen. There's a theme, and I think I have the basic materials mapped out.

'American Diner'.

I was looking at the boxes my wheels came in, and the font/typeface used for the 'American Racing' logo just shouts 'mid-1900s Americana' to me.

So, I was wondering... could you guys help me out with pics of:

1.) 50s/60s Americana - especially diner and auto related stuff
2.) American Diners and drive-ins.
3.) Fonts and typefaces you think are 'Americana'.

If you have anecdotes, or you think your family have old photos you can get scanned it, I'd love to hear and see them.

I'm looking to modernise it a bit... the classic colours are red, black and white - maybe a cyan thrown in, and plenty of neon. Well, I've got a dark red gloss door scheme for the cabinets... and I think I'm going for a dark grey tile floor - but should I mix that up with a silver grey? See where I'm going? What bric-a-brac do I need? Neon signs? Or just LED backlighting? Auto signs? Artwork? Hotrod stuff - Von Dutch inspered images? Hey, I could ghost flame the doors... LOL!

👍

 

[Beerz]

Do you need sources (where to buy, etc) or just pictures/tips?

 

[Venari]

Pics is good, but anything you got! Bear in mind I'm in the UK. I'm just looking for inspiration - I'm spending money like it's going out of fashion on my cars at the moment (as my credit card bill will testify) so when all that's calmed down I really need to turn my hellish budget-assed kitchen into something funky. Since the dining room's been full of Yank car bits for 2 years, I guessed keeping the theme wasn't actually a bad idea!

 

[superberkut]

Perhaps checkered floor tiles (for a start) with white as one of the two colours, and a light-coloured alternate (turquoise would work). Vinyl-lined seats (in the same colour as the floor tiles), a classic appliance somewhere in the mix, and maybe a street sign or a store sign of that vintage would comply, too.

 

[TopHat]

Black and white checkered floor, a bar of some sort, and chrome base stools, with red vinyl cushions.

 

[UnoMOTO]

Easy enough to find around the net.

 

[Rykon Zero]

A good font sort of thing is with this:

 

[Solid Lifters]

Old 50's car bumpers make great pot holders. Mount it above your stove and hang pots and pans from it.

 

[YSSMAN]

Some general ideas for how we lived our lives back in the day:

Yes! I love the '50s and '60s!

 

[High-Test]

My ramblings and banter:

Chrome barstools with vibrant, round cushions are a must. I'll second the Black & white checkered tile. Either go old school white or stainless steel on the appliances. You could probably punch an old "Frigidaire" emblem on a new one, just to give it the look. Check the H.A.M.B. to see if any of the UK members have some stuff. They have several members giving away old style refrigerators every once and a while. hang some random art here and there.. like those pictures that are sold at stands in car shows. Metal signs. Don't go crazy, but one or two placed here and there will look cool. Like a Chevrolet Super service or a Richfield or PollyGas sign. IMO, PollyGas signs look damn cool, especially the ones that are of the Parrot on the perch. Maybe an aftermarket Flatahead V8 head would look cool on the wall? just paint it red or black and then sand the paint along the fins to give it that new look. make a kitchen lamp out of a window-mount spotlight.. Even better, a Gas globe.. but those take up a lot of space.

It needs to pop. Neons here and there, and the obligatory stainless steel edges of the counter. Unless you go with a white stone or tile. that would look pretty cool. Maybe 3"x3" white tiles for countertops, with a backsplash that has a faint mosaic?

And the four-pronged white porcelain sink knobs that say HOT or COLD on them for the kitchen sink. Those are practically obligatory.

Best of luck.

 

[Slick6]

I've got a few fonts on my computer that you might be interested in. One is called Air Stream and the other one is Air Conditioner. They both should be free, but if you can't find them, let me know and I can send them to you.

Retro Planet http://www.retroplanet.com/

Cook's Classics http://www.cooksclassics.com/

Bonspeed has a bunch of cool stuff. http://www.bonspeed.com/

Summit Racing now has an off-shoot hot rod place http://www.genuinehotrod.com/default.asp


If you need more just let me know, just going off of what I remember. The first two should have more than enough ideas for you.

 

[CraftyLandShark]

If you need stuff for the walls, I highly reccomend you look at art by George Ham. He did a LOT of the advert posters for most of the major races in the 50's and 60's. LOTS of cool stuff. Check out allposters.com and art.com if you're not looking to spend a lot. I'm doing a billiards room with a lot of his art in it. A lot of it tends to the European side of things though.

In a diner near my house, though, there's a really killer (pun most definitely intended) print of James Dean gassing up his Porsche just before his fatal accident. I don't remember its name, but it shouldn't be hard to find.

 

[Venari]

Cool!

This is exactly what I'm looking for!

Keep it coming, especially the ideas!

I have finned Corvette rocker covers already, and I'm taking off the 'Powered by Ford' covers from the Mercury, so they'll get stripped and painted up too.

I'm getting a funking big black 'American style' fridge, I think I've decided. The rest of the appliances if they're on view will be stainless. I want to turn the kitchen area into a bar-look, so there will be some optics and a counter to separate it from the main dining area. The stools I'd not considered... until now.

The dining room is getting a large circular table with 3/4 corner booth. I'm going to cut and construct that myself, with leather trim, and maybe make a couple of 1/8th seats to complete the circle when dining, and just hang about and look cool when not.

 

[CraftyLandShark]

One thing I forgot! I saw this on some TV show, maybe Trading Spaces...

If you have recessed lighting, try mounting an old-style circular oil filter to the ceiling surrounding the light. It makes a really nice diffuse light and it looks both modern and auto-inspired.

 

[Alex.]

If you've seen Back to the future that should give you great ideas.👍

 

[Barracuda]

In my opinion you should definately stick with turquoise and pink with white walls. A good amount of American memorabilia such as Hubcaps and framed posters (I definately recommend John Wayne) would really bring out the look of a 50's dinner as well.

 

[Diego440]

This one's more like just 50s, but hey http://www.swankpad.org/rooms/roomsindex.htm

and here's the font you're looking for: http://www.dafont.com/sf-americana-dreams.font