Updating a kitchen while honoring its past: Architectural Heritage Center Kitchen Revival Tour (2024)

Want your kitchen to be on next year's Architectural Heritage Center's popular Kitchen Revival Tour? Although period accuracy is important for this educational event, the kitchens showcased aren't museum exhibits but serve as the most used room in the house.

How do you update an old kitchen with new appliances yet honor its past? Val C. Ballestrem, education manager of the non-profit center, says the selection committee looks at original and period-appropriate replacements for hardware, light fixture, paint color, wall materials, backsplashes and other features.

He offers this information about Pacific Northwest kitchens:

See remodeled kitchens in a 1904 foursquare to 1960 ranch

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is designed to be as educational as it is inspirational and entertaining. Houses on the self-guided tour represent a variety of styles and have kitchens that efficiently and stylishly serve the homeowners.

Doug and Marie Decker

to create a large, sunlit and well-insulated kitchen.

Lisa Fox and Vic Pecka

in Southeast Portland into a colorful, functional cooking and baking space.

The tour is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 12. Tickets are $25 and include a guidebook. Contractors and homeowners will be on site to answer questions. For more information, call 503-231-7264 or go to

Windows - Most homes in the Portland area built before World War II had wood framed windows - often double hung - that could be opened from the top or bottom. This allowed for ventilation especially in the days before electric exhaust fans.

Flooring- Linoleum (Marmoleum, Marmorette) is perfect for kitchens in homes from the late 19th century into the 1960s. It is durable and relatively inexpensive compared to some materials. Fir floors were very common in Portland homes from the late 19th century into the 1920s because it was cheap and readily available. Often people added the linoleum after their soft wood fir looked worn.

Cabinetry - Kitchens prior to the 1910s did not typically have a lot of built-in cabinetry. Most often, they used a variety of pieces of furniture, from tables to "Hoosier"-style cabinets as workspaces.

When cabinetry did start to become more commonplace, it was frequently built on-site, not custom made elsewhere and then installed. The cabinets often had inset panel doors and the drawers were simpler still with just smooth faces.

Over time, the inset panels disappeared altogether; by the 1930s and the Streamline Moderne age, cabinets were mostly smooth faced and painted, whereas in earlier days the cabinets were often just varnished. By the 1950s, unpainted cabinetry became popular again, especially when they were constructed of higher quality birch plywood.

Countertop material - Late 19th and early 20th century homes did not typically have countertops as we know them today. If they did, they were wood or in some instances stone such as soapstone.

By the 1910s, tile became quite common. Subway tile as a backsplash material and small hex tile as countertops were every popular in the 1910s and 1920s. In the 1930s and '40s, you would often see larger hex tile on the counters and as backsplashes. After WWII, counters were made of stainless steel or laminates like Formica, which remains popular today, even though it is not usually a gloss finished as it used to be.

Plumbing fixtures and sink - Late 19th and early 20th century homes, if they had indoor plumbing, would have had a pretty rudimentary sink or sometimes one of those large farmhouse sinks that hang on the wall, with large front legs and built-in drain boards. By the 1930s, when fully fitted kitchens with cabinetry and counters became more common, built-in sinks became popular as well.

-- Janet Eastman