Who owns, or even knows what a Hoosier Cabinet is?

[caseydog]

I always hoped I was the favorite "antique" in the house.

Do you have all your original fittings?

CD

[High Desert]

Roly, I never knew the proper name for them but my mom has had one for the last 40 years or so. Been through 4 houses and three states in that time. They're a handy item, well thought out and an original space saver. Thanks for bringing up the subject!

[Roly Nelson]

Randi, I do believe you have a 1917 "Sellers" Kitcheneed Special (Hoosier style) cabinet. My book shows a dead ringer to your pic. If you have an automatic lowering flour bin, is 70 inches high, on ant-proof casters and is 42 inches wide, that could very well be it. Door latches with an embossed "S" were introduced on "Sellers" cabinets in 1923.

However, I also see a "Wilson" cabinet, circa 1917, that has opalescent glass panels at the top of the upper doors and a swing out sugar jar on the right side behind the tanbour roll-ups. Are your doors similar to that and can you see any sign of this sugar jar bracket? It had a swing-out bracket on the right side.

I see your porclean top is kind of chipped on the front edges. Mine was the same way and I relocated the wedge brackets on the bottom and spun it around so the chips would be hidden at the rear.

The book I have was written by Philip D. Kennedy. It says that even though Sellers, Napanee, Boone, and McDougall made these cabinents in Indiana, the term Hoosier has become a generic term when referring to them all. You could buy them for one dollar down and a dollar a week for a year...........total price, 53 bucks! By 1921, 2 million of the 20 million households in America had Hoosier cabinets.
Roly

[Roly Nelson]

Sandy, I think I have a pic of your Sellers "Mastercraft" cabinet as well. I can see the glass window in the flour bin on thru the left door. Also, there is a slide-out cutting board right in the center, just below the sliding porclean top. It looks like it is a 1919 model, according to my book.
How is yours finished, it is sort of hard to tell from your pic?
Roly

[SandyD]

There is a glass panel in the front of the flour bin. When I picked it up ~ it even came with antique flour so at first I thought that glass was a piece of aluminum or something until I got all the old flour cleaned out.

The cutting board in the middle is gone now. It was so deteriorated from use and falling apart so I took it out. I tried finding a replacement for a while but gave up. The front doors were beyond repair as well, just pieces left. This cabinet was definitely used through the years.

There were so many layers of old paint that it took about 3 attempts at paint removal, scraping, and a lot of sanding. I swear that paint was baked on. I intentionally left areas of the old paint to keep a "distressed" look and then lightly stained it with an antique blue and a coat of poly to protect it.

Not a traditional restore by any means but I love it. Beauty in the eye of the beholder and all.

[perche]

Roly, you're an absolute gem for taking the time to look that up. Thank you.

The overall dimensions are correct but the flour bin is removable, not lowering, and the casters don't have the ant-proof ring for borax. There is evidence of a missing fixture on the right hand side which was possibly the sugar bracket you mentioned. There is also a set of nail holes on the right hand side, just underneath the pull out counter, but that could have been from an addition of a towel rack or something.

It looks as if the top panels are glass underneath the paint, but the embossing of the left two are a different pattern, stippled, whereas the right one is frosted. Weird. I can't see any evidence of the panel being taken apart to replace a glass but grandpa was an excellent woodworker so that doesn't mean it wasn't done.

If there was a sugar canister, it may still be at the homestead if it wasn't broken, so I will have a look. Thanks for drawing my attention to it.

There is a label underneath the counter which I can't see unless I take the thing apart that may give a clue...I think I will have to disassemble it soon as I'm curious now I like your solution to the porcelain top.

Mandy, thanks for the kind words. I think grandma would approve if I get the trailer done first, so it'll stay the way it is for a while...

[perche]

I swear that paint was baked on.

Hi Sandy. Just a thought that it may have been milk paint, which seems to increasingly harden over time. I have it on the floors of my old house and found that the only thing that removes it easily is this product: http://www.realmilkpaint.com/remover.html It might come in handy for a future undertaking.

I really like how you finished your hoosier...it is beautiful.

[canned o minimum]

At 53 years YOUNG, I still consider myself to be YOUNG, but my grandmother had one next to her stove/oven ( wood burning). It was obviously in the kitchen...along with the pump at the sink fer water.

This was in the mid 1960s in Freeport ,Maine. just down the road from L.L.Bean when IT was just a small outdoorsman store !

Grandma even had an outhouse...a double seater ! There was no runnin water IN the house then either and we kids had to use a chamber pot in the winter. we was too short to trudge thru the snow at nite...THEM was the days !!!

[dobyman]

Ours is a Sellers. I need to fix the bottom drawer, but overall, pretty good shape. Still has the flour sifter and rolltop.

[Hillmann]

Free on Craigslist

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ram/z ... 05320.html