Oh, yes! Most of my aesthetic choices have been strongly influenced by the late 50's/early 60's house I grew up in. My mother's fabulous dishes, still in use:

And Marcolo has a great parrot story, I just know it.

I can't say the remodeling choices are influenced by their kitchens. The meals my granmother turned out in her practically no kitchen put me to shame.

But as a very young child I spent hours standing next to her at the sink, and she had a piece of this on the windowsill which an uncle had sent back from Japan. I added to more pieces and I love having it in my kitchen.

More recently, on the death of my mother, I rediscovered this tiny iron stove.

I abhored tchotchkes as a child - they depressed me for some reason, and I don't think it was ONLY because I had to dust them. (I think because they envsioned a life that wasn't, and as a kid I didn't want to be reminded of anything except the HERE, NOW, AND ME.) But this will go near my new (probably black?) range, because I like it now.

These pictures are from the web, but my items are very similar.

My grandmother had a 'put together' kitchen. My earliest memory is of an old porcelain/cast iron drainboard sink and metal base cabinet. I remember a work table in the opposite corner, next to the electric refrigerator that they'd bought when the house was built in the mid 1950s. When my uncle returned from a stint in the USMC, he built a long, single, base cabinet (with white, sparkly, metal-edged Formica top) to replace the work table, added corresponding upper cabinets, and a couple of upper cabinets over the metal sink base.

**Opposite sides of my kitchen have cabinets that were built in different decades, and do not match. Still wish I'd had room for a porcelain drainboard sink that my DD dragged home from someone's junk pile.

There was a window in the wall behind her table, opening to the LR. It wasn't a pass-through--one had to stand up to look through it, but because both rooms were small it kept everyone connected. There was no dining room, and we always took turns at the dinner table. **I have a window above my sink, looking into the family-dining/play room. (It was an exterior window before we built on, so we kept it open.) We made the room big enough to allow 20 people to sit down all at once--no eating in shifts.

Mammaw cooked on a 'bottled gas' stove, and never, ever had a vent hood, or even an exhaust fan. The stove was right beside the back door, and we'd open the door and fan it a few times to clear the air. **I've improved on that system. :)

Oh, and speaking of the back door--it had been re-purposed from an old attorney's office in town. I was fascinated by the brass mail slot. **I've been known to re-purpose a few things, too.

She loved pretty, colorful, glass dishes; I prefer ceramics, but my pottery, displayed on open shelves is another reminder of her kitchen. Now, without her, the kitchen is just a room in my uncle's house.

You're asking this of a guy who's planning a 1920s kitchen and hanging his mother's wooden parrot over the sink?

Actually, I didn't grow up with anything like a pristine 1920s kitchen. My family had a mishmash dating from Craftsman-era elements all the way to my mom's 1960s kitchen renovation that included a powder room with a lilac tub, toilet and sink. Mostly, though, my experience was with pre-War kitchens until we moved to the 'burbs. Most of what people install today does not look or feel like a kitchen to me in any way, which is why I'm going retro.

That's a very interesting question to ponder! Maybe this is one of the reasons I'm having such a dixons of a time landing on a cohesive/pleasing plan for our kitchen reno.

If I could, I would have a drainboard porcelain wall sink, deep glass front dish cabinet with deep drawers below, and a big walk in pantry like my farm grandma. But that doesn't fit with my houses's character or kitchen space.

Although I'm an Autumn season-wise , I absolutely fell head over heels for some subtle blue and white dishes that we've enjoyed using daily now for 20 plus years. My city grandma had beautiful blue and white everyday dishes (Swinnertons Silverdale) I adore to this day. Mmmm comfort food--German style.

Mom was drawn to simple subtle palettes--everyday dishes white with silver lined rims. Her good china was one of the most beautiful soft patterns ever--Pope Gosser Clementine. It's still a favorite of mine. I'd really like to have a soft warm inviting kitchen. Yet... when I see some of the Gw-ers bolder granite with lots of movement I desire that statement.

It's all overwhelming.

My childhood memories are more about the food than the kitchen, as the outstanding feature of the kitchen in my growing-up house was the cabinetry. The room featured wallpaper with harvest gold, orange and army-green roosters, and when Mom told Dad she was sick of the yellow cabs, he decided to pick out another color from the wallpaper....and painted the cabs orange. As in traffic-cone orange. He got one cab done, was too stubborn to concede that the color was off, and went ahead with painting all the cabs. That was in the mid-70s and my parents lived with that color until they sold the house in the late '90s.

My mom was a fabulous baker and sometimes sold her cakes and pies (illegally) out of our home kitchen. What she could have done with a better layout, more reliable oven and non-retina-searing cabinetry boggles the mind.

I don't think my kitchen was necessarily influenced by my childhood kitchens. But maybe it was. All my childhood kitchens were a bit of a mish mash and my kitchen is a mixy several toned conglomeration. I wonder though if many of us will influence our children's kitchens some day in the future. You mostly do not see art (paintings or prints) in the kitchen anymore. People seem afraid to mess with the perfect magazine spread of the final product. I can never figure out whom they really are or if they have any personality or depth. As a child I was always interested in what was hanging on the wall. Back then it was mostly small prints in frames here and there. Now that I'm older and have had much time to reminisce, those little prints or paintings gave a lot of clues to the psyche of the woman or sometimes men and women who spent so much time there. My aunt always had "The Chinese Girl" by Tritchikoff hanging on the wall entering the kitchen (loved that one). My grandmother and my husbands mother both had little Victorian or Renaissance prints of women in living areas and all depicting contented melancholy. My mom had little Margaret Keane style "Big Eyes" prints of sad children and dismal cityscapes all mixed with color pops in other decorations. My aunt and uncle had black and white drawings of hunting scenes and the great outdoors. The result was kitchens with soul. They sort of gave the kitchen another dimension. Most of the kitchens I see today are one dimensional in that they are often imitations of others kitchens with no thought to add a little part of themselves through the hanging of a Loved print or painting.

I found this light while shopping for kitchen pendants. My heart skipped a beat because it reminds me so much of the light my grandma had. I always thought it was so beautiful when I was a child. It tied in with her china that she displayed all over the house. I so want to put one or two of these in the house, but they don't particularly go with anything we own. I just think it's pretty.

Thank you for all the responses!

Mrsmortarmixer- That's such a pretty light! You should find a way to make it work :)

Jterrilynn- I never thought about that...but my grandmother always had paintings (sometimes her own) in the kitchen. I have one her friend did (kind of an autumn color Monet look) and a Monet print, a few other country landscapes, and a few photo/prints...a baby deer, a chickadee and a kitten sleeping in/on a big flower pot! LOL

My grandmother had a small ceramic plaque saying "Cuore di mamma e il cuore piu sincero" (Italian for "Mamma's heart is the truest heart"). I always loved it, and when she died many years ago and we got to take things we wanted from her apartment, I claimed that. It has always hung in my kitchen. Although I did not design the new kitchen around it, I made sure it had a place.

My grandparents were very close friends with this artist, Degrazia. THey had this hanging in their home and I've always LOVED it. My dad has it now and I'll get it one day. You can see why I had such an attachment to this specific slab of Fusion.

My grandmothers both had very utilitarian 1930s/1940s kitchens. Painted cabinets with eased-edge slab doors with the handles with little black buttons that popped the doors open. Formica countertop with metal edges, et al. But the kitchen table IN THE KITCHEN is something that I do remember enjoying as a little kid. I also remember the wall-mounted can opener and the bottle opener screwed into the end of the cabinet. And one grandmother had a ca. 1958 cutting-edge Frigidaire Imperial bottom-freezer fridge (Gramps worked for Frigidaire). I loved that you stepped on a pedal and the freezer door popped open. Then you pulled out the baskets from the inside.

But I've never duplicated any of this in my own homes. And I clearly will not duplicate the Harvest Gold, intercoms and swinging saloon doors of the various suburban kitchens I personally grew up in.

Wow! Bahacca!
Nothing so exciting from my end.
Basic formica counters - but we did have a dishwasher and all of our friends thought that was pretty nifty.
Chocolate chip cookies, black chocolate cake and spice cake. I can smell them right now.

Jakabedy - I remember intercoms! According to my DD, intercoms are not needed today because her friends' parents text their kids in their bedrooms to tell them to come down for dinner.

What I use instead of an intercom or texting is a brass school hand bell, like used to be used to call kids in from recess. You can hear it even through headphones or earbuds.

Don't you live on a farm, Lavender? Do you have a bell outside like my husband grew up with? That's how his DM called his DD and him.

Bahacca - That's amazing! I can't believe you found that.

This is an interesting thread. I don't think I've been influenced... BUT come to think of it the kitchen I grew up in DID have yellow counters! lol

mrsmortarmixer- I saw that light in one of your posts and love it! Reminds me of my great grandmother : )

I came upon the slab and was SOOOOO upset when my DH told me I couldn't go over budget for it. I just could NOT shake it--I was SO attached to that slab. Late that night I thought in my head "It is STONE. What about it makes me feel so emotionally HAPPY?" And I thought "OMG. It looks like "Wild Horses". I won't be getting that slab or fusion, though for several weeks I've been looking forward to it. I'll probably wind up with it in my master bath, but not sure if any slab will ever compare to that one for obvious reasons.

So wonderful!

Bahacca- That is an amazing resemblance. How cool!

My grandma's kitchen was remodeled about 10 years ago, but I will always remember the pineapple patterns. I recently came across a pineapple pendant online and wished I had a place for it in my house.

It is amazing how our past influences our tastes. DH couldn't stand his mother's design choices so everytime he says something reminds him of his house when he was growing up, I know that means he doesn't like it. It's the exact opposite for me. I would love to have a 70's mustard and avacodo kitchen with the whole house full of green shag carpet. Lol!'

Growing up my mom had this PASTA picture in her kitchen with all the diff. types of pasta on it, I used to love to look at it, it sounds silly but just something that stuck in my head.