There was nothing distinguishing about the two dinette sets – except their age, and the warm and homey memories they stored.
They were dinette sets from the 1950s, one with deep yellow upholstery and the other in beige. Each sat on sturdy chrome legs atop Formica-top tables among other sundry items at the auction house. They stood out from all that surrounded them, and silently beckoned auction-goers of a certain age to stand before them and reflect.
The yellow set showed its age a bit, but that didn’t matter. One man took photos to text to his wife. “Her family had one of these,” he explained.
Soon, the sets drew two women into their lair. “Don’t you remember these?” one said excitedly to the other. “Yes,” her friend answered. “We had red chairs.” (The table under the beige chairs did have red accents around the base.)
“We had yellow chairs,” the first woman said. They both remembered the chairs from their childhood.
That’s not surprising, because chrome dinette sets with Formica tops were the thing in the 1950s. Formica itself was durable, it cleaned easily, and it came in nifty colors. The material wasn’t used on household products, though, until around the 1950s. Its original use was industrial: Chevrolet, Buick and Pontiac used it for car engine parts in the 1930s, and it was used for propellers and other products of war during World War II.
Then Formica found its way into people’s homes, in dinette sets made by a variety of companies including Acme, Arvin, Chromecraft and Daystrom. Companies flooded magazines designed for women with ads pushing their dinettes.
The dinettes came in many colors, some with inlaid designs in the tabletop. The chairs were upholstered in vinyl. Some of the tables also came with leafs, and others had a push button to raise or lower the table to store the leaf underneath.
These mid-century dinettes have become very popular in their original form or as retro furniture. One site noted that the white ones were not as popular unless they had designs in the tabletop. The site also offered suggestions on what to look for in the original dinettes.
What are your memories of dinette sets?
