Oh snap—our “new” stove for the beach house is actually older than we are. It’s from 1959, and it’s pink. I’m ridiculously excited about it. John’s reaction so far is best described as “cautiously optimistic,” but more on that in a moment.
The stove cost $195 at a secondhand shop called Class & Trash about 30 minutes from our house. When the shop posted the pink stove to their Facebook page, people started tagging me and it popped up in my feed. I knew I had to have it. I left a message the night it was posted and tried to DM the owner, but the only way to secure it was to show up in person. I drove to the store the next morning and stood there, money in hand, the minute they opened. The owner was relieved; apparently it was already a hot item. I later spotted a similar model listed online for much more, so I felt like I’d gotten a great find.
Getting it home was an adventure. We rented a U-Haul for about $75 because the stove is so heavy that it couldn’t be lifted into a truck bed or an SUV. We needed a truck with a ramp and four strong people to carefully move it off the truck and into our garage. John is hiding behind it in one of the photos, bracing it with his full bodyweight so it didn’t come rolling down the ramp like a wrecking ball.
The stove is 40 inches wide, with two ovens and a warming drawer, plus a built-in clock and a bunch of dials that I’m dying to try. John, ever practical, reminded me that we’re restoring a 100-year-old house and we can’t risk unsafe wiring. Even though the seller said it was “working,” we’re having all the wiring redone and the connections triple-checked. The exterior will stay that glorious vintage pink, but the electrical behind it will be modern and safe. The tangle of old wires in the back is a sight to behold; there’s a removable back panel that normally hides them, but it comes off for repair and inspection.
Along with the rewiring we’ll add modern safety features like a proper grounding line and a dedicated outlet instead of the hot-spliced wires it arrived with. Everything needs a good scrub, from the handles to the oven interiors, but overall the stove is in excellent condition. The appliance repairman who inspected it said it’s the best shape he’s ever seen for something this old. His theory? The original owner must have bought it for looks and hardly used it—perhaps she ate out a lot and cared more about style than heavy cooking. He even joked that she probably drove a matching pink Cadillac. I like to imagine her as a glamorous character right out of mid-century life.
We expect to spend about $200 to rewire and restore the stove, which means the total outlay—purchase, transport, and electrical work—should be roughly $500. Even if we end up closer to $600, that still feels like a great deal compared with new retro-style appliances that carry hefty price tags. For the look and character this stove adds to the beach house, it’s worth every penny.
Most of the kitchen cabinetry and many of the fixtures—sconces, lighting, and other pieces—have already arrived. We’re just waiting for plumbing, electrical, and HVAC to be finalized so the walls can go back up. We expect to spend many summer weekends tiling and assembling the kitchen out at the beach house, and we can’t wait to share photos once we reach that stage. The exterior is nearly finished, which makes the whole project feel that much closer to completion. It seems like fate that this house would get a pink stove.
This stove also pulled me off my recent obsession with vintage fridges. I’d been enchanted by every colorful retro refrigerator I saw online, but John pointed out that a beach house needs a freezer big enough for popsicles and ice cream. Many retro fridges have tiny freezers, the size of just a couple pints, which wouldn’t cut it for our needs. So I’m glad a roomy, non-tiny stove came into our lives instead—pink destiny, if you ask me.
Psst—A frequently asked question is “what paint color is that?” or “where did you get that bed/chair/art print/bench?” We put together a whole-house list with photos, paint colors, and furniture and accessory sources for each room to help with those questions.