Wham, Bam—Love that Lam' - Page 2

"If you stand back, it kind of looks like one color," she said of the sparseness and subtle tone of patterns in the Retro Renovation line, apart from the busier, brighter 'Ruby' laminate. "We really wanted that one to have a more 'diner' effect, a rock'n'roll diner."

Kueber was launched into blogging after first restoring a 1912 Arts and Craft home in Michigan, and then she moved to Lenox and "accidentally" became an avid researcher and blogger about mid-century styles.

"I started doing massive amounts of research…so I could restore all these rooms," she said, recalling her involvement starting in earnest with some Geneva steel cabinets salvaged from a Catholic school kitchen in New York City. Researching them, she "scrutinized all those marketing materials" and compiled information on 70 different mid-century steel cabinets to share with readers online.

Making contact with Wilsonart officials while visiting the ancestral home, conversation turned to the company's virtual design library for laminates, and then Kueber complained of "the lack of patterned colors" in current laminates. Wilsonart designers soon set about working with Kueber and Battle on just the right specifications for the laminating process to get the Retro Renovation look.

"What Kate and I did was work with Wilsonart to tweak the layers," she said of the manufacturing specs for the new line.

Mamie Eisenhower's fondness for a specific warm pink gives a title to the one of the patterns ('First Lady Pink'), she explained, adding, "I really don't think there's a tone-on-tone pink laminate [available] except ours."

Vintage jadeite drinking glasses are the inspiration for a green shade—as well as the hue of Battle's 1962-style bathroom.

"It's just a sweetheart color," Kueber said of the shade for 'Delightful Jade,' adding of her website, "Every time I ever put a kitchen up with it, they [readers] go crazy."

That kind of enthusiasm is another thing Kueber appreciates about modernists. "You kind of have to have a sense of humor to put this in your house," she said with a laugh.

To view Wilsonart's catalogue of 31 different retro laminate countertop patterns, including the seven new Retro Renovation creations of course, click here.