Avocado, Harvest Gold, Almond: When Kitchen Appliances Matched

The Short Answer

From the late 1960s through the 1970s, many kitchen appliances were sold in matching colors, most famously avocado green and harvest gold, along with a warm brown called coppertone. By the late 1970s and 80s, almond took over, then white, and later stainless steel. The color of a family's refrigerator often tells you the decade the kitchen was put in.

Before the Earth Tones

Colored appliances weren't new in the 70s. In the 1950s, some kitchens had refrigerators and ranges in pastel shades like pink, yellow and turquoise. But it was the earth tones of the 70s that showed up in kitchen after kitchen.

Avocado and Harvest Gold

If your parents remodeled or bought a new house in the 70s, there's a good chance the refrigerator was avocado green or harvest gold. The range matched. The dishwasher matched. Sometimes the countertop, the wallpaper and the floor were picked to go along with them.

These colors were sold as a set, and it showed. A matching kitchen looked planned, modern and grown-up.

Coppertone

Then there was coppertone, a brown with a hint of metallic shine. It went with wood cabinets, dark paneling and orange-and-brown wallpaper, which is to say it went with half the houses on the street.

Almond Takes Over

By the late 1970s and into the 1980s, the bold colors faded and almond arrived, a soft off-white that went with everything. Almond refrigerators and ranges filled kitchens through the 80s, often next to oak cabinets.

Then White, Then Steel

White came back, and later stainless steel became the look nearly every new kitchen wanted. Today a matching set of colored appliances looks like a time machine.

Why We Remember Them

You probably remember your family's refrigerator as clearly as any room in the house. The color of its door. The sound of the handle. The magnets, the school pictures and the grocery list stuck to the front.

The appliances matched because families bought them to last, and in a lot of homes they did, for twenty years or more. That's why the color of an old refrigerator can take you straight back to a kitchen you haven't stood in for decades.