We have the one we bought when we bought our first flat 30 years ago. It is awful - cheap pine, ugly legs, top moves a bit - but obviously I love it and will be laid out on it when the time comes.
I have my mother’s early 60s lilac Formica table in our store, waiting for me to spruce it up. The odd thing is that it’s neither drop-leaf nor does it have a spindly frame with angled- out legs. Instead it’s solid farmhouse style and seats 6-8. Can’t see anything similar online. Odd.
My grandfather who was a keen DIYer went through a phase of sticking sheet Formica to everything. I still remember how you had to ‘cut’ it (Stanleyknife and snap) and how it was stuck on with Evo-stick (two layers, let them dry before laying on the sheet). I bet that under the purple Formica, there’s a lovely old table that someone once felt the need to ‘improve’.
I’m going to give it a good examination. It’s definitely Formica not Fablon, although I remember that grim plastification only too well. Note books, doors, you name it. And, can’t believe it, but my husband has just told me he worked in the factory at Willington Quay as an Applications Engineer testing it met British Standards! I am gob-smacked.
I lost touch with my gran’s formica kitchen table where I rolled and re-rolled bits of leftover pastry to make grubby marmalade or jam ‘pastry’s’ that only my lovely grandad would approach and wolf down with relish - and a lot of water.
When I saw your Eastern European formica
beckoning to me from behind your guanciale I knew I had seen the light. Thirty years ago my sweet husband and I built a self build in the centre of London, with a housing association who paid £1 for the original roofless run down block - where interestingly enough Monty Norman was born and raised - about a year into the project the east end went wild and the start of the great gentrification began. They couldn’t stop us but that was the end of east end self builds we were and still are a lovely anomaly.
30 years later and I’m charged with doing the place up, sweet husband died four years ago and I have to admit what we are left with is sad, he built the place - I skived off by getting pregnant - and he built most of the furniture and fittings so I have been agonising about how to make my first mark and of course it’s got to be formica Rob and his Jewish nana’s in north london and me and my Irish gran in Brighton all around the formica alter in matzo ball and apple pie in simultaneity.
If you are still with me is there any way you could let me know how to get my hands on some of that formica heaven you have there, my husbands family came from Eastern Europe so a fitting tribute, also full disclosure I have never seen such fine formica and I am captivated.
Nostalgic thoughts of the Formica of my childhood: one of my grandparent’s houses had a cheery blue, the other a depressing brown. And then church halls, and school, and a favourite greasy spoon. Quite the journey through time.
Ah the details!! Can't wait to see the book, Tim - and would be fascinated to see some photos of your set-ups.
We have the one we bought when we bought our first flat 30 years ago. It is awful - cheap pine, ugly legs, top moves a bit - but obviously I love it and will be laid out on it when the time comes.
Shhhhhhh! What ever will people think???
I have my mother’s early 60s lilac Formica table in our store, waiting for me to spruce it up. The odd thing is that it’s neither drop-leaf nor does it have a spindly frame with angled- out legs. Instead it’s solid farmhouse style and seats 6-8. Can’t see anything similar online. Odd.
My grandfather who was a keen DIYer went through a phase of sticking sheet Formica to everything. I still remember how you had to ‘cut’ it (Stanleyknife and snap) and how it was stuck on with Evo-stick (two layers, let them dry before laying on the sheet). I bet that under the purple Formica, there’s a lovely old table that someone once felt the need to ‘improve’.
(My Nan, BTW favoured Fablon. The brightening Wonder-material aka ‘Stickyback Plastic’)
I’m going to give it a good examination. It’s definitely Formica not Fablon, although I remember that grim plastification only too well. Note books, doors, you name it. And, can’t believe it, but my husband has just told me he worked in the factory at Willington Quay as an Applications Engineer testing it met British Standards! I am gob-smacked.
OMG! That’s unbelievable. I see a Fablon rabbithole yawning open to welcome us.
How could I have lived with a Fablon expert for 50 years and not known. Flabbergasted.
He was only 19 btw
I lost touch with my gran’s formica kitchen table where I rolled and re-rolled bits of leftover pastry to make grubby marmalade or jam ‘pastry’s’ that only my lovely grandad would approach and wolf down with relish - and a lot of water.
When I saw your Eastern European formica
beckoning to me from behind your guanciale I knew I had seen the light. Thirty years ago my sweet husband and I built a self build in the centre of London, with a housing association who paid £1 for the original roofless run down block - where interestingly enough Monty Norman was born and raised - about a year into the project the east end went wild and the start of the great gentrification began. They couldn’t stop us but that was the end of east end self builds we were and still are a lovely anomaly.
30 years later and I’m charged with doing the place up, sweet husband died four years ago and I have to admit what we are left with is sad, he built the place - I skived off by getting pregnant - and he built most of the furniture and fittings so I have been agonising about how to make my first mark and of course it’s got to be formica Rob and his Jewish nana’s in north london and me and my Irish gran in Brighton all around the formica alter in matzo ball and apple pie in simultaneity.
If you are still with me is there any way you could let me know how to get my hands on some of that formica heaven you have there, my husbands family came from Eastern Europe so a fitting tribute, also full disclosure I have never seen such fine formica and I am captivated.
That wasn't a UTI, that was an STI. Erythromycin is used to treat those but has limited efficacy against the former.
Nostalgic thoughts of the Formica of my childhood: one of my grandparent’s houses had a cheery blue, the other a depressing brown. And then church halls, and school, and a favourite greasy spoon. Quite the journey through time.