What Is this Vintage Kitchen Gadget? Traditional Home

It's more than a gadget, really. It's a piece of furniture that takes up an entire wall. Any ideas? Manually operated tea kettle? Magical bubblegum maker?

It's an antique Danish coffee grinder. Coffee grinder cabinet, actually. We're not sure if the grinder still works or it's just a decorative piece of furniture, but this Boston homeowner went to great lengths to use it in her kitchen. She found it at a Vermont antiques store and originally had it on the other side of the room, before she renovated.

Here's what it looked like before:

Would you have hauled that home from an antiquing trip? Not us. And yet once it was refinished, it fits in beautifully.

Does anyone know anything else about this type of grinder? Is the cabinet integral to the mechanics or just for storage?

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(Image: Bruce Buck/Traditional Home)

Comments (9)

I knew it was a coffee grinder! Oh, it's beautiful.

it looks like it's electrically powered, so there would be a motor down inside the cabinet, and it would grind directly into the drawers below, the two rows of drawers would be for whole bean storage...so yes, basically the cabinet is required (or at least the part it's mounted to)

If I had one of those, I would build my entire kitchen around it. Heck, my whole HOUSE!

I have a coffee grinder similar to this, except it is much smaller. I like it because it doesn't require electricity.

It is lovely. The exposed flywheel is scary. Would wack off a finger and hardly slow down.

That is so, so cool. I love the refinishing.

My first guess was a grain mill. That's a rather large item to just do coffee.

Beautiful; but I could never imagine sacrificing such a large amount of counter space for it.

I imagine it was originally part of a commercial installation, rather than a domestic one. Nonetheless, a fantastic piece and it integrates wonderfully into the reno'd kitchen.