Walking into Amanda Benson’s home must be what it feels like entering a portal to the 1950s. Bright pops of Pyrex baking dishes double as wall art. Her kitchen is floored in yellow-and-white vinyl in a geometric print. A pale pink ‘50s-era Big Chill refrigerator sits alongside metal cabinets with Formica countertops and opposite a Frigidaire stove that’s original to the 1946-built house. A retro pitcher stands ready to pour lemonade into matching white-and-yellow glasses. A smiling pink pig is painted on a tea kettle, a curly metal tail jutting from the back. Benson’s kitchen is awash in smiles.
“You can’t help but come in and just be happy looking at pinks and happy little faces on your knick-knacks,” says Benson, a case administrator and Evansville resident since 2013.
Benson’s passion for vintage began when she accompanied her parents to auctions and garage sales during her childhood in Plymouth, Indiana. Enjoying the treasure hunt, she started collecting Care Bears as a pre-teenager, then Depression glass to decorate her college apartment. After graduating from Indiana University in 2013, she supplemented her income through buying and selling housewares, antiques, and collectibles. She scored her first piece of vintage Pyrex — an Amish butterprint Cinderella mixing bowl in dreamy blue — for $15 at an antique shop in tiny Roann, Indiana, that November. She’s decorated her East Side home with vintage decor since 2019.
“I like the lines of mid-century furniture, the pointed legs and the colors, the walnut,” she says.
Although not the sole source of her kitchen decor, Pyrex milk glass baking dishes make up a large part of it. Attracted by the whimsical designs, Benson narrowed her focus on the colors that make her happiest: turquoise, pinks, and yellows. Vintage prints like butterprint, daisy, white-on-charcoal snowflake, and gooseberry fill the bulk of her collection, and all stick closely to late 1950s and early ‘60s product lines.
Acquiring a collection of original Pyrex can be difficult. The brand, originally developed by Corning Glass Works (now Corning Inc.) in 1915 as a borosilicate low-expansion alternative to Schott AG’s Duran kitchenware product line, was revered for its durability long before fanciful prints were added. Among Benson’s “holy grail” pieces is a hard-to-find turquoise space saver in a 1960s atomic starburst promotional pattern.
At this point in her Pyrex journey, though, Benson is searching for specific, rare pieces to complete her sets. She shops at antique shops and thrift stores throughout Southern Indiana and Western Kentucky.
“It brings me a lot of happiness,” Benson says. “It makes me happy to bring other people into the home and see how happy it makes them. How can you not be happy in a home where you’re surrounded by smiles?”
