A Haven for Vee

Showing posts with label china cupboard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label china cupboard. Show all posts

Saturday, April 6, 2019

Kim's Hutch

Thursday was a good day for an hour's drive over the ridges and along the rivers to my sister's home. A perfect day above and not so great below. It had, in fact, snowed at her place. No snow at mine. 

As I entered Kim's kitchen, the heavenly aroma of banana bread greeted me. Two loaves were cooling on the rack and soon the aroma of coffee also filled the air. The fire was crackling and hot and I sank into one of those chairs beside it. A fireplace in the kitchen is a tremendously pleasant thing. I am officially jealous.

We chatted along for a good hour before we ever turned our thoughts to the dining room. When we did, it was to unpack dishes that Kim hadn't seen for nearly ten years. That was fun. She found a few that are heading for her daughter's home and a few more that are headed for Goodwill. 


Thank goodness for dishwashers. Kim used hers even though some of the dishes were vintage stemware. She used the gentle cycle and none were lost. She did not wash anything with gold or handpainting.

Then we cleaned the hutch itself more thoroughly. It has been in storage for a while and needed the attention.



Soon, we had it gleaming and ready for some decorating. Course by that time, weary of our labors, we turned our attention to some tv while we took a break. An hour of that and we were hungry and took off for a late lunch at Olive Garden in Augusta. 

Oh I want to show you a close-up of the wallpaper because it has much more color interest than I first supposed.


Gosh I hope that you weren't expecting the final reveal. We didn't get much further than this...




Looking in from the living room...love that Penobscot Wall where reclaimed wood was used for the wall application. The wood doesn't rot because of the low level of oxidization while the logs were submerged for over a hundred years. Do you have wood reclaiming industries in your corner? You can't go wrong to purchase some of that wood for decor purposes, though it is certainly pricey. What I love about this is that the hutch blends in perfectly with the overall look of what is going on. The table set doesn't match, but that doesn't matter with all the wood tones going on.


That's a wrap for now. If Kim sends me a photo of the finished styling, I'll share. She's still looking for the rest of her dishes somewhere in the basement. I hope that she finds them because, until then, I've got nothing. Blog fodder is becoming so rare around here. 

A blessed and happy weekend to you!



Thursday, February 18, 2010

China Cupboard Before and After


I can ignore problems staring me right in the face. Pam Tillis may think that she is "The Queen of Denial," but actually I am. This is true of every situation across the board. Yup, Vee is my name and Denial is my game. Not so very good on sooooo many levels. Okay, moving right along because I am also the Queen of Vague. Specificity always makes me a titch nervous. ;>

First up...my china cupboard. You've seen the top decorated just so...
What you haven't known is its secret inner life. (I should save this for a Sunday analogy. :D )

What a disaster! I dared not put the following picture in first or you'd not have stopped by. Every time I opened it, something fell out. That might have been an indication for a normal person that it was time to do something. Not for me. I've lived this way for months.



Yesterday, I finally concluded that enough was enough. I removed every single thing placing what was going back into the cupboard on the right side of my dining table and what wasn't going back on the left side. I washed the cupboard with Murphy's oil soap...love that stuff...and placed my dishes back inside. Some fine day, perhaps I'll paint the interior something nice and light so my dishes show up better.



The only problem was that now I had a pile of stuff
that wasn't going back.

What to do with it? How about this?
I've seen this often in Blogland, but my mother was the first woman I know to do it with a big old punch bowl filled with ephemera and goodies gathered from kitchen drawers and hiding spots.

So there it is...

Oh, one last thing...
This is a little decorating idea that I love. I found it at Brocante Home on a post called The Quiet War. Her six-year-old son Finn came up with it. He has an excellent eye for charm just like his mother.

(Yes, you eagle-eyed, folks. This was before I put all my stuff in the apothecary jar.)

Have a splendid day!