What? 58 degrees today and sunny? Oh my.

We had a lovely day yesterday. We drove to Phoenicia, which is a tiny little town up in the Catskills. We took a rather hilly route and consequently learned that the CR-V doesn’t do so well anymore on that kind of terrain. Next time, either a different route or my car. But it was a lovely drive. The scenery is still winter-stark, but then again, I got to see houses that would normally be hidden by leafed out trees. Phoenicia is funky, known for its strong arts community, fly fishing, and tubing down the river.

Our first stop was at the Phoenicia Diner, which is very well known around here. This was our first time and it was packed. The food is delicious. More on all of that tomorrow.

It felt like we really got away to a completely different place. It turned out to be one of what we call our ‘road trip’ adventures, where wonderful and unexpected things happen just by our being open to the experience.

When we drove into Phoenicia proper after we ate at the Diner, one of our stops was an antique shop. To be frank, there wasn’t much there that interested us, but there was one thing. A stainless steel kitchen island that most likely came out of a restaurant. It’s definitely restaurant quality. I noticed it immediately and called Don over. He, being the cook, fell in love with it. The depth was fairly narrow and it seemed as if it would fit nicely in our kitchen. The price was great. So we measured and measured again, mostly to see if it would fit in the CR-V. It did.

Here it is:

Don loves it. The height is perfect for my very tall husband. There’s lots of prep space. We have very little counter space here. This gives us so much more! We can easily move the Fiesta compote off the top in order to use the entire length of the island. Also: much easier to clean than the first island, which periodically had to be repainted and it was a pain in the tush.

It’s also what I call “airier.” We can see through it to the cupboards. It’s not a heavy piece of furniture like the previous island, which was in reality a sideboard. And it isn’t too small to be a functional island, which our sweet French Bistro table was. It also echoes the chrome on Stella. We have to get used to it as we’ve both bumped into it this morning but we’re really happy with it. An unexpected find on our trip yesterday.

The other unexpected finds were those two vintage picnic basket tins. These were found in a shop that, again, had absolutely nothing that we found interesting but did have four of these tins stacked in the display window. I assumed they were for display purposes only, but they were for sale. We got a really good price for the two we bought and were already envisioning them on the shelf below the counter. They’ll provide much needed storage. I knew immediately that the island would need softening. Those sleek lines would need some vintage additions to fit in with our pottery and plant filled kitchen. I think we’ve managed to do that with the tins, the antique crate – which we already had – and the bright yellow compote on the top.

We were not expecting to buy anything but brunch, but we couldn’t pass these up. Serendipity!

The other side of the kitchen this morning:

Still haven’t painted the wall. Heaven knows when I will.

Yes, our kitchen is funky.

I’ll share some photos from our little journey tomorrow.

Oh, almost forgot! When Don went out to the car yesterday, he saw one of our groundhogs! Groundhogs hibernate for the winter, so this was a surprise, and it’s certainly the earliest we have ever seen one. Did he just come out to check on the weather? I don’t think it was Henry. It was the guy who lives next door and runs back and forth between our houses, because as soon as he saw Don he took off for our neighbor’s shed.

Happy Monday.