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A Fresh Coat of Paint for the Kitchen Island

November 2, 2012 at 9:39 am by Claudia

Yesterday turned out to be the annual Painting of the Kitchen Island Day. This island takes a beating as we circle around it, open and shut doors and drawers, bang into and generally abuse it. And once a year, I reach a point where I long to see it nick-and-chip-free, if only for a day or so. Out comes the paint. Scout is barred from the kitchen. I make sure Don is out of the house. And off I go.

I’d love to show you bright and sunny photos of the island, but I haven’t seen the sun in over two weeks. I’m not kidding. I don’t think I can take one more gray day. So here are the photos of the island, freshly painted, unstaged, and a bit grainy.

You can see all the details that its original incarnation as a dark brown sideboard hid. That dark brown, almost black, stain overwhelmed the piece and all the carving was lost in that heaviness. When I first brought it home, it looked so huge that Don wasn’t sure it would even fit in the kitchen. I quickly slapped on a coat of primer to show him it would work. I knew that this creamy color would bring out all the details. The back of the piece was unfinished, so I covered it with beadboard. And I changed out the knobs.

This piece has been a life-saver for us. We use it all the time, hence the dings and chips that will reappear shortly. Sigh. The drawers hold linens and baking tins. The cupboards hold our KitchenAid Mixer and various pots and pans. We don’t have a lot of cupboard space in this kitchen and the island has given us much needed storage.

And it’s pretty.

I don’t want to put anything on it.

Now I will do my usual thing and follow Don around for a few days, urging him to BE CAREFUL! He will get annoyed. I will try to fiercely protect my island and eventually I will give up. Because kitchens take a beating. At least, kitchens that exist in real life do.

Scout – showing her outrage that she had been barred from the kitchen for 3 hours.

I wonder if we’ll ever see the sun again around these parts. I’ve been thinking about painting the kitchen a pale yellow. Hmmm.

I’ll be back at 8:00 EST with A Favorite Thing.

Happy Friday.

Small Space Storage: Toilet Paper

November 1, 2012 at 9:45 am by Claudia

There. I said it. Where to put your supply of toilet paper? Those of you who have read this blog over the years know that I have never lived in a big apartment or house. Never. Indeed, many of my domiciles were one or two rooms. This little cottage seems positively palatial compared to those spaces.

So, storage is always an issue. In the years I lived in the city, I would just stop by the neighborhood corner shop and buy 2 rolls of paper as needed. That’s all I had room for. Now I have one and half baths, but neither space has room for a cupboard or any other behind-closed-doors kind of storage.

I see a lot of bathrooms where the toilet paper is piled high in a basket. But, let’s be real here. Bathrooms are damp. There’s a lot of hair floating around. Items can get covered in that sort of damp/dusty stuff. Do you know what I mean? (I don’t have a better way to describe it.) So I came up with an idea for storage. Several years ago, I haunted eBay until I found what I was looking for:

(Bathroom photos are so difficult, aren’t they?)

This is a tole hamper. You can find these on eBay fairly often. Here’s what it has going for it:

It doesn’t take up much space. It’s vertical, rather than horizontal.
It’s pretty. The hand-painted flowers suit my style and my bathroom.
It holds about 8 or 9 rolls of toilet paper and keeps them under cover.
I don’t have to keep running out for a roll or two.
It’s pretty (had to say it again) and shabbily vintage.

If you live in a small space and love the vintage look, this might be a solution for you. It keeps the toilet paper hidden but easily accessible.

It’s become one of my favorite touches here at the cottage.

Happy Thursday.

Riveted

October 31, 2012 at 9:21 am by Claudia

We’ve been camped out in the den, watching our local stations out of NYC. They’ve been preempting regular programming with coverage of the hurricane and its aftermath. I couldn’t stop watching yesterday as I tried to comprehend the damage to the infrastructure of Manhattan, the horrendous damage to the shoreline of New Jersey, the loss of life, the fire that destroyed over a hundred homes in Queens, a tree falling on a young couple walking a dog – it just goes on and on. It’s really all I can think of right now. We were incredibly lucky. Millions of others were not. This tragedy has just stopped us in our tracks. My sense of humor isn’t working very well at the moment.

Finally, we stopped for a while and played Scrabble. The previous night of very little sleep may have blunted our Scrabbley-wordy skills, but we had fun. I won. I tell you, it’s all in the tiles you draw. I managed to draw Q and Z and that made all the difference.

I really can’t think about anything for any length of time other than those who have lost so much and the heartbreak I feel for this part of our country that is so dear to me. It has been ravaged, stripped and forever changed.

But I try. I took all the plants back outside to the porch, stowed all the flashlights and lanterns. We ate food that Don had precooked the day before when he was worried that all our frozen food might spoil if we lost our electricity. It makes for easy meal prep, that’s for sure. I may keep this alyssum inside for a bit longer. I like the way it looks here. Has anyone ever kept alyssum as a house plant?

And in the ‘Duh’ category, when I was preparing to bring all my potted plants in before the hurricane hit, I cleaned out a few pots that held all-but-dead plants. One of them had a sweet potato vine in it. As I took it to the compost pile, I had trouble dumping all the potting soil. My fingers kept running into something beneath the soil. What was it?

Am I the only one out there who was surprised to see an actual sweet potato underneath the soil?

I felt like an idiot.

I’m charmed by it. It’s sitting in a place of honor in the kitchen right now.

Hey, sometimes the simplest thing can bring a smile to my face. Or make me laugh at myself.

Thank goodness. I need that right now.

Happy Wednesday.

A Fresh Coat of Paint for the Kitchen Island

Small Space Storage: Toilet Paper

Riveted

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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