I am so friggin’ tired this morning! Too much going on, horrendous humidity (which broke, thank goodness, overnight) and a day spent in the beautiful Berkshires where we really didn’t have time to acknowledge that beauty because we were frantically driving from one antique shop to another trying to find a substitute for the island. By the time we got home around 7:30, we were exhausted. Don pulled a dinner together and we watched “Singin’ in the Rain.”
The first shop we went to ended up having the most possibilities, but no matter what we looked at, it was basically a table and not the right height for an island. After endless measuring, chatting with Shirley, who ran the shop and everyone else who worked there, we were dehydrated, tired, and in my case, overwhelmed and in mourning for my island, which I know darned well is too big and had to go. We tried every other shop before coming back to the first shop. Finally, we acknowledged that whatever we bought would be a place marker until we found the right substitute. Whatever we eventually find will be much shorter in length and much less of a presence in the room because Don is loving the room to walk around and do what he has to do when making dinner. He’s a big guy and he needs space. We need space.
Sigh.
We ended up buying a small primitive table because I loved the original blue paint. We figure it can go into storage if we find something better or maybe there will be another place for it in the house or in the mudroom we’d like to add someday.
And the wood bread board I got earlier in the summer fits on top. The Vernors crate is there for the moment, but I have a feeling I’ll move it somewhere else. It’s taking up too much real estate. Where that is, I don’t know, as every corner in this little cottage is taken up by something or other. Love our cottage but sometimes we yearn for more space.
We also got this vintage crate with the great graphics because it has a hinged lid and I’m going to store the dishtowels and linens inside. Today I have to clear out one of our cupboards so that I can reconfigure where we store our pots and pans and baking dishes. And I have to paint the trim on the window. And work on Act 4 of Midsummer.
I also got this because I love vintage graphics and display items.
We might hang it above the vintage stove as a container for spices, sort of like this (courtesy of Don):
Or it might go elsewhere. A lot depends on the stove and how it looks here in the kitchen. As Shirley, who must feel relieved not to have to have any more long indecisive conversations with us on the ‘island’ that isn’t really an island, said – we should wait until the stove arrives to see what we want or don’t want. She’s right.
Gosh, this stove has upended everything here at the cottage!
We bought one other item, but it’s impossible to get a good picture of it this morning, so I’ll work on that later in the day.
Change is always hard for me and there are a lot of changes happening around here right now. And I leave in four days for five weeks away from home. It’s all too much for me at the moment, which is why Don and I sat on the porch this morning and cuddled on the glider while I cried a little. That helped.
Happy Sunday.
Claudia, the table is beautiful! I understand the need for more height for Don, though. I use a table for an island and, for 5’4″ me, it’s perfect. But for someone as tall as Don, a counter-height or even higher would be ideal. My solution would be to add legs to your cutting board to raise it to correct height. Then, you’d also gain extra storage and display space between it and the table top. Just a thought.
For the moment, Don will do chopping, etc on the counters and we’ll use it for plating, etc. I think that will work.
Oh, and the crate is wonderful, as is the basket. I can never have enough old, lovely commercial design around the house!
Me either. I love those graphics, as well as the texture of the crate.
The table and crate are awesome! We always seem to put the most pressure on ourselves. You’ll get thru this because you are strong and you have that wonderful man right beside you!
Thank you, Chris! Today, though I have a lot to do, I’m going to ‘take it easy’ while doing it!
Love all your buys including the blue table. I just moved my late Uncle’s kitchen table to my house. The top is enameled steel so perfect for kneading breads and rolling out pie crust. I’m going to use it as a kitchen island, even though it’s a bit short. It needs a little work on the legs and the drawer (with the enamel steel front…I love it) needs to be cleaned.
Crying helps relieve a lot of tension. You have so much going on, at least two domino trails with stove at the end of the first trail and the show at the end of the other, allintertwining. Glad you gave yourself permission to cry.
I looked at one of those yesterday and I loved it, but it was too wide for our space. I’ve always loved them.
Hi Claudia…I just love the way you go with the flow!! I am in love with the crate and table..so vintage and looks wonderful in your kitchen…colors were just right too! 5 weeks away from home? Hope it goes by quickly for you! bring some pictures with you when you are missing it~Have a great Sunday! :-)
I always take pictures of Don and me and of Don, Scout, and me.
Yes…change can be exhausting….both mentally and physically. It…looks like you might have found a solution with the table….lovely! The color is spot on….I can see why you loved it. The cutting board is a perfect fit, too. As for the crate…well…it’s perfect there. Once your new acquisition is in place, I think you’ll be better able to see if that table will work or not. Relax a bit of you can! ;)
I love that color, for sure. I’m getting used to it as I work on the kitchen today painting the trim.
Glad you are finding moments to just breathe. Remember that stress is the root of (too) many evils!! One good thing is being that it isn’t winter, will you be able to come home at least a couple of times? If you can’t get everything packed by Thursday, you can maybe meet Don half way to pick up what you forgot? Just not having to have the weather in the back of your mind through your stay will be nice. But I know that feeling of a bit of panic that sort of sticks in the back of your throat as you plow through the “to-do” list. Weren’t we supposed to be sitting on the veranda and sipping lemonade at this stage of life?
I think living with the new vintage stove for a bit will help you find the perfect piece you need for a new island. Great advice. And you are right…. one thing really does beget another!! Have a peaceful Sunday, Claudia!
I’ll probably come home every day off, except for the first. I want to see the garden, the moonflowers haven’t grown enough to start blooming and Don will be here. Have to see them all!
But it’s an enormous relief to know that I don’t have to cope with wintry weather. So glad the Shakespeare has been slotted where it used to be – in the fall.
I love the table. I think, as someone else said, ‘live with the stove awhile’. I goggled portable islands, there are many available. I know you prefer old and interesting but sometimes it works to accept new and practical😘. You always make good choices and I think the stress of leaving is somewhat overwhelming right now. Breathe deep.
I had a chance at a newer one yesterday, but I couldn’t do it. It has to be vintage in some way, shape or form!
I love the table and that blue is charming. I agree with the others just enjoy it for now, when the stove comes you will see more clearly what you want/need in there. I’m glad you cried, it is overwhelming at times and good cry helps me. You also have Don to snuggle with, not a bad morning at all. I was up most of the night with a friend in crisis and I’m exhausted today. I’m glad I could help her and she is better this morning but needs to go into a rehab center and I think she will. I did see the Grands yesterday and enjoyed some fun time with family. Today I guess I’ll just rest and pray for my friend and so many others in crisis. Life is so hard at times. Hugs to you and Don.
I’m hoping your friend gets the help she needs, Linda. Rest today.
I love the new purchases, too, Claudia. Everything you choose makes your wonderful cottage even more lovely.
I have learned patience in furnishing my home. It helps me to slow down -your stove will definitely be the focal point of the room and provide the direction to go .
The yellow wall is lovely -I have a similar color in my family room and living room. It never fails to lift my spirits.
Ironically, we watched Singing in the Rain last night!
Isn’t it great? One of my favorite movies!
I prefer the table to the island, but I am only 5 feet tall. I am lucky enough to have a beautiful old butcher block island from a real butcher shop. We joke that it is what keeps my husband and I together. Neither of us would be willing to give it up.
We had one for several years and then sold it because it was too heavy for our nice wood floors. And now, being a vegetarian, I have to be honest! I don’t think I could have one in the kitchen. But, they are really neat looking, that’s for sure.
I’m becoming fond of that table. We will use it for prep that doesn’t require a lot of chopping. That can happen on the kitchen counter.
You’ll always be able to use your “new” blue table somewhere in the house so cheer up – it was a GOOD decision! You didn’t settle for something larger & more expensive just to get something now – and that’s smart. But for the time being, you do have something practical. Plus I predict the nifty little yellow display rack will look great stocked with spice jars near the “new old” stove. I think your tears were ones of exhaustion for sure. You have been swamped with MUST-DOs lately – that’s tough on anyone! Keep yourself a break. Sit & relax & work on “Midsummer” today.
PS – Got chocolate?? 😉
As it happens, I do!
Love all your purchases! They look so lovely and at home in your cottage!
Thank you, Dottie!
I love that blue table and the crate and rack What a great idea that Don had concerning the spices. Claudia, take a deep breath and relax a little. Everything will get done. I hate change,too.
Marilyn
Actually, it was my idea! Don arranged them in the rack. He’s a great decorating partner and usually has ideas I never thought of.
Oh, I hear it in your ‘voice’, Claudia; you’re suffering some understandable strain. It’s just too hard to find that ‘special’ item when you’re under the gun. You made a wise choice with current constraints.
I live in a house with a large kitchen divided by a wall-attached breakfast bar; a 50s thing, where you’d pull up bar stools to eat at the bar (kids loved it; my mom never loved it and thought it was tacky; she was raised in poverty and was, in fact, not even a very confident person [certainly never snooty] but, somehow, she developed certain refinements [and she never swore; used excellent grammar; had good manners, etc.]…more power to her…and we always sat down to meals at a table with a tablecloth, matched dishes and nicer stainless flatware along with one of her tasty, well-balanced meals…she looked at the breakfast bar with disdain, saying “this is a home, not a pub, not a diner” and she refused to buy bar stools for it, which I thought was so uncool of her at the time [she felt the same way about kitchen seating which featured a popular-at-the-time, built-in banquette, saying further ‘this is a home, not a restaurant’]; God Bless my dear mom!).
In most of the houses in our neighborhood/subdivision which have this ‘breakfast bar’, people have taken it out because although it functioned also as a room divider between work/prep area and dining area (in the absence of a formal dining room), the kitchen is totally opened up even more without the bar (some, then, choose to put in a stand-alone work island/piece, even ones that roll). We haven’t started on the kitchen remodel yet, so we still have the bar. I’m short and the made-for-the-house bar is high, so it doesn’t work well for me as an ‘island’ – and I actually haven’t had a freestanding kitchen island in 22 years; I had to learn to live without one. (Kitchens in the interim, other places we’ve lived, have been too small for one.)
My willowy husband in the kitchen…also well over 6-ft tall…needs a wide berth and doesn’t even want dogs underfoot when he’s got on his chef’s hat. It’s a solo effort for him and he doesn’t even like a chopping partner! I’ve learned to make myself scarce when he’s cooking; he gets very intense over the task (enjoys it but isn’t relaxed; he’s very serious about cooking). I don’t think I’ll ever find myself with an island again; he thinks they’re just in the way although, without the ‘breakfast bar’, we really only have two short kitchen counters, nothing like these ‘modern’ homes with tons of storage and counter space. (My friend, with her newer McMansion built in the late 90s, has a kitchen island with a sink and wine frig, and its island drawers have custom spice-jar cubbies; I remind her she lives with luxury the rest of us don’t have; dream kitchen!)
You will find the right thing! But yes, as Husband tells me all the time, I wouldn’t be so frustrated with what I feel is a lack of space if I’d just get rid of some things, but it’s hard for me. The only thing that keeps me going on it is knowing that, at my now advancing age, I’ll never have a larger home than I’m in and, if we do relocate one more time, it’ll even be a smaller space…so, make the hard decisions now to prevent stress later, when further downsizing.
I have a recently-retired relative (in her late 60s) who made a decision to move from the Southeast to Santa Fe, New Mexico; she’s ditched a big 4-bed house with a family room (and outdoor pool/cabana) for a much-smaller home in her new state, which is a 2-bed/2-bath, open floor plan of living room to dining area to kitchen and onto exterior patio through a sliding glass door. It’s 1,300 sq ft – but so efficient in its use of that footage; truly, as a single ‘senior’, it has everything she needs for this stage of her life. (I’ve seen photos!) They seem to be designed, these homes, for retirees (or any-age single person/couple) and I love how they flow with wide interior doorways, all one level (no stairs or steps), minimal landscaping (but they also have a HOA at $200+/mo which takes care of most of it); really-nice indoor laundry room with a counter for folding things right out of the dryer; well-thought-out storage even in the attached 2-car garage; and, to me, the bathrooms almost look as if they’re handicapped (handicapable!) accessible (roomy, too), all of which can become very important to an aging senior.
The other thing is that, to a SoCalifornian accustomed to always-inflated real estate prices/values, her Santa Fe house is affordable (it’s been formerly occupied but is only a few years old, so it’s a fairly-new home in a really nice neighborhood and – according to my cousin – was in pristine, move-in-ready condition and all she’s done is change out some of the interior wall colors); I could sell right now and go buy a home similar to hers nearly outright so, more and more, I know that this is what my husband and I are likely going to do, something on this order, so that we rid ourselves of a monthly mortgage payment til we’re age 90!
(I’ve seen firsthand how my parents tried bravely to adapt as they aged in a house they’d loved for over 50 years…this very one I’m in…which was designed for young families with kids and not the elderly person needing help with, say, a wheelchair through narrow interior doors and an intimidating [once legs are weak and balance is off] step-down-into shower stall; the inconvenience/danger of having to carry a heavy laundry basket up and down steps to the lower-level garage for washer/dryer…this is a problem which is now befalling both my husband’s sister-in-law and also his sister with their beloved Midwest homes; the laundry room for each is in their basements, with steep stairs down to the laundry equipment…and both ladies are now into their 70s with health issues, so it’s not a small problem; sometimes it’s not so easy trying to find another place in the house for washer/dryer and the right gas/electric circuits-hookups on the main floor…and my husband’s sister [formerly an athlete who now has troublesome knees and hips] is almost at the point where she can’t get up the stairs anymore to her second floor bedrooms/baths, although there MAY be a way to put one of those chair lifts in for the narrow stairs [an elevator being out of the question]…AND, she has no downstairs bedrooms/baths, so the writing may be on the wall with the only other option being a built-on/build-out room[s], which is VERY expensive for a ‘senior’ in the fixed-income years.)
Oh, but am I tempted to live nearer to my cousin and move to Santa Fe, too! I love Santa Fe; I’ve been there a couple of times. I just don’t like the idea of being so far from my ocean. And my cousin is having a bit of trouble adjusting to the altitude, because Santa Fe has an elevation of 7,000+ feet… ‘they say’ it can take as long as six months to acclimate …but, oh, the arts, the city’s architecture and history, opera; galleries and restaurants; I think it’s one of our more interesting state capitals, for sure.
Oh dear, I got off topic. Back to your cozy cottage…maybe you’ll adapt better than you think to the new kitchen set-up. I love everything you bought yesterday; they’ll always have a good life in your home, no matter how you use them eventually. And when the stove comes, your temporary angst will be gone with the wind because everything else will be blown away by the beauty of that new piece, so take heart in looking forward to the arrival. When you’re not under pressure to try to make it all work at once, the cottage will speak to you in the small moments and you’ll know exactly what it still might need for the kitchen/stove space.
Try to take some quiet moments for yourself, Claudia (I know, easier said than done). You’ve been stirred up in a whirlwind of activity. Maybe the Hartford assignment is a break you need right now, once you get there. I know from what you’ve said that it has its own stresses with work & deadlines & the travel, but take a quilt to wrap yourself in…and your Peet’s…and feel some relief that Don is at the house to watch over everything once you’re gone. The two of you really haven’t stopped to catch your breath since reuniting in La Jolla and learning to live as one again after the long separation, and he’s coming down off that long theater gig, so maybe Hartford is good in a lot of ways; regroup! You’ll get back home, the stove’ll be there soon, you two have the beautiful Fall colors ahead and then can batten down for Winter…it’s all gonna work out just fine, Claudia!!
What is the celebratory surprise (selfie) from yesterday; are you gonna tell us, or did I miss something? It seemed you were hinting at something fun as opposed to the somewhat-frustrating/fruitless antiques-shopping (fruitless in that you didn’t get quite what you wanted)…
I can’t tell you right now or I would have! When it’s the right time, I will be sure to tell you right away. It’s good, I can tell you that.
Well, okay then..I’m glad it’s good; you need you some good!
xo
I just added locking casters/wheels to a table and gained 3″ and can roll it around if needed!
Yes, I know I could but this is an old primitive table and I don’t think I want to mess with it!
I hate it when you cry Claudia!…I also know that it relieves stress and sometimes it’s the best thing you can do…Most times when you are getting ready for Hartford you don’t have all of these other things to try and get done at the same time!…That’s a cute little table a perfect color for you…I’m betting when the time comes you will find the perfect use for it elsewhere around your house…the crate to keep linens in is a great idea and the yellow metal wire shelf unit…had I been at the same shop…I might have fought with you over that one…lol….I have two vintage metal and wife shelves here…they are a bit bigger but guess what one is used for?…yup…a spice rack!!!Enjoy your new things and don’t worry…one day you will walk in to a shop and there it will sit…the perfect island!
That’s wire not wife…lol…spellchecker strikes again!
I am actually getting used to this table and I sure like the added room in the kitchen!
Hang in there, Claudia. Change is so hard. Love your beautiful new finds!!
Thank you, Heather!