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The Kitchen

Now that you have made it in the front door you might as well come on into the kitchen. First a couple of disclaimers. The kitchen is still a work in progress. Tile backsplash isn’t in yet, not all of the baseboards are attached. Crown molding hasn’t been caulked and painted. And for some reason my camera is making the colors a little wonky.

The floors are natural Brazilian cherry with a low gloss finish. The cabinets are painted the perfect creamy white – Dunne Edward’s Swiss Coffee (as will be the trim work when we get around to it). The walls are Dunne Edward’s Winter Light (or Lite, I can’t quite remember) which is a French vanilla color. The counters are a slightly greyed green. There ~ you should have your color reference now and can make mental adjustments when you look at the pictures.

This is standing in the doorway and looking towards the eating area (that’s the laundry room back there too). And my laptop at the table. If I’m not sitting there then I’m sitting on one of the loveseats by the fireplace. I love wireless. See the big gaps between the ceiling and the crown molding? We have quite the wavy ceiling.

This is standing in the opposite corner looking towards the entrance way. Look out the window – don’t we have the world’s ugliest front door? It’s on our to do list. We also would like to put a pair of double hung windows there (like we have over the sink). That’s my April quilted table topper on the table – made by my lovely sister Nicole.

Okay this next picture isn’t all that interesting but you can get a better idea of the counter color. I really like how the counters turned out. I was so afraid they were going to be a bluish green.

You can also just get a teeny peak into the dining room. Let’s head on in there now.

Here the pictures really stink because I have light coming in from two sides. But here is the dining room. I just realized how dorky my curtains look. A bit short, wouldn’t you say? The walls in here are painted a very soothing green. Also Dunne Edwards paint (our painter loves Dunne Edwards and will only use their paint) but I don’t remember the name of the color. We really monkeyed with it to get the shade just so anyway.

Looking back towards the kitchen. That big white spot on the wall behind the green chest is where we had to hack a big hole to get at some electrical wiring.

Well there you have it – if you want to see the befores you can look here and here. Just keep in mind that the pictures were taken before we bought the house. Lest anyone think I picked out that wallpaper.

And if you want to see inside my refrigerator head on over The Wine Maker’s Wife.

From my heart to yours (or is it the other way around?)

Before we go any further I need you to go HERE and check out the pretty sachet hearts. Go on. I’ll wait here. Take your time.

I didn’t think you were going to come back. Jill has a beautiful blog, doesn’t she? Aren’t those hearts just adorable? I’m a sucker for anything lavender. I just love it. I read an article, in the dearly departed and much lamented Victoria Magazine, a few years back about a family that moved to Oregon or maybe it was Washington because they couldn’t stand their corporate, city life anymore and they started growing lavender. As a business – fields and fields of it. When the workers are harvesting it they have to take frequent breaks because it made them woozy, being out there in all that lovely lavenderness. Its sedative, calming properties are very real.

Well I just had to have one of those hearts and looky here ~ now I do!!

It makes me feel a little woozy to go to Jill’s blog and etsy shop and see the heart and then to look down and see it in my very own hands. A little surreal. It is packed tight with lavender and it smells like heaven. There are going to be very sweet dreams at our house tonight.

For the birds

It’s hard to take a picture of crystal and have it turn out like it really looks. I actually knocked that little bird feeder off its shelf and scattered eight million teeny little Swarovski crystals all over the carpet. I spent hours picking them up. That’s probably why the crystals don’t photograph as sparkly as they should – they are covered in carpet fuzz.

One of the things I vowed to be more diligent about was feeding our avian friends. The real ones, not the Swarovski crystal eating ones. I’ve been keeping the feeders full at our house and the hummingbird feeder full at my Dad’s.

Hummingbirds are funny – they look all sweet and innocent but you should see the turf wars that go on in my Dad’s back yard. There is one hummingbird that feels like the feeder is his and he is determined to keep all other hummingbirds away from it. I don’t know when he sleeps. As soon as another bird approaches the feeder he comes swooping out of the trees and chases them off.

I actually gave up having a hummingbird feeder up on my deck because the hummingbirds were dive bombing me when I walked out there. Like I could be mistaken for a hummingbird. Those advertisements for hummingbird feeders where there are eight hummingbirds happily eating out of the feeder have to be photo-shopped. There’s no way. They are not that cooperative.

I have wanted a bird feeder like this one for ever. There is a great, overpriced nursery by our house and they had a version of this feeder and they want $200 for it. So for now the birds in my garden eat out of a $30 feeder just fine, thank you very much. It’s actually a bird feeding technological wonder. It’s basically like a standard tube feeder only it’s divided into three sections, one on top of each other. There are about nine feeding stations and each section has it’s own compartment of food so all three levels empty at the same rate. Rather than having it empty from the top down (where towards the end only the bottom stations are usable).

I even filled the suet holder yesterday. Ick. The first time I did it I was all grossed out by the lard aspect. It was impossible to get the lump of suet into the feeder without half of it smearing all over me. It was like trying to put toothpaste back into a tube. Then someone told me to freeze the blocks of suet first – they just slip into the feeder with minimal mess.

I’ve always said that if I come back in another life as an animal I hope it’s a bird. I just don’t want to be a bug or lard eating bird. I’ll come back as a crystal eating one.

Winter light

The light seems prettiest in the morning these days – when the sun is still low in the sky and it slants in through the windows.

I’ve pretty much determined that I’m not much of a Winter kind of person. I love all the other seasons and look forward the them with much anticipation. But for me Winter just has the holidays going for it. Once they are over I start pining for Spring.

I have to say that one other thing it has going for it is that you can peep into your neighbor’s lives a little easier during the Winter. Oh like you don’t peer into your neighbor’s windows when the opportunity presents itself. When the trees and bushes lose their leaves you can see details of their homes and gardens that you can’t see during the flush of Spring and Summer.

I bought the antique looking mirrored star at Target. Now that they’re done with the holidays they have a whole global bazaar thing going on. Most of it has an Moorish or Asian feel to me. I wouldn’t deck out an entire room in either but little touches are nice. Like you’ve actually traveled to the far corners of the earth and picked them up as souvenirs.

I’m really liking the turquoise color – not that it would even remotely go with anything I already have. Maybe an outdoor area – a porch, perhaps.

I love Target. I can always find something there that I really don’t need.

Guard Kitty

No time for a proper post so I’ll give you Rosaceae Cateria Bella. Soaking in a little Winter sun.

Now I’m really wishing I had planted tulip bulbs. A dozen Angelique tulips blooming by my front door would be so cheerful.

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