Kitchen Redo Update
Xenia’s kitchen
I am still in the process of redecorating the first floor of my house. Right now I am focusing on my kitchen. For years I was emotionally wrapped up in the shabby chic style. I still love it, but I am finding that over time, I get tired of looking at all white in my own house. It begins to feel cold and look colorless. I have come to discover that I prefer a variation on shabby chic. I like a more shabby chic meets bohemian style. I do prefer to use white on my walls as a base, but from there some wood color like mahogany warms up the room for me and gives balance to white.
My kitchen is still a work in progress. What I decided to do is take down the two bookcases that I have been using as kitchen cabinets. They are going upstairs and into my library room. The Duncan Phyfe table that you see next to my refrigerator is no longer in the kitchen. Two weeks ago I purchased a display case from a local flea market in Latham. I am so thrilled with this purchase because the display case is over one hundred years old and made of a dark wood and glass. The vendor whom I purchased it from was nice enough to deliver it to me that evening. I am not sure that I would have purchased it if he did not offer to deliver it because the display case is made of so much glass that I was concerned about how I would get it home safely without breaking it. It looks like a display case that once was in a store, and it is quite big. Those old-time skeleton keys are needed to open up the two doors in front of it. I was thrilled that it was selling for only $100. In an antique store it would have cost several hundred dollars. The display case now holds all of my dishes You will have to wait until the kitchen redo is done to see what it looks like…HA!
I was not exactly sure what I was looking for to replace the Duncan Phyfe table and the overhead cabinet. I just knew that I would know when I found it. My dishes were originally in an old kitchen cupboard that I painted white. Strangely enough, that cupboard never made it into any of the photos of my kitchen. I decided to donate it to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. My dishes were all sitting on my dining-room table until I could find another cabinet for them.
The table that you see sitting in the middle of my kitchen is now next to my stove to the left. I am going to have a slab of marble cut to fit the top of it, and that will be my prep table. The table is actually larger than it looks in the picture, and it truthfully is all the work surface that I need. I refuse to install a permanent island because I know that I would get tired of it after a while. I am better off with furniture that I can move around.
Everything has been taken off of the walls in preparation of them getting a fresh coat of white paint. Nothing that you see on the walls in the photo are going back up after the painting is done. I am so over hanging plates on the walls, and the vintage signs all were donated to Goodwill. Instead I have a collection of artwork that is replacing the plates and other things I had on the walls. I love thinking outside the box when it comes to decorating. Pictures that most people would only hang in a living room, I have no problem hanging in my kitchen. I have some gorgeous ones that I purchased on sale from Art.com, and had them framed at Michael’s. A few of them I found at the Goodwill store. Another person’s giveaway is my vintage find.
I also decided to put up some stainless steel shelving, but I am having a challenging time finding reasonably prices ones.
I absolutely LOVE this table to use as a movable island. For my kitchen it would have to be longer though because of the size of my kitchen.
