Saturday, Kitchen picks!

 

This shelf was made by my father.  I chalk painted and distressed it.  As you can see I chose dark grey for the walls.  The black iron candle holders are for Swedish advent.  This china is Flow blue and came out of the big house in Sweden  There were originally 160 place settings.

 

I was able to save this old table.  It was the table we have had in our Kitchen/dining room for our entire marriage.  It has one leaf.  Hub's stripped it and painted it for our first Christmas.  It came out of the kitchen of the big house and is pretty primitive.  No one wanted it so we took it and added the press back oak chairs years later.  We had folding chairs for years.  I was able to keep this and two chairs.  It is perfect for breakfast.  We can pull up the leaf if we want to seat more.  I have two more chairs in a closet.  Old butter churn of Grandmas.  I will get rid of when Mom goes.

Pantry and new fridge,  The appliances are called slate and do not show finger prints like stainless steel.  I always wanted to display all the old antique copper from the kitchen in Sweden.  This high shelf is the perfect place.  Not a perfect picture.

As you can see I went with  white subway tile as a back splash.  It is timeless.  The cupboards were stock unfinished oak and I stained them a Swedish blue.  Every one is slightly different as wood tells its own story.  Then I ordered the solid copper hardware off Amazon.  Much better quality and CHEAP.  Added many copper things that I have gathered. The new stove is a double oven with convection.  The gas cook top has a grill which I love.  I spent money on stove.  It is just what I have always wanted.  I also love the hood with the tile all the way to the ceiling.

This is open shelving that threw every contractor I hired.  I wanted a copper back on shelf.  Hub's finally had to do it.  Oak shelves, with copper behind.  These are my original dishes.  Yes they were already cream, rust and blue.  I have been planning this kitchen for a long time.  There is still a pass through to dining room here.  Flow blue, antique copper and wrought iron advent candle holder.

 

New window with shelf across to hold antique copper and flow blue.  I love the corner cupboard where the toaster and bread are kept with a plug in inside.  So easy to keep clean.  See how the blue stain is different on the cupboards?  This is beautiful in the light. The little birds were painted by my sister who died from breast cancer 11 years ago.  I treasure them. See the dishwasher?  I did not have one for years!  Sissie bought me a roll in when the kids were all home but it went kaput about 5 years ago. It is so nice but I still have not gotten used to using it yet.

I kept my original sink as I had replaced it about ten years ago.  I did get a new faucet and I love it.  The counter tops are quartz.  They were super expensive.  But I asked the salesman to call his rep and see if there were any flawed pieces.  As pure white is very hard to make.  Sure enough there were four large sheets with tiny black flaws.  Now I have yet to find a flaw but we were able to knock the price in 1/2 so $52.00 a square foot.

This is a little cut out area by back door.  My best memories are my kids sitting and watcvhing me cook.  See the little cookbook shelf.  I made underneath? Contractor had a hard time with this.  Why waste the space?  New tile floor only .99 a tile.  Found on a super closeout deal.

View of new back door.  Now we need to replace the deck.   Look at all that counter space?  It is a catch all for crap!

I made the contractor stack two corner cupboards on top of one another.  What a pain, you would have thought I had asked him to take his head off.  But now I see that he used this in another house.  I bought the fabric at Wal-Mart and made the curtains and chair pads and things for the kitchen for about $6.00.  All told we put $21,326.00 into the kitchen and dining room.  I think they are lovely.  My Mother helped a great deal financially, but we incurred some debt. It will add major value to the house so I justified the expense now I have to pay the piper.  What do you think?