on monday

I woke up at nine o'clock this morning.

9:00.

Nine in the ayem.

I am discombobulated on so many levels by this turn of events. Usually, I am a wake up at six without an alarm kind of girl, and on a rare day, my alarm wakes me up at seven. This morning, I woke up with a wrinkle in my cheek that I fear may never go away, and an instant axe in the noggin caffeine deprived headache, so it's probably best if we all keep our expectations of this post making any sense at all to a minimum.

I know I've blogged about my kitchen and its remodel before, but two things happened on Monday that have led me to blog about it again today.

First, I pulled something off one of the open top shelves in my kitchen, and a shower of dust bunnies came down with it. It was time. Time to take everything down, wash it all in hot soapy water, wipe down the shelves, and then put it all back and feel good about the cleanliness of my kitchen shelves for at least a week. I remembered that I planned to do this particular project right before the wedding, but along with about 267 other projects that I planned to do right before the wedding, it didn't happen.

Since everything was all bright and shiny and clean, I might as well take a picture or two.

Secondly, again on Monday, (I feel the need to point out the Monday part again, in order to justify my post title), I was digging out my stash of Christmas magazines, and in the process I found an old and extremely tattered issue of Country Living magazine that brought me straight back to our pre-remodel, pre-Montana move days.

It features a kitchen that served as very heavy inspiration for our soon to be new home.



It was fun to look through the pages and see the ways our kitchen turned out to be similar, and also the ways it is different.


Obviously, one major difference is my heavy handed addition of lots of aqua....my favorite color ever.

Ever, ever.

But the pink was a little trickier. If it was not for the fact that I found the pretty pink bowl for a whopping five dollars, I probably wouldn't have even gone there at all.

For a while, I was really hung up on the pink. In my mind, you either go more primary with a color scheme by leaning to the red side, or more pastel by going to the pink side.

But then I took a closer look my two very favorite vintage tablecloths, and noticed that they each had a touch of pink mixed in with red, and as I love these particular tablecloths more than a person should love any sort of fabric object, I decided to follow suit and add a few pink touches here and there, and therefore overcome my pink and red issues once and for all.

(Can someone please fix that sentence/paragraph? I still have a bit of a headache, and therefore am in no condition to cure it of its run-on-ishness.)

In case it's not clear, my first favorite tablecloth is the cherry beauty in the above collage, and my second favorite is this little fella.


Believe it or not, this cloth was a bonus that the seller threw into the package when I purchased another tablecloth on Ebay. Pure craziness.




(Does anyone know what that little aqua chicken is supposed to be? He is about the size of a salt shaker, but has a hole in his back that is filled with some kind of plastery substance. I don't know his purpose, but I love him anyway.)

Almost everything in my kitchen is vintage, but back when we were remodeling, Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware were really doing some fun reproductions.

Speaking of which....

Dear Restoration Hardware,
What has happened to you?
I don't even know you anymore.
Sadly,
Teresa

The wall phone was a Pottery Barn find. I also have a reproduction desk phone that I love, and while I don't miss all the sales calls since we canceled our home number, I do miss talking on the old school style tellies.

Thanks to Martha, jadeite was also making a big comeback, and everyone from Sears to Linen's and Things, to Marty herself were selling new versions of the old favorite. Butter dishes, batter bowls, ball pitchers and cake stands were a few of the new things I added to my collection of vintage goodies.

It took years and years of antique show hunting to totally outfit my kitchen, and I truly enjoyed every minute of it. I'm still on the lookout for fun tablecloths and dish towels, but other than that, I feel like my little cottage kitchen has totally come into its own, and I love it.

And now I'm off to snuggle up to my Costco sized bottle of Ibuprofin, because I have to go to the grocery store this afternoon and we all know the grocery store on the day before Thanksgiving is its very own headache inducing experience.

Have a truly wonderful Thanksgiving!