Kitchen Dreams

Who doesn't want a kitchen set in the middle of a garden housed in an orangerie! Gah! Kitchen dreams! This is the only image I can find of this kitchen. It's done by Perene. As you know, the well-to-do, do not Ikea for kitchen ( yes, Ikea is a verb in this post). So I am assuming that Perene is where they go.

Kitchen After

 By the time we took lease of the house in Vilnius, it looked nothing at all like it did in the rental advertisement. Rental home decorating is not the easiest. I mean, it's not your home, so you are typically constrained by what your landlord allows you to do and also by common sense--again, it's not your home, so do not spend all your hard-earned cash renovating someone else's home. When I rented this home in Vinius I went in knowing that the place needed a little sprucing up...o.k. a lot of sprucing up. The pictures you've seen on the blog are no where near what I got. The home needed a lot of paint work, the kitchen cupboards were falling out, chipped and dirty; and some major industrial cleaning was needed. The landlord agreed to redeuce the rent because he had not done the necessary pre-rental renovation. Score for me. Also,  I really like the house and it comes with two garages and a sauna. Given this is a snow-cold country, it's great to have a sauna and two garages! So I couldn't pass on it. Not to mention that it is snuggly in the middle of a national park. Pretty forest land. And, on the plus side for me, is that many things in Lithuania cost on average 60 per cent less than what it would in Belgium. I kid you not. (Belgium is the country of punitive taxation...which makes everything super expensive). Lithuania only just started to use the Euro in January 2015 and some (only some things) are still on the more affordable side. Like paint. If you buy Lithuanian-made paint and light colours that do not require a lot of pigment added to the base coat then the paint comes at a really great price. And, my landlord, a really nice guy, agreed to the painting of the tiles, walls and the removal of the cupboards.

So basically, I went into this home knowing that I wanted to make it suitable to my needs. I am the one cooking in the kitchen, therefore I decide what the kitchen looks like and how, functionally, it can work best. So I threw out the cupboards (well I removed them and stored them in the basement) and painted the dated backsplash wall tiles white. I painted the kitchen a (somewhat) dark shade of grey and I installed shelves instead, in place of the cupboards. Cost? Lots and lots of elbow grease, sweat, and swears of frustration plus the cost of paint, nails, brackets and wood for the shelves. It's almost finished and I love it already.

What I needed was more kitchen storage and the shelves wouldn't have held all my tableware and pots and things. But I could not afford to, and did not want to buy my landlord a new kitchen...lol. So I went to the hardware store and found the cheapest treated wood I could find. All the wood cost 44 Euros in total. I had the hardware store cut the pieces to my specification. Cutting only cost 26 cents per cut.  I also had to find a solution for my cooking spoons, strainers and crepe pans. I settled on these Ikea kitchen wall hangers. I think they work well with the black commode.That chest under the commode holds all my tupperware and other plastic storage containers.

 I didn't want to paint the shelves grey but wanted them to connect with the grey walls, so I used grey brackets and painted just the ledge of the shelves grey-- also, allowing the natural wood colour on the shelf to coordinate/colour match with the counter tops. I did not change the lower cabinets. But I gave them a good scouring with some steel wool (like a good Jamaican girl). I keep my grocery in the lower cupboards along with my big family-size cooking pots.

 The Chinese figurine are stuff I collected over the years at the Marche Aux Puces in Brussels and the vases and jugs I bought 10 years ago at the Marshalls in Maryland.

 The glassware, tea cups, etc. are from my favourite street in Brussels, Rue de Brabante. I love shopping with the Arabs ( Moroccans really) and the Turks. They always have great tableware and tea service things. Always.

These cookbooks are not just for show. They are covered in greasey finger prints because I love to get inspiration from them, so I never keep these on a book shelf. They always have to be near the pot! I love Ina Garten (the Barefoot Contessa) and I also follow a lot of her advice for keeping a functional kitchen.  One of her tips is to keep little tea spoons in a glass near the stove. You always need a clean spoon for adding seasoning, for dipping in the mustard jar and for tasting. Also, when you move, a lot of stuff gets re-purposed or used differently. If you saw the blog post of my old Brussels master bathroom, you may recognise this painting above the napkin holder. It used to hang above my bathroom commode, right above a towel holder. It's come full circle, hasn't it?  (Giggles...)

 Ikea drawer dividers and caddies came in very handy! All my serving spoons, chopsticks etc. found a nice little home in the commode. I am rubbish at the picture-taking, I know.

 

 This commode underwent a transformation too. I bought it at a brocante shop in Brussels. I mended its broken parts, added some wood putty over some rough edges and painted it black. And then I roughed it up a bit. Just because... The inside is painted purple. It holds my other cookbooks ( I buy a cookbook in every country I visit...), my favourite family photos (like one of my aunt on our trip to Venice) and my prized Czech antique tea set which I got at...you guessed it...the Marche Aux Puces in Brussels.

When it's all done, I'll get a professional to come and take better pictures. Promise. Happy weekend!

Table Talk: Curious Silverware

My husband and I were invited to a friend's for dinner. Seated around the table were a mix of nationalities, mostly European. The usual polite pleasantries were exchanged ("yes, there was hardly any summer", "I hope it isn't a terribly gray winter", "how about that David Cameron calling the refugees 'swarms of people'...". That last met with dead silence). Isn't it true that there can be awkward little conversation lulls that make everyone totally self-conscious when you dine out? What is appropriate dinner conversation with hot button issues all over the media?  I have no solution for that, but I imagine dinner would be a lot more talkative with a few functional curiosities brought to the table.

 

To be honest, when I go to the flea sometimes I look at things and I am simply dumbfounded because I have no idea what I am looking at. So I bring you help in identifying a few curiosities and some inspiration for what to look for when you go antique hunting.

 

All sterling silver, of course: 1. A strawberry grabber- yes, grabber. 2. A dinner bell, obnoxious for certain, but think of the tickle you'd get from ringing it every time you want the Mister/Missus to attend to you. 3. A salt cellar which looks like it belongs on a Catholic altar; 4. A cheese scoop; 5. A crumb knife which can have no justification for its pretentiousness; 6. a 5 piece flatware set; 7. a tea caddy; 8. the cutest invention-- the cow creamer; and 9. an egg cup.

 

What will you hunt for this Fall?

Marble and Patina in the Kitchen

Do you see this picture? What grabs your eye? Nice kitchen, nice black subway tiles, yes, this is true, blha blah blha. GAH!!! Am looking at the patinaed table with the marble top. It's all I can think about, all I see. The picture is from West Wing Home and Living. But I do not know whether you can buy this table there. So I am thinking of ways I can recreate this lovely darling.

 

Having seen this kitchen, I feel quite sure that I want my next kitchen to have pale grays, some raw or patinaed wood, this table, above (obviously!!) and marble. For a while now, I have been collecting inspiration for my next kitchen and they all seem to follow a similar theme. I love the one below by Benjamin Dhong.

 

 

Also, look at the kitchen below photographed by Lucas Allen. So clean and uncluttered, yet it is not austere and disinfected. I love that marble island.

 

 

But let's go back to that table. I feel quite strongly that I must recreate it. I even feel that if I went to the Marchés aux Puces at Jeu de Balle I might find a Moroccan happily selling one in oak that could be converted to this. The paint job is no problem. But the marble. Now that's some homework to find the right, single piece. Cannot even think of buying that in Belgium. After all, this is the land of c'est pas possible and c'est trop cher.  

 

 

 If you like this post go ahead and share with your friends.

 Tweet

Pink in the Kitchen

The US' House Beautiful magazine called my attention to this polished kitchen which has some unexpected touches. Pink. Coral. Whatever you want to call it, just, how lovely?

I wanted to see it from as many angles as possible.

 

 

 

This is the work of the designer, Ken Fulk.

 

 

 

 

Fulk's design is House Beautiful's 2015 kitchen of the year. This kitchen is actually sited in a New Orleans home.

 

 

In London you would have to be a millionaire to afford the square footage for this kitchen. In Brussels, not so much. The maison de maître/town homes lining most of Brussel's streets could take on a kitchen like this. A little extension of about 2.5 meters into the garden would enable you to have this kitchen and it could flow into a dining room if you'd like .  Of course, living room and den or other reception rooms would have to be one floor above the kitchen. Most of the maisons are tall and deep but not very wide. 

 

 

Images from October's House Beautiful, Nola.com and BestofNewOrleans.com

Dinner Service

Actually what I should call this post is "In Service of Dinner" because it pertains to the bout of anxiety I usually feel when it is time to host a big dinner party. I want dinner to be perfectly enjoyable for my guests but not neurotically done up. I want to evolve to the stage where I care less about what people think and do more of what suits my taste. I like to mix and match.

I fall into the eclectic crowd as far as interior décor is concerned---a lot of colour, a lot of mismatch, a general theme or two, running along the lines of colour or furniture style. Otherwise, I buy what appeals to me.

And I do find that once I get home all the pieces just seem to fit.

So I never wanted wedding china. Never had a wedding registry. So when I serve dinner the tablescape is usually held together by a colour or texture. I would never buy a 48 piece dinner set.

A little Wedgewood, some pottery from Provence and a tea set from the Flea and so on.

 

 

So when it comes to serving up dinner for a crowd, can it not be a mix of old, old and some new?