The North End Loft: kitchen

Showing posts with label kitchen. Show all posts

Mar 19, 2015

DIY Tea Caddy

Happy first day of spring, everyone!

As our new floor project progresses I've been staying tucked out of the way back in my studio working on a few small DIY projects. The first one I have to share is my new tea caddy.

I recently gave up drinking coffee and started drinking a cup of green tea every morning instead. I absolutely love coffee, so it wasn't an easy switch, but tea is much friendlier to my tummy these days. My husband, affectionately known as "the toughest gut in the west," still drinks a few cups of coffee each day. To help keep me from feeling deprived I started treating myself to all kinds of different teas, and they have become a little bit of a hobby for me now.

Instead of rummaging through boxes in the pantry for my teabags, I thought it would be nice to display them on the counter where they'd be easy to choose from. I had this little wood box I found at the thrift store for a few dollars a couple years ago...

Bonne Maman

...and I'd been saving up these cute preserve jars that happened to fit the little shelves perfectly. (These preserves are wonderful, by the way.) When I discovered my tea bags fit the jars perfectly too, I knew I had my tea caddy!

I painted the box white and protected it with a coat of poly and then filled the jars up with my teas. Now, I can easily see the tea bag labels through the jars, and it's fun to look them over and choose a tea to match my mood.

A spoonful of honey in my tea is an occasional special treat, and the jar fits just right on top of the box. And did you notice the jar lids match my farmhouse curtains?

My husband is so sweet, he rinses out the coffee pot every morning when he's done with his coffee and leaves me a fresh pot of filtered hot water for my tea.

The cups and mugs are in this cabinet right above the coffee pot. Having a cute tea "center" at my fingertips is definitely making it easier for me to give up coffee.

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope your first day of spring is filled with sunshine!

Let's go to a party!

Shabby Art Boutique

The Charm Of Home
My Repurposed Life
My Salvaged Treasures
Craftberry Bush
Rattlebridge Farm
Mod Vintage Life
Cozy Little House

Dec 23, 2014

Christmas In Our Kitchen

We're counting down to Christmas here at our house! Today, I'm wrapping gifts, working on a few more ornaments, and puttering around the house. It seems I'm never done with tweaking the Christmas decorations, moving this here and that there. Do you do that, too? It's fun to get it all just the way we love it!

I dropped my camera and broke my cherished 50mm f/1.8 lens a couple of weeks ago, and I can't believe how much I missed it. I'm so lucky my camera body didn't break, but the lens couldn't be repaired. I just received my new replacement yesterday, and I feel like I got my best friend back! So I celebrated by taking some photos of our kitchen to share today.

Our kitchen is pretty tiny, so I always keep the seasonal decorations pretty simple. My homemade rustic pedestal (tutorial here) holds a candle on the bar between the kitchen and dining room.

I bought these huge glass jars at the grocery store yesterday and tossed in some epsom salts for snow and a few last minute trinkets that hadn't found a spot to settle yet.

I love any kind of snowy scene!

Tangerines are my husband's favorite winter fruit, so we always have some handy for him to grab. Santa always includes one in everyone's stockings, too.

Lucy from Craftberry Bush painted this Christmas Buggy and offered it earlier in the season as a special download to her readers. I thought it was the sweetest gift. Thanks, Lucy! I hung mine over our coffee station where it greets us each morning with its cuteness.

Last week I got the hankering for some red buffalo plaid in the kitchen for Christmas, but I didn't have time to sew new curtains. I searched the internet and found some beautifully made lined ones made by Country Curtains for sale on eBay at a price that beat making them myself. And I got them in just a few days with free shipping. I was thrilled! I love them paired with my green mason jars and our white bead board backsplash.

Red and green utensils in a white pitcher and red and green checked tea towels hanging from the oven door are easy and inexpensive ways I added Christmas color to our kitchen this year, too.

And that's our simple country kitchen decorated for the holidays!

Thanks so much for stopping by today. I think I'll go make a cup of hot chocolate to sip while I wrap gifts. I hope you enjoy the last days leading up to Christmas.

Have fun!

{Visit our Christmas living room, dining room and family room, too!}

What a great time for a party!

Elizabeth & Co.
Our Home Away From Home
Mod Vintage Life
Between Naps On The Porch
Savvy Southern Style

Feb 25, 2014

New Kitchen Bar Stools

I was organizing some of my photos from December today and realized I never shared our bar stools for our new kitchen with you. We hunted far and wide for the perfect bar stools last fall and then literally found them right under our noses.

We loved the looks of the industrial style metal bar stools we've been seeing everywhere lately, but they just weren't very comfortable to us.

And we thought we wanted backs on our bar stools, too, until we realized those were hard to turn around in if they didn't swivel just right.

So we sat on a lot of bar stools in a lot of stores and were starting to feel a bit like Goldilocks. Nothing we sat on felt just right.

We hadn't considered this style at all until we happened to sit on them at a shop counter while looking at tables in the shop's furniture catalog. All of a sudden we realized they were cushier and comfier than any other bar stools we'd tried.

They were just right!

We asked if they were for sale, and it turned out they are the store's best selling item. The factory that manufactures them in California was in the process of moving, so we had to wait a while, but they came just in time for Christmas. We really love them. They're solidly built out of hardwood, nice and heavy, with top grain leather seats.

You'll probably laugh, but I was thinking about painting the wood legs with white chalk paint and antiquing the nail heads with rub n buff. When I mentioned it at dinner the night the bar stools arrived my family shouted, "NO!" in unison! I'm glad they did because now I like them just the way they are.

Scared 'em, though!

Note: I have received a few requests about where our bar stools were purchased. We ordered them from a locally owned shop called Renditions here in Boise. Their website can be found here. I have also seen very similar ones in the Grandin Road catalog and at their website here. Happy shopping!

It's a great day for a party!

Mod Vintage Life
Cozy Little House
A Stroll Through Life
The Scoop
Elizabeth & Co.
Our Home Away From Home
Savvy Southern Style
From My Front Porch To Yours

Sep 9, 2013

Kitchen and Dining Room Remodel

I'm getting a new kitchen!

Except for the purchase of new appliances earlier this year, I've lived with the same kitchen for almost twenty-five years. I've had the same lay-out, cupboards, floors, counters, sink, and appliances for twenty-five years. The only thing we had to replace in all that time was the faucet about ten years ago, and I repainted my cupboards myself about two years ago.

Notice I said had to replace. I sure wanted to replace and update all those things, but as long as everything worked, wanting new ones wasn't enough of a reason for us to spend the money or waste the resources. There were always better things on which to spend our limited income, like the bills, car repairs, family vacations, and college educations. (I bet it's the same way for

a lot of you, too.)

Now our daughters have graduated from college and moved out on their own, and we've managed to finally save enough money to fix up our old kitchen. I've been researching and reading and pinning and measuring and shopping and planning, and I'm so excited to get started that I could practically burst!

Of course I have to share it all with you!

This is my dining room.

You can see the kitchen and the dishwasher there just beyond this built-in china cabinet, and the family room is beyond the kitchen down a hallway.

If you step through the dining room door to the kitchen, this is that wall with the dishwasher in front of you.

The sink and window is to your right. (I think I need a wide angle lens because my kitchen is so small.)

This is the wall to your left.

And if you turn back around towards the dining room, this is the wall behind that china cabinet. This wall is coming out to open the kitchen to the dining room.

Witt Construction via houzz

This is my inspiration photo I found on houzz by Witt Construction. Our kitchen will be open like this to our dining room, which is open to our living room. I'll have the open concept floor plan that I love!

We absolutely could not part with the beautiful 103 year-old built in china hutch that's original to this house, though, so we're having it moved to the back wall of the kitchen above the dishwasher where it will still be seen from the dining room and now hold our everyday dishes.

Country Living

Like in this inspiration photo from Country Living.

Before on the left, with our inspiration on the right.

Before on the left, with our inspiration on the right. We're hoping to have wood counters and a bead board back splash like this, too. Both of these finishes could have been found in our 1910 cottage the year it was built.

Future floor plan with the wall removed.

We'd love to hear what you think about our plans so far, and we'd especially love to hear any advice you have for us about remodeling our kitchen as we get started. We meet with our contractor tonight to sign our building contract, and then I guess we start packing up our kitchen. Of course, I'll take you with us as we progress through our remodel.

I'm so excited!