Starbird

Stormy, snowy winter days are a perfect time to make a few changes around the house.   And my changes started out when I decided to give a name to our upstairs kitchen. 



Then I came up with an idea to convert one of my glass insulators into a shade to replace a pendant light that I had grown tired off.  I just had the local glass shop drill a hole in the top, and then Henri masterfully replaced it for me using the same hardware from our previous fixture.  If you would like to do this too, I found out the hard way that only a very small and very low watt bulb (15W) will work.  My use of a larger 40W bulb heated up the glass too much and caused my previously perfect insulator to sprout a sudden small crack, complete with sound effects, right before my eyes!  Fortunately the light switch was handy enough for me to react quickly to stop the damage. So now the fixture has a bit more character on one side than I had planned, and that's okay with me too!

Oh, and here is the reason I named the kitchen Starbird. Our Simon who is 38 years old.  The kitchen is where he spends most of his day. 

I also decided to dress up his cage with some sea shells that I added to some frayed tie-top curtains I made. 

He hangs out on the top of his cage during the day.  The only time he actually goes into his cage is at night.   Also, I did the ceiling in that embossed paper that is supposed to make it look like tin.  I have not yet painted it though.  I may just leave it white. 

Across from his cage he has a friendly tin seahorse to keep him company. 

See his reflection in the porthole mirror right there? 

I also added touches of gold leaf to my previously distressed cabinet doors that I painted black. 

Here's a close up of the gold leaf on a shell embellishment that I found at the hardware store. 

I should also mention that the color of my new light fixture, along with the name I gave the kitchen, might just be a nod to a common navigational sign you may be familiar with.   

In a previous post I confessed a little trick of how I always remember my left from my right, navigational-ly speaking, that is. 



Red for Port.  Green for Starboard {Starbird}.  Just a little visual in case you need help to remember that too! 

Along Came A Spider

While outside with my friend Diane, she spotted this spider on one of my wild roses. As I ran back to the house to get my camera, I was hoping it would stay right there until I could take a picture. It did, so now I have a proper introduction to what I recently did to my downstairs kitchen.

Our house was built in the 60s, as you can tell from the wavy wood valance that was so popular to have back then. Blue painter's tape surrounds what became my jumping off point for my latest attempt to paint and distress yet another room.

I have been collecting ironstone plates and English silver plate, so I asked Henri to think of a phrase that would become a prominent part of my newly distressed kitchen. This is what he came up with. I used carbon paper to transfer the lettering that I printed out and enlarged and then used black paint to fill in the rest. When I finished I thought the black paint looked a little too stark, so I softened it with some chalk to fade it out a bit.

Next I needed a little layering for the window treatment, so I added some lace and stitched up some simple curtains in a fabric that reminded me of an antique linen (but it's not).

I even added a swagged ruffle to the curtain and left the edges frayed. Henri switched out the light fixture for a small chandelier. I left the natural wood in these 60s cabinets and distressed just the cabinet fronts. Then I took a picture for you from atop a chair because this is a very small kitchen.

I already had this wooden cherub shelf that I further distressed with some cream colored paint

Here's my ironstone soup tureen with some recent vintage copper finds.

I switched out my cabinet hardware for these ones that were less than a dollar a piece.

So were the bin pulls for the drawers. But they came in a shiny gold finish, so I hit them with a spray of ultra flat camo spray paint from Krylon.

My English silver plate clam shell serves as a soap dish.

And I found an antique mirror to help add the illusion of space to my tiny kitchen.

To tie into the dining area, I even changed out the "tuffet" part of my previously distressed dining chairs. This is the "before" that shows the tapestry fabric I covered them in 20 years ago.

Here's the "after" which is the same fabric I used for the kitchen curtains.

So glad that spider showed up when he did.

Because I was wondering just how I was going to explain what I did to that kitchen.