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.