Kitchen + Flowers

Can I just say...

1) I love fresh flowers

2) I love my kitchen

(Another) New Project

.... soooo I'm crafty.

Not normally, but I'm becoming more-so. The fact is, we're still in a semi-new (year old) house and I still have some bare walls that are desperate for a pick-me-up.

My conundrum is this:
1) I have expensive taste.
2) Right now my discretionary spending money is tied up in Baby J. And unless I want to get the stank eye from Chad (and trust me, I get it enough already), I don't have a couple thousand to drop on wall decor.

So I'm taking it one-room, one-wall at a time.

Right now - behind our kitchen table (hard to see in this pic, since this pic was originally of the gor-geous-table that my Handy Manny husband made), is a long bare wall that is screaming for SOMETHING. I had thought about getting Chad and his dad to build in a corner cabinet/bookshelf for where the wall meets the side of my cabinets... but 1) it might be a little squished over there and 2) Chad and dad-in-law's to-do list for me is getting longer and longer.

So I had a bright idea.

I have a yearly subscription to my favorite cooking magazine, Cooks Illustrated. It is a fabulous magazine - full of great recipes and tips... and gorgeous artwork. On the back of each issue is a "theme" of a food, veggie, herb, etc., accompanied with sketches of the different varieties. They are all printed on a beautiful cardstock and I felt sad letting the little back covers sit in my kitchen cabinet to be noticed by no one.

{I mean, how beautiful is this!}

I decided, what better idea than to frame a series of the back covers (they are almost exactly 8''x12'') and hang them on this lonesome wall in my kitchen. I had several already, and purchased other back-issues from Ebay, so I could choose my favorite eight to frame... two rows of four. And, depending on the season or my mood, I could temporarily change them out. I have covers that range from goat cheeses, to heirloom corn, to Italian cookies to Indian spices.

Here's a big lot of 'em. Aren't they beautiful?

Next step: going to buy 8 frames and then getting Chaddy boy to hang 'em for me.

Some people hang covers of the New Yorker, I hang the back covers of Cooks. It's just the kinda gal I am.

Will post pictures when my project is done!

Cool Stool

Finally, after a few months of searching (then a few months of waiting), we have purchased bar stools for our kitchen!

I'm so excited. Here they are:The best part - I got three $50 bar stools (in which shipping was originally around $75), for $96 total... with no shipping fee. Yippee! My sistafriend Jamie sent me a promo code and a $40 discount coupon to use. So what would have been $75 stools, I got for $33 bucks. You can't beat that with a stick.

Now I'm just crossing my fingers that they ship on time - and arrive undamaged.

Also, Chad and his dad (not me, I'm ashamed to say) have been hard at work building our kitchen table and benches -- which we're modeling after this one:

Chad's putting his foot down (since building this table was my idea and all... and I promised to help with it) and making me do the staining. So hopefully this weekend I'll go pick a nice stain color. If you have a good brand/color you love, please share! I think I'll do an dark walnut stain... but we'll see!