Summer Farmhouse Kitchen July 2018

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My Summer Kitchen...gets a work out. I seldom take photos, because it is usually in 

some sort of CHAOS. We use our kitchen EVERYDAY. 

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After a beastly July---we had a nice day in the 70's---

I opened all the windows and blinds...and let the light pour in. 

Our island is where all the action is. 

I always keep a vignette at this end---this month chickens are staged with red, blue and white.

 The chickens are NEW, the egg scale is OLD, the OLD crock is REDO-purposing as a napkin holder. The 1930's baby dish catches all the odds and ends that need a place to land. The kids' rolling pins are ready to roll child-size pie dough. 

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The first place we visit every morning is the coffee station. Everything we need is here and functional. The Bunn coffee pot is ugly but wonderful for instant hot water and coffee. 

I like the large red cups, my hubby likes smaller cups.

The coffee grinder is NEW---and has a well...for extra ground coffee. 

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Across the aisle are my towels, OLD and NEW. A dear friend finished the embroidery on my Mom's 1940's dish towel. The one on the left is a vintage from Grandmother and has hand worked blue motifs over the faded plaid. The magnet board above is for wishful thinking restaurant menus. 

We seldom order out, unless it is simply too hot to cook.

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After a cup of coffee, time to pick the first tomatoes. These are Early Girls and are very late this year.

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Our kitchen remodel was started two years ago this month. We love it and it's very functional...and I didn't remove all the stuff that collects on the fridge. Menus, receipts, to do list, timer, our lake association newsletter, and some this and that.

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Our entertaining cabinet is ready for company or when the family drops in. 

We really are a non-drinking family, though.

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But, occasionally friends drop in too. I have a fish theme going on here along with the blue and red. The steins were my grandfathers purchased in 1956 on a trip to Europe. The OLD wood fish platter is hand hewed. Probably 40's or 50's. We use it for smoke fish or appetizers.

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The counter is crowded at the moment. Soon the OLD crock will be filled with pickles and be in the fridge. I keep all my staples in OLD antique canning jars, a Green thing in the sense I'm not using plastic to store food. I have another dozen pints or so in the pantry with seasonings and odds and ends. I have labels on the back, so when a jar is empty, the item gets added to my shopping list.

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I know double ovens are sort of passe...but you really need two ovens for family holidays. But, when  cooking for only two---the smaller top oven suffices for most baking and is very efficient, another GREEN thing to do.

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On the eating end of the kitchen. I have a gardener nutcracker. and some odds and ends on the buffet.

The blue pitcher is very OLD and Danish. Blue glaze on a rusty gray clay.

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At the other end of the buffet an Antique coffee grinder still works. The milkmaid bell was on my grandmother's kitchen sill, my Mom said she remembered it in her BesteMor's kitchen, my Great Grandmother. The lacy NEW IKEA tin pot cover, hides an ugly oil diffuser. One thing about hot weather is stale air....Today the windows are open, YAY!

The handwoven runner is ---over 6 feet long. 

Perfect for my kitchen buffet and was only $3.00 at a thrift store.

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My REDO (post is here) corner cabinet is filled with OLD antiques found and also from family. I'm really partial to blue and white dishes.

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An OLD pitcher holds vintage and antique spoons and tools. 

The colander was in my post Here.

The red and white Granny---says---

"If everyone would sweep their own stoop, the whole world would be clean." (Danish proverb)

LOL, a GREEN thing to do. 

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My huge kitchen table is layered with a light blue cloth, a vintage linen one, and a NEW IKEA 'Herring' runner from a few seasons back. I don't iron, and luckily vintage linens are just fine, used from the line or dryer.

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The Fish S&P's are OLD vintage. Too cute.

My garden flowers are limited outside from the horrible cold spring and hot weather now. So, I pinched some leggy coleus and put them in water to get roots. 

A butterfly from my Mom's Day plant flutters on a stick. 

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The porcelain 'sea' bowls have crabs, lobsters, fish in them. I purchased them from a Chinese vendor in a suburban Asian Food mall. I have 10 and they are all with different designs/colorings. They are perfect for everything served with less than a cup of something.

A NEW er artist pressed fish dish...I have a couple of these.

Home MattersHome and Garden Thursday

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The HORSE currying comb---is really the best FISH SCALER ever made. This one looks new, but was found in my parent's stash of things where everything was OLD.

The center vase is Vintage Royal Copenhagen/Bing & Grondahl Danish porcelain. 

Now, it's time for a fish fry.

Hope you enjoyed my light and bright SUMMER  kitchen.

All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own. I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown or anywhere I shop.

Thanks always for visiting. 

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question.

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Sandi

NEW CoffeePot Tweak

The 'DEAL' CoffeePot

One of the charming characteristics of my husband, since retirement, is to buy new sometimes useless doo-dads for the kitchen. Saying our kitchen needs a makeover is an understatement. We have been in this house since 1984 and we did the kitchen in 1987. The cupboards are original to the house from 1974 and have disintegrated in all ways: the finish, the drawers, the doors, and the layout are 

sad, Sad, SAD!. 

But, hubby got a deal. A full size, restaurant Bunn coffee maker for half-price. 

I found it, still in the box, in the bottom of his closet. 

I couldn't hang his shirts, it was taking so much room. I dragged it out into the sad kitchen. 

Whoops, minor problem, the Bunn didn't fit under any of the cupboards where the old coffeepot was, and ITS UGLY!

Where should it go? The cookbook shelves…hmmm?

I need to reduce the cookbooks---then, let's buy a new table,
 (cost more than a full price coffeepot), just for a place to put the cookbooks. 
Confession, the table was in the  master plan for the kitchen remodel, but still. 

Cookbooks Demise Where do all the cookbooks go?  Long time passing.

My collection of my mom's and my grandmother's and all their notes and my great-grandmother's on two sides in Danish, have to be gone through. Plus all the books my mom bought me, and those I have purchased since 1968. On the table was the excess. I have stashed one stack to sort through, while I incorporated another stack into the new cupboard, the rest go to GoodWill.

The 'Deal coffeepot' now occupies the cook book space. 

Also had to move all the paraphernalia for setting up the coffee station. 

Teas on top, coffees in the middle, 

filters in the enamel kettle, sugar, creamer, spooner, etc on the counter.

Gosh, it makes good coffee, but it is a big, black, ugly thing.

  

Maybe I can print a vintage label on magnet pages to decorate that thing,

…yea that's the ticket.

Vintage dishtowel 8'oclock Coffee 

Cute vintage towel from the 50's for an 8 o'clock coffee service covers the chopper blades case.

 I'm terrified to try and store the blades any other way, they are so sharp. 

Perhaps a vintage sticker on that black box, also.

Come on over and share a cup--the pot literally is always on

The New table with a fraction of my cookbooks installed

An empty shelf from the coffee stuff

Decisions, I moved the pantry staples in canning jars to the old coffee shelf on the bottom.

The middle shelf holds herbs and spices.

Most of these canning jars are from Wisconsin.

But where did those jars come from?

From, across the kitchen on the cooking side, leaving another big hole.
 The corner cupboard is a dead space, not a cupboard. 

I desperately need more cupboard space, for the big bowls and appliances. 

 In an attempt to clear the counter, I moved the blue jars, 

but I still had the items from where the Bunn machine moved to.

Golly, will it ever end?

Fruit basket or Blue Jar Upset!

All because hubby got a deal on a Bunn coffee machine.

It does make great coffee. 

And when the kitchen is remodeled we can design a cabinet for the cups and mugs.

 Oh yea, the cups are still eight feet away, but, you can't have everything. 

The cupboard above is too high to put mugs and cups, and below is the dishwasher.

 The one to the right is too skinny, we have those big red mugs.

Wonder what I'll have to move next? 

Linking to:

Inspire Me Tuesday

Thanks for stopping by.

Sandi

All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own, I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions or posts. Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission. Thank you for your cooperation, Sandi Magle