Happy Christmas Weekend my friends!
I hope your preparations are as stress-free as possible. I’m sharing one more decor post this season – my kitchen! I rarely show off my kitchen these days. It’s not a user-friendly kitchen and it’s not the hub of our home like many kitchens are. It’s just too small. Now that the kids are adult size it’s more frustrating and chaotic for everyone to be in the kitchen than it is relaxing and happy. We gather there to eat supper most evenings, but the meal prep and clean-up is generally easier if you work one at a time.
This adorable, vintage sheep I’ve had for years. Fun fact, I bought him at a little antique shop that was then housed in the very building I now own and use for my studio/shop! The crowns were a pack of ornaments this year at Ikea. Fresh bay leaf is one of my favs for Christmas decor. The little Baby Jesus was from a kids nativity when my firstborn was little.
A bit of staging helps any room to look more photo worthy.
Notice for a moment – the pretty wood utensils in the crock beside the stove. On any other day, that crock is full of all manner of cooking utensils, in all colors. But for a photo shoot – I removed them all (they are piled beside the sink out of view 😀 )
Several of those utensils are from Polders and they are so beautiful for a photo shoot. They are also beautiful to use but I haven’t been able to bring myself to use them for fear of messing them up. I think I’m going to try to change that and consider the food stains they may get ‘patina’.
We’ve made this kitchen work with a narrow table – it’s an old libray table from a school. I’ve changed the chairs out several times, trying to find what works best. They need to be as small as possible to scoot under the table, out of the way for when doing meal prep or baking. The table is really the only good surface to work on when meal prepping.
Another staging trick – no way do we have a plant smack against the stove in real life. But for a photo shoot it looks cute and helps hide the stuff stashed in the corner beside the stove 😀
These vintage silver goblets were a thrift store find a few years ago. I haven’t been quite able to part with them yet, even though we have never really used them. Again – staging!
You would thank me for the bokah in this photo if you could walk into my kitchen in real life. That black cabinet is disgusting. I used the paint the paint store recommended – and it was the worst choice ever. Everything sticks to that paint (and not because it’s black) and it’s almost impossible to clean. Just keeping it real her folks – it’s been on my to-do list for literally YEARS to scrub and repaint all the black in my kitchen. And I won’t even show you the sink cabinet in its entirety. It’s an old metal cabinet that got the same paint and it’s even worse.
I almost didn’t share this pic at all. There is a bit of the sink cabinet – please just ignore it.
And the open shelves. I love the concept. I love that I have this extra storage space in my kitchen. But I dislike that it makes the doorway so crowded. Almost all our doorways in this house have something sitting in them – old houses have charm but they tend to lack space and storage. I also dislike how cluttered and crowded this shelf always is. I contemplated emptying it and staging it for the photo but I just didn’t want to take the time. So I straightened it up a bit and you get to see how it looks most of the time.
I have to say, too, that if I ever get to design a new kitchen I doubt open shelving will be included. While pretty if they can be styled, they get dusty and cluttered too easily when they have to be used for daily living. That’s my opinion of course! And I’m sure someone who has more cupboards than I do might disagree with me. That’s ok! If your open shelving works for you and you like how it looks everyday then that is awesome.
I created this little coffee station using an old cart from a school. It works well here – and there’s that plant again. It works great as a staging tool.
Cookies are a fun staging tool for a kitchen or dining room too. I used these in my dining room shoot too.
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