Kitchen addition...

....addition to the blog post ABOUT the kitchen, that is.

I may like to redecorate, but actual renovation is above my mental capacity, physical fortitude, and from what I've heard, I'm not sure we could afford both a kitchen re-do and the ensuing marital counseling it would require.

I have enough trouble remembering to cook each night without the excuse of a kitchen demolition. Although if I may do a little more back patting, I did have home-made sloppy joes in the crock pot, and apples on the stove to stew - all before NOON....On the same day I was serving it.

I won't say that's a first for me, .....but others (related to me) may.

I find that with my kids in school all day, expectations are WAY UP for the Stay At Home Alone Mother.


OK, from the questions my post yesterday generated, I feel I may have left out a few details that might have affected your Curtain Vote. Here are a few more pics of the kitchen, including the curtains already in the main kitchen area. The curtains you are voting on are the ones in the little breakfast nookie (the one with the bead board I bravely painted black.) You can also see the island with the black bead board, and I think the wall color is a bit truer in this picture also. It's really not as pale as the pictures yesterday made it appear. I'm not going to blame it on my camera because I'm on a Camera Complaint Fast.




(Hey, I just noticed that if you look real close you can see the crock pot that houses my sloppy joes, and the blue dutch oven with my apples stewing. And if you close your eyes and take a big sniff you may be able to smell the cinnamon.)











That last picture shows a closer view of the same curtain as the one over the kitchen window, but this one is on the door leading out of the kitchen and into the mud room. I just wanted you to see the big, deep hued floral print to be sure you Toile Lovers don't want to change your mind if you think the patterns would be too conflicting.

Part of the reason I chose the red ticking was because it was understated and there's just so much else going on in this kitchen. But then I started adding the extra strips of material...because the red ticking was understated. Do you think I'm fickle?

One can rarely go wrong with toile (although combining toiles is tricky.)




Someone asked about how I hung my pots. This is just a metal rod attached to the side of each cabinet. I bought the hooks at a local kitchen store. When I first put them "on show" I worried about keeping them nice and shiny. But I got over that.





A couple more roosters that survived the elimination round. I kept them because they aren't just cute - they also hold stuff. Functional, yet tasteful. I was looking at a French Country decorating magazine today (in the mammogram waiting room...not while I was eating bon bons and watching Ellen), and apparently roosters are all the rage in french decorating. I was starting to think I'd been too hard on myself getting rid of so many of them...until I realized the magazine was published in 2003.

I'm really not going to be able to put this behind me until I go to France and see for myself. Are roosters passe' (....might as well start practicing my french, n'est-ce pas?)

Look at this totally cute and Very Me apron that my friend/competitor, Lea, gave me? Now that is an apron Way Too Cute to cook in.





Another friend, Janet, asked me about the curtains in my Foy-A. I was torn between leaving the windows bare (!) and covering them. I also had a little challenge because of the PC Incorrect Jungle Wallpaper in there. But aren't these just perfect?!! They are from Target's Shabby Chic collection. Can you tell how light and breezy they are? And isn't the smocking at the top very french country (my new theme..)?








This last picture is not actually part of my kitchen. And it's not even a very good photograph. (I NEED YOU, Hunter or Lea...Or more to the point, I NEED ONE OF YOUR CAMERAS!)

These are our six newest (and hopefully, very temporary) family members. Our promiscuous teenage cat, Beatrice had her sextuplets two weeks ago. They are just starting to open their eyes and do the wounded soldier crawl around their cage. In about 4 more weeks one of these adorable kittens could be YOURS.