I’ve been writing this post in my head all day (do you do that?) and what I keep wanting to start with are the words “The kitchen is my favourite room in the house”. But, actually, I feel that way about all the rooms. They just came together so beautifully. I think that the kitchen is the most “together” room in the house. Most of the furniture in there kind of matches and looks vibrant and lovely. Since the furniture and decorations for our house were sourced from all over the shop there was never any real intention for things to go together, so that was a nice surprise.
When I was a kid the kitchen had a contacted floor. The grey and white checks looked very smart and gave it a real kitchen-y vibe, but somewhere along the way half the contact was pulled up and the kitchen was left looking pretty ratty.
The paint job left a bit to be desired. I did like how you could see stencilled writing coming through from the original wood on the floor. I wonder what my Papa used to make the house in the first place. Anyway, it’s gone now, hidden beneath a layer of shiny white paint. We hope to update the floor of the kitchen one day with tiling or floor boards, but for now the paint will suffice. So…time to unveil.
Ta-da!*
The kitchen is the life-blood of most homes. Yes, it bugs me that not all the Simpsons can fit around the kitchen table. This will probably be something I rectify in the future. The adorable little red table and chairs were a beautiful gift from a friend’s childhood dolls’ house. I think they are very charming. The other red chair (with Marge’s apron draped over it) came from a set of things we bought on eBay. The child’s high chair came from the same set. They just happen to (sort of) match the other furniture.
The long bench we made from items purchased from the Reverse Art Truck. This is a not for profit organisation that collects items from businesses that would otherwise go into landfill and recycles them for arts and crafts. They offer it by the bag load to customers. We bought a garbage bag full of paints, varnish, paper goods, wooden bits and pieces, plastic, foam, material etc etc etc for $30, which was our major expense. We have a lot of this stuff left for other craft projects. The bench is made from a piece of Venetian blind with dowels for legs. It actually caused us quite a bit of trouble putting this together as we had lots of different ideas about how to make it. As it turned out the most simple method (literally gluing dowelling to the bottom of the blind) was the best one. It is so easy to over-think things sometimes.
The wall paper was also found at the Reverse Art Truck. It was gift wrapping and I thought it was perfect for vintage-style wall paper. I attached this with modge podge. I think it turned out really well. The paper itself is very thin and I was worried it would tear, but it adhered beautifully.
The fridge was purchased from eBay with some other random things you’ll see throughout the house. The door opens. There is a small slice of pizza in there that came with an E.T. doll a friend gave me years ago. The same friend (actually, the same one who gave me the table and chairs, too!) gave me bagel and cream cheese earrings after a trip to New York. I lost the cream cheese earring somewhere along the way, but the bagel was removed from the earring to join the pizza in the kitchen.
When I was hunting for things for the dolls’ house I found a round take away container, sealed with tape, in the op shop for $1.25. It was full of Barbie clothes, but amongst them I could see little bits of plastic here and there. I wasn’t able to open it to check what they were, so I decided to risk the $1.25 and see what I could find. It was filled with great stuff for the house, including the champagne glasses, bowls, plates, orange juice and cereal you can see here. It was a really lucky find.
The stove was made by Big Poppa. It took us a while to come up with this idea. The painted block was left over from an abandoned project for Little Fearse’s first birthday. BP drew the details on the front of the stove, including the time 8:00. This is one of the “secrets” of the dolls’ house as whenever we ask Little Fearse what time it is she says “8 o’clock, tick tock”. I borrowed the idea of using buttons for hotplates from my favourite dolls’ house tour. I plan to add a sink one day.
The small pictorial plate was my Mum’s as a child. When she had to clear her parents’ house out she gave me a sewing basket from her old bedroom full of random bits and pieces. This was in there. I really like that something she had as a child is in the house, since it was originally hers.
The final feature of the kitchen is the curtain. The rod is actually a piece of strong plastic that came out of some blinds we removed from the spare bedroom in our house. I cut off a small piece and painted it (poorly) with gold paint I found at the Reverse Art Truck. I used a scrap of material left over from my Mum’s 70s sewing fabrics to make the cafe style curtain. I attached this to a scrap of calico I usually use for practising stitches on my sewing machine. I really love the curtain – it turned out exactly as I hoped it would.
Stay tuned for room 2, the living room.
Mama xo
*For those of you that, like me, enjoy continuity you will notice these photos were taken from two different shoots. It definitely irritates me that the bagel turns up in different spots in different pictures. I hope you can cope with this, my fellow anally retentive persons.
The Fearse Family 