Friday, June 16, 2017

Playing House, Piddling

It'd been a long time - just after Christmas to be exact - since I decorated or styled anything in my home. Playing house is what I sometimes call it, others may call it piddling. All my focus had been in organizing and putting things away for the mess of remodeling in January, but now that that's over and the spring chores in the landscape garden are checked off, I got my act together inside again. I did a few things in the house to make it look like people actually live here once more. I started in the sunroom. With dishes, of course.
I have so many dishes it's not even funny, most of which are vintage pieces. I had fun with some majolica and ironstone, and the citrus-y feel of the overall hutch appearance leaves me satisfied.

Starting with a favorite new find back in January is the Tiffany & Co. "Blackberries" pattern - a tea set - made in Portugal, and discontinued sometime in the early 2000's. Love that creamy yellow!
The set to its left on that shelf is a Made in Japan juice set. The pitcher is seated on the basketweave majolica find I mentioned in this post. The plate chargers are Pier 1, first used in this tablescape.
The two plate shelves are a mix of various other vintage majolica pieces previously purchased (the bovine majolica butter/cheese keeper was first mentioned in this post). The ironstone pieces are second-hand, but the glass cake plate was a wedding gift. The two blown glass napkin rings are WV artisan made, and the flatware (used here) is from Horchow.
Next, I moved on to the kitchen, where the shelf and counter spaces had been empty since the updates back in February. I played with black & white mostly, and just a little punch of color with Fiestaware utensils.
MacKenzie-Childs chargers, MacKenzie-Childs' inspired tea set. estate find transferware, and the old scale I used at Christmas here were my choices for this area. That huge transferware pitcher was a great find a couple years ago - Dalton Burslem (England) in the pattern "Iris".
The platter on the quartz countertop is an antiquing find, I believe from a trip with my sisters years ago. It's stamped Doultons Perth Burslem.
The open shelf above the fridge is where the previous cabinet had to be removed due to newer refrigerators being taller than our old one. I stacked some cookbooks and placed my duck casserole (used here) to the right.
The only thing added to my countertop elsewhere in the kitchen is my MacKenzie-Childs' inspired champagne bucket, now holding my Fiestaware utensils. Mr. P. keeps asking where the toaster oven is (hidden - forever, I hope).
Right after Christmas, I had bought a couple of new lampshades for the master bedroom with an after-Christmas sale. Below is a picture of the before and after of the plain shades used previously, and the new shades which replaced them.
However, when the remodeling of the adjacent master bath began, the MacKenzie-Childs shades were put away and out came the old ones again. We weren't sleeping in the master bedroom, and it looked like a mothballed museum.
That's pretty much all I've done through the house since Christmas, but considering the way things looked before...
Things are looking up these days, under my control, and my normal routine of piddling activities feels much better. I'm getting gardening time in, doing some estate sale vintage shopping, more styling in our antique booth spaces, and even kicking back in the sunroom, catching up on reading and listening to music. Piddling....on my schedule. Life is good. Do you like to piddle?
(A special thanks to Linda at Coastal Charm's Show and Share No. 367 for featuring this post!)


Rita C. at Panoply

No comments:

Post a Comment