Barn doors in the Kitchen

New kitchen design up date!!!

These are the new/old barn doors for the kitchen in our little Ojai house

You may recall a project that I did earlier using this really great reclaimed wood from an old barn...still in it's red paint

This is a custom cabinet that hides the TV and other electronics 

I really wanted to incorporated this wood in some way into

the kitchen remodel

We ended up using it for these doors 

going from the kitchen into the mudroom

hung on raw steel carriage door hardware

I found some great vintage pulls in red and added those

But I wanted  to add a little "something" more to these doors too so I screwed some wrought iron hooks and the top

to hang some herbs on ?....well maybe not

How about these great old barn pulley's

These definitely add a little more country charm

Barn doors with barn pulley's

a match made in heaven!

~Cheers to a great week~

Kelley

Power to the Purple

 The garden is in full bloom right now 

 The colors are all wonderful...but the purple flowers are beyond pretty

 I designed this garden with large areas of purple and orange

and it has really started to make a statement... 

especially in the spring

  I usually cut flowers in early morning or at dusk

 Right now I use the kitchen as my arranging and cutting area 

but I am working on the mudroom 

and it will have a nice spot for just this kind of thing

 Little simple baskets add to the arrangement...this is a Native American 

vintage basket

 I wont bore you with all of the varieties of plants..

but there are probably 12 in this bouquet

 the long and spikey Veronica

 butterfly bush

 Woolly Lambs ear....left unchecked and blooming

 So where to put this pretty purple project?

 It ended up in the master bedroom...

yes, a perfect purple spot

 Power to the purple!

have a wonderful and restful weekend

best,

 Kelley

Window Seat Love & Pillows in the Kitchen

 Window seats are always a great spot to showcase interesting textiles
and I now have one in my new kitchen!

 Always on the lookout for wonderful things, I often will buy a textile
with no idea
as to what I will do with it.

This was a textile I just couldn't pass up!

 I purchased it about 6 months ago from my wonderful friend Wendy Lewis.

When she described it a something she has never come across before...I knew it was going to be really special

and it really is

 It was originally a very large "drop cloth" of pieced together burlap sacks.

And to make it more wonderful, the entire outside edge was finished off
in a bright red cotton bias tape.

We think it was used by olive farmers to collect their ripe olives
after they are shaken from the tree.

 Even if it was used for something else
the story sounds like a good one
and the cloth showed all the signs of being used that way.

All of the tatters and worn areas are what I love about it...and there is no way you can reproduce the vintage faded look of a fabric like this.

So Pottery Barn...don't even try guys!

 Running throughout  the various sacks used to make up this large cloth,
 are beautiful faded stripes of ecru, purple and red.

I did wash this cloth about 3 times on the gentle cycle,
with lots of fabric softener
to clean it up.

 The cloth has beautiful faded lettering and I designed the cushions to take advantage of the graphics, the stripe and the red bias tape

 We cut off the tape and re-worked it into a flanged welting...but there wasn't quite enough to do the bottom, so we used left over burlap for that.

 And now for pillows!

I collect old small vintage, children's ticking feather pillows...

they look cute!

 How about some French striped ticking?

 What about some blue with the red?

 Lets try out antique black floral and some really old 

graphic grain sack pillows...

 And finally I tried out these bright turquoise floral pillows
 made from 

French curtain panels....love these!

 Wow...everything just looked so fun with the new window seat cushions....

I really doubt I will ever keep it the same for more than a week.

 Any favorites?

I took a little time off to catch my breath 

and enjoy Mothers Day with my family

But thank you for stopping by
and
I will have more great ideas to share soon!

best, Kelley