Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Mood board fun



This blog is going to be Kitchen Jabber 24/7 for awhile, folks. Hope that's okay. 

Yesterday, I made a mood board. Aren't mood boards the best? I might make one per week between now and when we're done, just to make the whole thing feel controllable and pretty and tidy. Predictably, I'm starting to feel the urge to sew something (nothing like tearing the house apart to make me want to sew straight perfect seams and press them open, just so). 

Anyway, the mood board. Yes to subway tile on the whole wall behind the sink (maybe with dark grout), yes to oil-rubbed bronze bin pulls and white cabinets. Yes to stained wood open shelving. The flooring is going to be 12 x 24" ceramic tile, I think-- I've always liked the look of tile laid in that brickwork pattern, and ceramic tile is so easy to clean. We had off-white ceramic tile (OFF WHITE CERAMIC TILE?!!) in our Binghamton kitchen, which was just... insane... but at least it scrubbed up real nice. 

The deeper I get into this homesteader business, the more I find myself ogling "back to basics" homegoods-- really simple designs in really quality materials that are ironically much more expensive (and probably overpriced) than their flashier, more fashionable counterparts. Lately I've been haunting Brook Farm General Store (oh my god, PEOPLE) and Kaufman Mercantile, contemplating natural-bristle scrub brushes and oiled olive-wood bin scoops and a forty dollar enamelware colander. 

Sigh. Just part of my perpetual Laura Ingalls Wilder fantasy, though I'm sure Laura Ingalls Wilder never owned a $40 colander. 

It's nuts. I want to get rid of all the plastic-- Tupperware, big OXO ladles, plastic measuring cups, everything but the freezer bags (I need freezer bags)-- and I'm not quite entirely sure why. It's ugly. I guess that's the main reason. It's ugly and it just feels out of place in my life. It stands for commercial, industrial, disposable-- and I want no part of those things. And I am the world's biggest hypocrite, because to replace the plastic things I want to be rid of, I'm going to have to get a little commercial myself. Oh, silly head. Silly world, silly head. Sigh.

The copper lights are from Rejuvenation, and I'm imagining they'll hang over the peninsula (the little bit that juts out to the right of the stove.) I might end up settling for something cheaper from Home Depot, though-- those little copper lights are $200 each. For the rest of the kitchen, I'm just going to do can lights, and I'm having a hard time deciding how many I need. Three in the header that's going over the stove, one over the sink, and then what? How do people figure this stuff out? 


I'm putting this picture in again because I realize it got partially amputated when I blogged it a few weeks ago. The fridge is that thing with the asterisk. The hutch is the big brown thing.

This weekend we're going to do some electrical work-- mainly, we need to reroute most of the wires in the wall we just took down, so Steve (the contractor) can really take the wall down. Gonna be fun...

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2 comments:

rachellake said...

I've been slowly trying to rid my kitchen of all the plastic (but I can't let go of my bpa free freezer bags for putting up fruit & veg in the summer). Not entirely surprisingly, the solution has involved A LOT of ball jars. Metal and glass measuring cups/bowls, vintage canning tools, and a binge shopping spree at the local woodworker farmers' market booth for spoons, spatulas, and cutting boards. These things just feel nicer in my hands when I'm using them. I really can't wait to see how your kitchen turns out!

Kristina Strain said...

Hi Rachel-- Thanks for letting me know what a plastic-almost-free kitchen looks like for you. Ball jars are awesome, and I'm looking forward to buying some vintage Pyrex to replace my Tupperware. Good to know, too, that I'm not alone on my desire to cling to freezer bags!

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