House Tour #3, Part 2: Our Kitchen and Middle Room

Our kitchen is pretty cozy but it is bigger and much more functional than the last one. There is room for a breakfast table, it's got great light in the morning, and the original cabinets are at least white. It's so much happier in white.

That's the old back door of the house. It currently leads into my studio and down to the basement. I love that it has a glass pane so Brett can look in on things but Ruby can't see me if it's studio time. Out of sight, out of mind! I added the old curtain from our last back door to bring in more color and to hide the mess. It's usually a mess as there are always at least a few projects in process. More on that space later.

I've loved this piece since I saw it on Dottie Angel's blog a few years ago. I used to have this one and Elsie had the one above. She saw mine and loved it and I told her it was great but the one I really loved (this one) was at Funtiques (local shop). She had just recently picked up the same one at a flea market so we traded! These are the colors I see myself moving towards in everything I do so it was just a better fit in our home.

The hairpin table was found at my favorite warehouse in southwestern Missouri. I'm not divulging the name and location of this place because it's absolutely my and my MIL's favorite little secret. I know, that's mean.

I saw this table but didn't pick it up right away as I wasn't sure it would fit in our small kitchen but I couldn't stop thinking about it. Once I found those vintage school chairs I knew they'd make a lovely set and had my MIL go snag the table. Thankfully, it was still there (and only $15.00).

The white mirror was found at a vintage shop in Ballard, a lovely neighborhood/town in the greater Seattle area. If ever we were to move back I'd want to live in Ballard. It's beautiful and quirky and full of happy shops and interesting people. Anyway, the mirror is super heavy but one of my favorites because of it's simple design.

The aprons on the door are vintage with an Anthro one thrown in from about six years ago. They are all green/blue/yellow/cream and lovely. The curtain is made from a bedspread from Urban Outfitters that I had to hunt down three years ago. It's one of my favorite prints.

We haven't had a built in dishwasher in most of our dwellings but with two kids and working from home, we knew doing them by hand would only equal piles of dishes all of the time. We purchased a counter top dishwasher around Christmas but it's about an inch taller than the space between the counters and cabinets so we've had to make do with it on a solid old end table that we scoot to the sink and back almost every day. It's ugly and annoying but we're willing to put up with it for now. Oh, how I look forward to the day when we can have a built in!

There used to be doors on the open shelving at the very top. I decided it was a great place to store some Pyrex and other vintage pieces that I love but don't use every day. It adds a lot of happy to our space.

Speaking of happy, the mug shown above is one of my favorites that was gifted to me by an online friend. I've never come across one like it! The glasses and dishware below have been collected over the last four years. I am still on the hunt for pretty floral glasses and an Alpine Swiss plate set but I'm thankful to have stumbled across so many beauties locally.

The dish towel below was cut from a vintage tablecloth that had some ugly stains on it in three different places. I was able to get two dish towel sizes out of it after cutting them down, hemming the edges, and adding a hang tab. It's an easy way to repurpose and add something unique to a vintage kitchen.

Below is what our fridge looks like at the moment. Along with a handful of coupons that are out of sight! The aqua magnet was a gift from my mom from a shop in OKC and the California card was in a gift from Rubyellen. I'll always be a California girl!

I turned the Polaroids and Instax into magnets by adding sticky magnet paper to the backs. The small ones are from when Sebastian was Ruby's age. Also, that's Ruby's first real coloring project. A lot of her work ends up on our walls these days so we're working hard at redirecting her to paper.

This next room is what I call our 'middle room'. It's about 8' x 8' and has one or two entries or doors on each side. The above photo shows a linen closet to the left and our only bathroom to the right.

This is the little corner between our bathroom and bedroom. The shelving unit was originally built to be a bench for the kids' room but it got set here on move in day and I loved it. It's a good place to display parts of my typewriter and thermos collections. Every now and then I'll hear little fingers tap-tapping on the keys of the bottom two.

The art work shown above the shelving unit are both by AshleyG. The typewriter print is from LifeLovePaper. It's actually a photo of the Olivetti typewriter I sold to her through my vintage Etsy shop, PonyParty! And that chair...oh, I love that little chair. I've mentioned before that I had it on my lap in the car as we moved halfway across the country.

This corner is opposite the last corner on the other side of our bedroom door. That mirror was a lucky Craigslist find from a local warehouse. The table, tray, lotus bowl, and little tray were all thrifted. The artwork is again, Ashley G. I spray painted the bronze lamp in a nice shade of blue and bought a new shade at Target. This is our catch all and it no longer looks this neat. It only took two hours.

And the bedroom, well...that'll have to wait for another day. You can see our living room here and the kids' room here. Thanks so much for your sweet comments on our space so far!

xoxo, Rachel