Spruce That Kitchen!!!

Apartment Living!

Tons of Pros and Cons when it comes down to Renovations or Sprucing Up.

Not having total control over all the details could feel a lil restrictive...

BUT...

You can Make some Satisfying Changes without Making your Landlord Nervous ;-D 

Here's how my Kitchen has evolved over the last couple of years: 

How it looks today...

How it looked then...

Where it begins... Prime Your Wall!!!

Fill the holes, ask landlord for touch up paint... 

(or go nuts and get some new paint... its hard to justify the purchase if you don't own the property, BUT... if you like your place and are going to be there for a while... I say DO IT!) 

Tiny cube shelves, now Neatly Organized... 

Cute lil trivet on a plate hanger springy thing! 

Plate Arrangements on the Wall! Love it!

Oooo...You can see all the way thru to the Entryway that I Blogged about Last Week! lol

I would LOVE to Cover the Whole Wall.... 

But the Dusting Issue is Murder! lol :-P

We stuck our Portable Dish Washer in the Corner... 

Which Adds Counter Space & Blocks the Lower Cabinet...

WHY WOULD YOU BLOCK A CABINET?!?!?!?!!!!

It was Impossible To Get Into!!!

Keeping the Most Under-Used Kitchen Stuff there now...

Is Freeing Up Even More Space in our Pantry. 

The Dish Washer Rolls out so Easily, that those Seasonal Odds n Ends can be Reached Quickly.

Winning!!! 

Most Used Items! 

Front Row Seat! 

Mason Jars in an Old Wooden Tool Box! 

Practical & Cute!

Vignette! 

To Soften the Corner...

The Fox and Chickens are Friends in my Kitchen :-)

Drink cart! 

So Awesome to have Everything in One Space! 

Saves us room in the Pantry! 

All of the Tea, Coffee, and Drink Mixes are no longer taking up an Entire Shelf! 

Flowers & Feathers! 

A Must for a Doorway!

Especially when it leads to a Magical Gypsy Porch! ;-)

And...

Studded Fridge look...

All of the Magnets Painted the Same Color Unifying the Design.... Yum!

Want to paint ALL the things...

Don't forget...

The Island!

I got the idea to Re-use this Wire Rack w/a Wooden Surface from having used it before as counter space in another apartment...

Filled it with baskets that now hold ALL of our pots and pans :-D

Next evolution may be waiting for us at IKEA...

Mmmmm.... IKEA trip....

Their Kitchen Island has enough room on one side for Stools! 

STOOLS!!!!

I love having an Eat-in Kitchen....

But tables aren't the right height for Food prep... Etc... 

And...

I don't like being restricted to eating in the same room all the time. 

My studio doubles as a dinning room when we have parties... 

Thanksgiving...

My Studio with Chalkboard Garden...

On The Front Porch...

Wherever you Cook...

However you like to Dine...

Doesn't matter if you live in a House or Apartment!

SPRUCE SOMETHING!!!!

lol

XOXO
~JM

Have you Spruced Something lately...?

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Tea For All!

A few weeks back I was getting extremely weather affected...

Winter 2015 in the Northeast has been long & hard.

I took to drinking coffee for my daily energy supply...

If only things could be so simple in their solutions...

Heartburn, jitters, anxiousness... ugh. 

Time to Switch to TEA!

*from my instagram* @jenursa

I was excited to see so many other ppl drinking their daily cuppas just like me.

It helps to find connections in things.

A connection a day keeps the depressions away! 

And So...

Last week while basking in my luv of Tea, I decided to re-arrange our Drink Cart that we had thrown together at Thanksgiving so that it could be ready for Spring, and the continuing Tea for All ;-)

I take reference pics as I go, so my eye can scan for the problem areas.

Wherever my eye stops, I have to consider the flow of whats going on.

Tea goes in the cubby! There are some fall-winter faves still in there...
Not ready to put them away yet! So Gingery & Cinnamony!!!

The Glasses & Mugs are under now...

When they were inside the cubby they rattled every time someone walked thru the kitchen...

And it looks nice... Two birds, one stone....

Mega amounts of extra coffee and cocoa are hidden in the cubbard!

From above there are the Openers....  All the Openers....

Hubby Rocked this BMIY yesterday, screwing in the Vintage Bottle Opener he got as a Wedding Gift last year & Lovely Cap Catcher Magnet I got him at Xmas to catch the caps ;-)

Extra Teas, and the ones that need their boxes bc they don't have the lux envelope & string/tag going for them.... We feel bad for these Teas. Sad Teas... lol.

#BREAKFASTCLUB30 it is March 10th after all... *todays Tea is Roastaroma by Celestial Seasonings....

The finished look, complete with Pizza box next to it...

Yes we are real ppl, who live in a real house....  lol obvis...X-D

Functional For Now or FFN, is one of my go to phrases.

If I waited around with an All or Nothing Attitude, NOTHING would EVER get STARTED!!!

So, Drop those Absolutes from your Vocab! You'll see that Disappointment also Drops & Falls Away when you do this. 

There's Always going to be something that gets in the way of smooth transitions in life, in design, etc... Relax, have fun. Go with it!

Make Some Tea,

Make a Functional Arrangement,

MAKE SOMETHING!!!

XOXO

~JM

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Thanksgiving: The Results & Aftermath

Host Thanksgiving...

No problem!

Clean up after, oh my goodness!

If you have a chalkboard, you should use the chalkboard...

Even if it doesn't turn out perfect, erase, try again... 

Have fun w/it! Get your Festive Messages out there!!!

This is in the living room facing our front door... 

It all came together with some effort...

Before...

My Living Sketch...

The morning of...

Making both tables level, w/the obstacles of an uneven floor, & two dramatically different tables...

We made use of the cardboard box that came with our new couch from ikea...

And duct tape to secure it all together!

Large drop cloth from Home Depot... I will layer another large table cloth on top...

Mmmmm.... Layers.....

Napkins n silverware! 

Mixed & Matched Like I Like it...

Twine! Easy Peasy!

I pressed some leaves in a sketchbook in late September, threw em on the table...

Used some pumpkins that had helped w/Halloween decor, along w/local apples...

Some were SO Tiny & cute! 

Toss in some fake pumpkin knick knacks & clementines! 

CENTERPIECE! 

We had everything laid out buffet style...

Chargers (mixed & matched from Target & Michaels(link n/a)) & napkins stayed on the big table, while the dinner plates were in the kitchen...

Near ALL the Food.... 

It was Chaos!

So Much FOOD!

I took a break, and caught my breath out on the gypsy porch...

It was brisk, we had just had a snow storm... Pretty!

The faux mink throw keeps me toasty!

After meal sugar-fest w/as many deserts as there were dinner foods! OMG!

Turkey was delish! Thanks to Hubby! Thank goodness you're domestic! 

Carcass saved in the freezer for a friend who makes bone broth :-)

A Few Dish Washer Cycles Later...

A couple of broken items, leftovers given to folks, leftovers in the fridge...

LEFTOVERS ON THE PORCH!!! Good thing it was cold enough... ;-)

And a couple of days recovering...

The experience was totally worth all the work! 

Everyone came & had a place to sit & enjoy the feast & each others company...

And I'm full of ideas to improve our set up.... 

For the next Gathering.....

This Drink Cart for instance, was a last minute idea.

It helped make our wine glasses & coffee/tea supplies, etc... Easier to access...

I liked it SO much, I'm keeping it around!

I put the remaining coffee/tea supplies in yesterday...

There's one cubby left for wine, etc... ;-)

I celebrated w/a root beer float! 

This cart had been orphaned on the side of the road years ago...

I gave it a good home, w/a kitteh to sit in it...

One of its first incarnations as an art cart on the porch...

This summer it helped me as my painting cart...

Last year it hung out w/me in my studio...

Long may it live now as our drink cart! 

The first step in making our kitchen more efficient for the entertaining! 

I will attempt a kitchen island today.... If I can dig out the items to repurpose... :-D

I hope you all had a Great Holiday! 

We made some Good Food,

We made the Clean Up Educational,

Now we MAKE the Kitchen Kick Ass!

I Gotta Go MAKE SOMETHING!!! ;-D

XOXO

~JM

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