in one sense and another

When I was a little girl my parents built a kitchen island. I don’t remember the building of it, and I don’t really remember the "before” – but I do remember it being there all of a sudden, a hulking fixture of Formica and walnut-stained wood dividing the kitchen and dining room. On the kitchen side were cabinets (& maybe drawers); on the dining room side was a “breakfast bar,” with two barstools, where I did indeed eat breakfast -cold cereal or instant oatmeal most days, egg-in-a-hole on weekends.

When I was 10, my best friend Missy and I decided to logroll a watermelon. We were very young and very foolish, but we really did think we could walk on a watermelon like a log. Boy, were we wrong, and boy, was my mother furious when she discovered the mess we’d made and unsuccessfully tried to clean up. When we moved a year later, she found watermelon seeds under the island.

The log home we’re hoping to buy when our current house sells needs an island, don’t you think?

These examples all have their charms:

countryliving.com

designawards.wordpress.com

kitchensource.com

rosevinecottagetwo.blogspot.com

sunset.com

apartmenttherapy.com

ballarddesigns.com

countryliving.com

countryliving.com

countryliving.com

ths.gardenweb.com

“In a sense, each of us is an island. In another sense, however, we are all one. For though islands appear separate, and may even be situated at great distances from one another, they are only extrusions of the same planet, Earth.” ~ J. Donald Walters

http://confessionsofasineater.blogspot.com/

food and cheer and song

We packed up the dining room and kitchen over the weekend. Boxes of china and crockery, bowls, platters, jugs, and cups fill the foyer. We're down to just enough of everything.

Kitchens are so important; a bad kitchen can ruin an otherwise good house, and a great kitchen can elevate a passable house to the level of wonderful.

I prefer an eat-in kitchen, for the simple reason that there's a place for people to sit and laugh and drink wine and taste-test while the cooks cook. Dining rooms are still best for most meals, but midnight milk and cookies are best enjoyed at the kitchen table.

I like all of these kitchens (the last one is my favorite!):

photos: 1) homesandgardens.com 2) countryliving.com

3 & 4) countryhome.com 5-7) myhomeideas.com

8) unknown

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." -J.R.R.Tolkien

http://confessionsofasineater.blogspot.com/