Kitchen: Part Two

This is what the other side of our kitchen looked like when we bought the place. The cutout in the counter was for the dishwasher on wheels. To the right of that was a pea green stove. To the far left, below peach cabinets, was the yellow fridge.

This is after we gutted the room. After sketching out several designs, we realized that the best layout for the kitchen was to keep the sink (with the view), the stove, and the refrigerator in pretty much the same places as they were.

And here it is now...

...which is the same angle as the before picture.

It's amazing how much light comes into the kitchen from the living room.

When we designed our cabinets, we purposefully wanted to avoid an overbuilt look. We really wanted this to look like an old farmhouse kitchen - sparse and simple. So we opted to avoid upper cabinets and to not enclose the refrigerator. We also opted to have the counter terminate at the wall.

I ordered this wonderful print of a Matisse still life, which happened to fit perfectly in one of my antique frames. I thought it would be a good piece for the kitchen.

There's no gas line in our neck of the woods. If we opted for gas, we'd have to have a big tank in the yard. This didn't appeal to us at the time, and neither did the added expense, so we stayed with electric. When we started looking for a new stove I told Hubby, whatever we get, it won't be one of those shiny black top ones...and so here you are. But I'm used to it now.

We almost placed the stove on the other wall (where the open shelves are now) but we changed our minds at the last minute because I decided that I wanted one wall in the kitchen to be completely pretty. We also didn't want the stove hood obstructing the view.

P.S. Rachel over at Raenovate just posted on our farmhouse! Her beautiful blog is one of my favorites as it's, "dedicated to bringing you a glimpse of all things reinvigorated, refreshed and revived."

Eastlake Plant Stand

I have had it on my mind that I'd like to have a nice lovely Eastlake plant stand. This has been on my mind for oh, about four years now.

I've seen my fair share of them during that time. All gorgeous, all works of art...all way out of my price range. Typically, they're priced at about $100 and up.

So you can imagine that I was thrilled to come across this sweet little Eastlake plant stand the other day. She's in pretty good shape, her top needs some polish...but all her lovely parts were there and her price tag was completely in my price range. $25.

I think it goes perfectly in the bathroom...where I like to try and keep fresh flowers, a blooming orchid or plant.

Here's a picture of the top. The right side shows what it looked like when I brought it home. The left side shows what it looks like after I used my magic potion on it. My magic potion is also termed, "Kramer's Best Antique Improver", a concoction of "Traditional all-natural ingredients. Contains no petrochemicals." Bravo.

And just in case anyone is wondering where my Eastlake chair is - the one I plan to reupholster with a beautiful bird toile fabric...it's being relocated to another room, more on that later. ; )

"Ask Tea Rose Home" Answers

Hi everyone, I am back! I kind of forced myself today to stay up more so I wouldn't feel so weak. Hopefully I can start doing more. Although I never get use to going under, it was nice to take a real break and be taken care of for a few days. I mentioned my sweet husband in the last post about how he is helping me. Also, while I was in the hospital and the day after, my sister-in-law and Mother-in-law took care of my children too. I received very yummy treats from my friend, and another friend offered to bring dinner tomorrow (I am super excited, because she is a great cook!). I know I am such a lucky girl to be surrounded by such special people!!

I also want to thank you all for your kind commments for the last post, I really appreciate them. I'm starting to get more comments and emails lately, it is hard for me to respond to every single one of them. I want you to know this though, everytime I receive them, I get very excited and read them with gratitude. They give me a boost of will power to keep creating and writing new posts!

Since I posted the "Ruffle Shirt Tutorial" and "Make Believe Tweed Jacket" I got quite bit of questions in comments and emails. I thought I should take the time to answer them today.



Q: Do you use regular sewing machine or serger?

A: I use a regular sewing machine. To tell you the truth, I have a serger, it was a surprize gift from my husband a few years ago. Right now it is sitting in the sewing room, collecting dust. I feel so bad! Like I mentioned before, it takes time for me to warm up to new "tech" stuff. I am afraid that I am giong to break it. I know if I master the serger, the range of things I can create will widen. One of my new year's resolutions is to start using the serger...I think I can, I have 11 more months right?

Q: Does it fray?

A: I know, I was thinking the same thing! I started seeing more and more knit items at Jcrew, Old Navy, and Down East a few years ago, and I looked at them whenever I had the chance. I just wanted to know how they were done, some of the edges were finished by a serger, but lots of them were raw edges. I thought "Huh! That's OK?" I bought a shirt, went home, and washed it, and it didn't fray. So, I started experimenting with knit fabric more and more.

Q: When I sew with knit fabrics, they end up looking wavey and stretched out. Do you have any suggestion?

A: One of the readers, fibercontent, left advice for this type of question:

Make sure you have a sewing needle with a ball point tip. This could mostly be done by hand, too, and that would help anyone who has trouble with stretchy fabric.

Thank you for the great advice! I guess the best way to work with knit fabric is using a serger, but like I confessed I haven't learn that yet, so I won't dare to make a knit dress from start to finish. Altough I have some tricks I learned for small projects like my tutorials from trial and error.

trick 1 : Combine with non stretchy fabric. If one side is knit, use non stretchy fabric for the other. Pin it like crazy, before you sew. The knit fabric won't stretch as much.

Trick 2 : To do Applique on a T-shirt, put thin fuseble interfacing on the back of the shirt. Pin it and sew. Just like I said in trick 1, the shirt will stay flat, and won't get wavy.

Trick 3: There are directions on knit fabric, when you sew horizontally, it will stretch more and get wavy and crazy, when you sew vertically, it doesn't stretch as much. So, plan which way you want to cut the fabrics and which way you sew. That will make some difference too.


I have many great ideas, but I am a self taught sewer, and tend to be "creative" to do my own thing. Sometimes my skills and knowlage falls short. I am very humbled to know that many of you still come to my blog and enjoy what I do... Thank you so much! I want to learn more and get better at this. I just purchased a book titled "Vogue Sewing". I thought, I could learn some correct terms and techniques.

There is an old saying, "Grow old with me; the best is yet to come." I like to say, "Keep coming to Tea Rose Home, the best is yet to come."