Cooking and Dining "Art"

I thought I would talk about one aspect of "conscious design" as it pertains to our house.  Of course it involves cooking and dining tools as 80% of my blog will most likely revolve around food!

When preparing to move into an "almost" 800 square foot house we had to decided what we were going to keep, what needed to be stored and what we were getting rid of. Thankfully, the storage part was already being taken care of at our cabin. When I was 7-8 months pregnant somebody finally bought our 2500 square foot house (it had been on the market for 2-1/2 years!) and we moved into an apartment. At that time everything we didn't need got stored at the cabin. We then took care of a house for a friend for 2 years while looking for, and then finally purchasing our current house. 

The house we purchased needed to have the kitchen, bathroom and breezeway completely redone. This allowed for us to really think about how we wanted to use the spaces and what we planned to have in them. As you can tell by my blogs, I love food and cooking more then anything (after my family of course). I needed to decide what things I really use in the kitchen and where I was going to put everything. My husband even had to create a pantry of sorts in the basement to store things like my stand-up mixer that I use about twice a year (I am not a baker). Even though the mixer looked pretty on our counter at first, it took up precious space. 

When my husband and I first started dating I had a lot of knick-knacks. He was not a big fan of them. Over the years I have learned to appreciate that less is more. Instead of knick-knacks, we purchase useful things for decorations. Everything has it's purpose (except maybe some of our daughter's toys, but you try taking anything away from her!). I am not saying we don't have pictures and art on our walls, but I no longer have my glass animal candle holders I saved up for and bought from our local Hallmark store when I was in grade school.

Below are a few of my favorite "art" things:

My very large cast iron skillet. This is a new favorite. We registered for this for our wedding, and eventually my dad and his wife got it for us the following Christmas. Right away they asked, "what the heck are you planning on cooking with that!" I have to admit it is really heavy and it was stored at our cabin for many years after we sold our first house. I recently unearthed it and it now has a permanent home on our stove top. Honestly, at first I was too lazy to put it away (seriously, it is a good work out). Eventually though I started cooking most things in it. Now, I just love how pretty it looks in my kitchen!

 These shelves are in our "diningroom/office". The two dutch ovens I use for everything! One friend asked me if I actually use the bowls or if they are just for decoration. Nope, I use them (but they are also nice to look at). All right, I have to admit I don't use the things on the top row often. However, instead of using decorations on that shelf, I decided to use what I already had. Part of the reason I don't use them though is because I don't really eat bread or cake, so I kind of forget about the cake stand and bread basket (sorry my two sweeties). 

Knives! If you can only afford to spend money on one thing in your kitchen, invest in a good knife set! Again, when space is at a premium, hanging a simple and inexpensive knife magnet is a way to save space. Plus, it looks nice on the wall. 

When designing our kitchen we decided to include glass front cabinets for our dishes. Fun dishes to me are like a piece of art (assuming you can keep them organized, and I do). When my husband and I registered for gifts for our wedding we did not choose fine china. Nothing against it, but it is just not us. I wanted something durable that was going to last. Fiestaware!  

Oh, the pink piggy bowls? I found them at a garage sale a neighbor was having. Our daughter loves them, and I love seeing them peek out of the glass cabinet doors at me!

The rest of our house is pretty calm as far as colors go, but using colorful dishes and servingware is a nice way to add a little pop and interest in our spaces. Also, using these pieces as decorations helps to eliminate clutter that seems to pile up quickly in a "petite" house.