Old Recipes to Line Cottage Kitchen Drawers

I've been working on our kitchen cabinets here (surpise surprise!) - just one more coat of paint to go on both sides of the doors! I can't tell you just how torturous it is to paint in humid conditions. You really have to work the brush quickly, being very careful not to overbrush because the paint gets tacky fast.

I decided to go back and use a really good quality satin finish polyeurothane clearcoat on the shelfpaper (wallpaper) as opposed to the matte finish clearcoat I had been using. With three coats, the shelves now have a smooth finish that feels like glass to the touch:) Hubs re-installed the lazy suzan and so now I can put all the cabinet contents back into place! Good-bye big old temporary cabinet in our dining area...you served your purpose well, but you are ugly and take up way too much space!

I ran out of wallpaper to line the drawers, so I'm going to have to figure something else out to line them with. The wallpaper I used was $34 a roll, so I'm certainly not going to buy another roll for a few drawers. I'm thinking it might really be nifty to instead line them with pages from antique recipe books. If I can't bring myself to use the actual pages, I can always have them laser copied. I would protect them the same way I have the shelfpaper - with several coats of polyeurothane. Below are a few recipe books I've found on Ebay - none of them newer than 1922. I especially love the handmade, handwritten recipe book. I think these old recipe pages would make great framed art, too, or perhaps light weight frames could be made for them and they could hang on the inside of the cabinet doors (attached with velcro). So many possibilities with these old books...

Today I came across a photo album of a really sweet cottage in Texas. The homeowner used many of the same colors I love - red, green, and yellow - throughout her home. I especially like her bathroom and kitchen with generous use of beadboard. So pretty! Grab a cup of tea and check out the ninety something photos of Smith Cottage!