Cottage Style vs. Recessed Lighting? Kitchen Lighting Plan and Mock-Up

I really appreciate all the thoughts and opinions below regarding the beams. Hubs is really thrilled that everyone felt the way he felt- just a beam at the seams! I'll be so glad when they're up...I'm anxious to see how they look:)

After we are fininished with the ceiling in the kitchen, we'll start working on the lighting. Once again, I find myself questioning my previous decisions. Last year, I really liked the idea of having recessed lighting to fill in the dark spots in our kitchen and dining area, but I'm wondering if recessed lighting would take away from the cottage/country style I'm trying to create. Would it "clutter" up the look of new plank ceiling? Ack...too many things to think about!

I'm posting a mock-up of my original lighting design. The lighting you see above the island, sink and dining area have just been digitally "installed", lol.

Each proposed recessed lighting location is marked with a letter. I especially wanted lighting above the french door area (A) and the two locations in the dining area (D and E). Then I thought that the "L" corner of the kitchen (B) would need some light. To make things nice and symmetrical, I proposed putting one on the left side of the sink (C) as well. What are your thoughts? Does recessed lighting belong in this cottage kitchen? If so, should I remove any from my plan? Thanks again, you all. After we cut holes in the ceiling, there is no going back!





Also, just a note to add that I've upgraded to Blogger Beta, which gives me the ability to easily add categories to each entry. It will take me a while to go back and add labels to all my previous entries, but hopefully I'll get them all done.

2008 UPDATE: We decided to go with recessed lighting after all and are thrilled with the results. To see photos, see updated kitchen photos here.

Inspiration from "A Storybook Life"

This week I discovered a wonderful new blog called "A Storybook Life". All of you cottage style lovers will surely appreciate the photos of her home and her decorating tips, advice, and articles. During my first visit, I discovered a beautiful set of artful and colorful stacking boxes that work perfectly with my style and color scheme. Pearl was kind enough to let me know where I could purchase the boxes for my home and I ordered them yesterday (from Lang.com), along with a matching calendar. If you haven't done so already, check out A Storybook Life.

Oh, and here is the calendar and all the art within it. These would be beautiful framed, don't you think?

Plank Ceiling Installation Progress + Opinions Needed

The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous as of late. You just can't beat 70 degree weather!

I know I haven't posted in a while (long story involving my allergies and a stray cat residing in our office...anyhoo) but I thought I'd share some pictures of our plank ceiling progress in the kitchen. We started the install this week and are about 2/3's of the way finished with adding the boards - then we'll need to install some box beams, put on another coat of gloss paint, and add the crown moulding. I was so excited about the impact that the wood ceiling has on our kitchen so far so a snapped a few photos.

Just getting started...We didn't tear down our old (horrifically ugly) ceiling but just installed right on top of it. We are using 5 inch wide X 3/4 inch thick tongue and groove pine.





A whole row completed...


Two rows completed...We'll be putting beams over those seams where the ends butt up against each other.












Next we'll do the ceiling above the dining area. Hubs was itching to do it this weekend, but we had to bring more planks from the garage to acclimate for a week or so before installing them.


On the subject of beams...one of us wants to put beams *just* at the seams and one of us wants to put beams at the seams AND at the middle of the planks. The beams are not going to be monstrous, perhaps only 5 inches wide and about 4 or so inches deep. We will paint them the same color as the ceiling. Thoughts and opinions would be appreciated!

Here is a view of the kitchen area from the living room.


This is a view from the kitchen into the dining area. The kitchen and dining is one big space.


More beams (one every 3 feet) or Fewer beams (one every 6 feet) ???

What's Cooking & "Ugly Dining Table Turned Cottage Coffee Table" Progress

You may remember a few weeks back I posted photos of the $10 dining room table I found at Goodwill. Though this particular table is a very nice, solid wood, solid as a rock table, we don't need a dining table, and if we did, this one would be way too small. But I thought it would make for a perfect oversized coffee table, which we do need. I sanded it within an inch of it's life, hubs cut the legs down to coffee table height, and then I primed it. Now, I just have to figure out which shade of white to paint it. I guess the exact color isn't too critical because I'll be applying a brown glaze then quickly wiping it off, so the color won't be a white, white anyway. I'm going for...you guessed it...an "aged" look.

And just to show that we are making some progress on the ceiling planks, here's a little photographic proof. Love that shine! Normally I'm not a fan of high gloss but I think on ceilings, it's lovely and and fresh and "clean" feeling. We are painting the first coat before we install and will paint the second coat after installation.


With the colder weather upon us now, I find myself again immersed in reading about the "old days". Specifically, old-timey cooking and pioneer living. I wanted to share with you a few books that I've picked up recently and that I've thoroughly enjoyed. I only wish my grandmother was alive still because she, too, was interested in such things and even once asked me to find her some old-time cookbooks online. She would have loved the ones I found a couple of weeks ago. Along with taking in a bit of old fashioned culinary knowledge, I've been discussing with the kids "the way things were" in the pioneer days and just how different our lives are today. I just find it fascinating and my two youngest kidlets do as well. I've been reading to them Little House in the Big Woods and have already bought Farmer Boy and Little House in the Prairie...I'll buy the other books in the Little House series one or two at a time. One of our favorite things to do is to sit by the fire and read about the old days. The books are very descriptive and I think they do wonders for a child's imagination. To help them learn even more about pioneer times, I also picked up If You Were a Pioneer on the Prairie. It's a fascinating full color illustration, question and answer book for children.

"This new addition to the popular question-and-answer history series invites readers to step back in time and see what it was like to grow up on the Great Plains more than 100 years ago.What kind of house would you live in? What kind of clothes would you wear? What would you do for fun? Would you go to school? The answers to these and 34 more questions give eight-to-ten-year-olds a vivid idea of a pioneer child's day-to-day life as well as the hardships the pioneering family faced as they attempted to settle in the vast and often forbidding prairie lands."

The cookbooks that I have are from Native Ground. Native Ground (as you'll see from their homepage) is a great place to visit and shop if you love everything about the way things use to be...from music to food to manners to folklore.

I picked up what they had available at our bookstore but I see they have many more books online. Just look at these titles! I'd love to have the whole collection! You may also be able to find some of these at Amazon.

The 1st American Cookie Lady
The Lost Art of Pie Making
Early American Cookery
Manners & Morals of Yesterday
Old-Time Farmhouse Cooking (Rural American Recipes, Wisdom, & Farmlore)
Mama's In The Kitchen (Weird & Wonderful Home Cookin' 1900-1950 ~)
Take Two & Butter 'Em While They're Hot! (Heirloom Recipes & Kitchen Wisdom)
*Children at the Hearth (19th Century Cooking, Manners & Games)
*Log Cabin Cooking (Pioneer Recipes & Food Lore)
*Secrets of the Great Old-Timey Cooks
Sing It Yourself! -12 Old-Time Sing Alongs

So, along with reading, I've also been cooking up yummy fall meals like Shepherds Pie, Potato Broccoli Soup, Cheesy Chick Corn Soup with Dumplings, and biscuits, of course! These are great stick to your bones meals (errr, or I should say... "stick to your hips" meals, lol!)

Cottage Accessories Part Deux (or I Have Nothing More Interesting to Share)

Nothing exciting to report on the homefront today. Life and the cold weather is slowing us from painting those planks as much as we need to be now. Last night I spent hours on school related things...helping my oldest kidlet with pre-algebra (oy!), covering toilet paper rolls with white paper (of the non-absorbent variety), tracing and cutting out paper pretzels, priming a shoebox to be painted later today - all for my middle child's upcoming Octoberfest/Germany study. Hubs worked eight days straight...some emergency came up at his company and he couldn't get away for the weekend. He finally took today off and he's spending it with our youngest girl (they're out on their "date" now...). Tonight, we're having dinner with some dear friends who will be moving out of state in a few days, and before that, more homework/school-related things to do. Hubs says we may have to set up our plank painting station on our dining table (protected, of course). I foresee more mealtime chaos in our near future:)

So with no work related photos to post, I thought a share a few more cottage accessory photos. The other day, Kim from Daisy Cottage shared a photo of some sweet little Italian gold boxes she had. I told her that I would try and post a photo of an Italian gold box that I've had for many years, plus some Italian and Spanish gold mirrors. I bought the mirrors at a yard sale for $10 (for the set!) shortly after hubs and I got married and later found the gold box at another yard sale. The box isn't in great shape but I still enjoy having it. I pulled these mirrors out to photograph them but they've been wrapped up and stored for a while...excuse the dust! You can click on the photo to enlarge.



Even though we don't actually *have* a real working guest bathroom yet, when I run across things that I would like to use in there someday, I pick them up if I can afford it. I bought this little cabinet and shelf at Hobby Lobby a few months back. They are solid wood, distressed, and less than $40 for the both of them!


I found a couple of 12 X 12 inch plaster floral reliefs at a consignment shop recently....just $1.99 each. They're nice and heavy.


No, that's not me trying to make shadow puppets, lol, though I think it is my hand partially covering the flash. I had to precariously perch atop our kitchen countertop to snap this photo. I have this relief above our kitchen cabinets.


I have a weakness for colorful mosaic "anything" so I was happy to find this mosaic candle holder. I keep it in the bedroom beside the bed, but photographed it the bathroom because the lighting was a bit better...


I guess I'm going to go and try to be productive now, though while the house is empty it sure is tempting to find a good book and a warm corner!

Cottage Accessories

It's been a while. With the changing weather, I've had to deal with some health problems so I've just been shuffling around here like a little old lady and haven't managed to get much accomplished. First hip problems, then my neck went out. Joy. We're still painting all those pine planks that will be installed as our kitchen ceiling. The color is called "Pale Bloom" and it's a pale creamy white. We have about 10 more painting sessions to go...painting 15 planks at a time. That's all the space we have to work. When they are dry we, stand them up on end to cure and will eventually bring them into the house to acclimate before we install them.

So in between painting sessions, I've just been puttering. I've collected lots of cottage accessories over the months and thought I'd give the empty space above the cabinets a trial decorating run. Everything will have to come down soon when we work on the ceiling (and we still have so much work to do in the kitchen...I just got the decorating bug that day, I guess!), but it was fun to experiment and get some ideas of how to display my wooden bowls, baskets, and "white" items. I bought some thin little long twigs to put around the edges and this gives kind of a rustic, natural look. I may need to elevate some of the items a bit...we'll see.

Oh, in case some of you are wondering about what I've decided to do with the backsplash, I've made a decision! My choices were beadboard or painted and antiqued brick pavers, or 1 inch travertine tile. I was really, really leaning toward the tile because it just matched perfectly with the countertop we've chosen. Upon further consideration, I felt that it might just be too busy with all the other patterns we'll have going on. Some also felt that it might look too modern for a cottage. Since we'll be putting beadboard halfway up the kitchen and dining walls, I felt that also using it as a backsplash would be a little redundant. So to add more texture and for that old-fashioned feel, I've decided to go with the brick pavers. You can see a couple in the photo below that I've painted up and antiqued.





Gotta love red flowers! I'd like to paint that planter an antique brown or antique white. I picked up that gumball machine at a yardsale last week. I did *have* some chocolate malt balls (Whoppers) in there, but they didn't last long.:)



I found a home for that 100 year old painting of a cottage I bought a few weeks back. I put it above my armoire in the bedroom. There's just something so home-y about it. Ah, and the bedroom furniture. Yet another painting project for the future. Am I obsessed or what?!

My Indoor Cottage Garden

With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures
and some books, I live without envy.
- Lope de Vega

Someday I hope to throw myself into the exterior landscaping of this place. With our time so divided as it is, I'm afraid I would only succeed at killing any plant or flower I attempted to nurture. There is so much potential here, so many garden beds that have pretty much sat vacant for a couple of years. I can't wait to fill them to the brink with all kinds of colorful flowers and plants. Someday...someday. For now, I'll be quite content caring for a little indoor cottage garden over the winter. I've already made up one small window sill "garden" and will be creating a second one for the other living room sill in a few days. I really love how they look in baskets. I'm supposing that I'll need to line the baskets and get the plants out of their little pots and give them a bit more room to grow.





I also found a sweet little plant, commonly called a "Sunny Ficus" to go in one of my "new" old urns. After looking at it for a while today, I decided that it looked like a chia head. The worn spot on the urn looks like puckered lips, lol. But that's okay.



Speaking of windows, I'm happy to say that we are now the proud owners of real wood (white) blinds for our living room! We haven't had any kind of real window covering in there for probably a year now and...well...I've really gotten use to our naked windows! I've chosen a slightly different trim color that is a t a d more creamy (as opposed to the stark white) so I'll need to repaint the trim before we can install the blinds. I think I might be a little sad to cover up our uninterrupted view, but we really need the extra insulation on the windows this winter.