Meet Kelvin!

One of our favorite and most adored possessions is our vintage Kelvinator refrigerator! 

Of course, his name is Kelvin! 

We walked into a thrift store one day (and went our separate directions immediately, as is our pattern) and each fell in love independently with Kelvin!  And then we were SO delighted when we discovered that what we each feared the other would view as silly was a mutual passion!

We can't understand why Kelvin hadn't already been snapped up but he was still there, waiting for his new home, and had been there long enough to have been reduced to 66% off.  We paid $29.30!  I guess no one had the right spot for a vintage fridge.  But WE did! 

Kelvin immediately became the focal point of the Taylor house kitchen!  The color scheme for the kitchen quickly became "Kelvinator Green" and red which is basically Coca-Cola colors!  As Coke stuff was already a passion, this was PERFECT!

Here's a shot I'm a little embarrassed to show because it's so "in-process" rather than so "finished and perfect"!  I took off all the horrible plaid wallpaper and haven't gotten to finish with the next step in my plan for the kitchen!  The top 18" of the wall will be beadboard (ok, beadboard textured wallpaper but you probably won't be able to tell when it's done) painted Kelvinator Green.  The lower 4' of the walls (on either side of Kelvin) will be corrogated tin.  The shelves will all remain white.

Kelvin worked when we bought him but now needs a little coolant refill -- probably to be paid for with garage sale $.  But, even if he never cools anything ever again, we still love him and will find something to store in him!

Here are a few shots of Kelvin's details!

Also, meet Kelvin's friend:  the cutest set of drawers around, as far as I'm concerned (though I'm well aware that you might not share my crush)!

I fell in love with these vintage drawers at the thrift store.  Mark talked them down to $4 for me.  When the thrift store guy loaded them into the truck for us, he suggested that they would make good kindling if they fell apart!  Clearly he had no vision!  I had the slab of granite laying around and it was the PERFECT size to go on top!  And the combination fits perfectly in the space next to Kelvin and adds much-needed counter space in our tiny kitchen! 

BTW, it looks a little mauve in the photo but the rug on the floor is actually woven brown leather which is actually really neat and 100% dumpster (as in FREE)!

Another design element in the kitchen is black board paint.  Here is a shot of the other side of the kitchen (still sporting that awful plaid wallpaper but soon to be Kelvinator Green instead) that shows the original vintage cabinets with their blackboard-painted insets.  I use these for these grocery lists, menus, and notes.  That curtain is going to go somewhere else soon!

On the other side of the kitchen is the door to the back sun porch.  It's hard to see (so I made the picture BIG!), but each panel has a day of the week written on it in chalk.  I love this!



So that's where we are so far!  Stay tuned!

The Evolution of the Stove

Let's just admit it. This stove is UGLY! (I use that word alot on this blog, don't I?) Ok, so it's a little retro kitchy but not very. It's mainly just ugly. This kitchen is dim and dingy and depressing and dated and dinky and certainly not the least bit appetizing!

And the wall paper isn't doing the stove or anything else in the room any favors. I understand it's cheerful intent. But I just plain hate it.

Below is an ugly mid-stage of the kitchen that's not much better. I took the cabinet doors off and really like the open shelving but it's a long way from finished. The dumpster anemone lamp is purely for light, I assure you. It has already moved on to other seas!

I found four pieces of corrogated tin beside the dumpster at the mini storage and asked the manager if they were for a project or up for grabs. He almost begged me to take them! It wasn't fun to cut them to size but I LOVE the way they look behind the stove! Now, if I can only remember to secure them a little better so they wall paper doesn't peak through! But I think things are finally starting to come together and the stove wall is looking MUCH better! Sorry I don't have a better, more-expansive picture but I'll add one in when I can!

I also love this little still-life! On the stove are some small dumpster items that I gathered together: a glass luncheon plate (once a staple in ladies' world that no one ever uses anymore -- in my hometown, chicken potato chip salad was the most likely topper!) , a glass sugar bowl, metal salt and pepper shakers, a glass vinegar bottle, another glass bottle, and a milk glass container the perfect size for toothpicks. I LOVE this little gathering. I always recommend coralling small items on a tray of some sort. It just looks exponentially BETTER! It transforms "clutter" into "still-life"! And here it can hold useful cooking supplies like salt, pepper, vinegar, olive oil, sugar, and toothpicks.

The "2" and "3" seem to be cake pans or molds or cake cutters or something along those lines. I paid $2.99 each for them (which is a lot out of the freesourcefull budget) because numbers and letters are just good graphically.

Stay tuned. I have LOTS more plans for the kitchen! And you've only seen one wall!