Kitchen Antiques

When I was growing up, we occasionally went to a local restaurant where the walls were filled with kitchen antiques --  pie tins and wooden spoons, and trays with old advertising slogans on them.  

That may have been where my interest in kitchen antiques was kindled.  My favorites run more toward tole trays, silverplate and, of course, dishes.  

I seem to have quite a few green tole trays, to match the wallpaper that I will soon be removing.  (Doh!)  But I do love the black ones, too.  

What do you think of this butcher block cabinet?  It's from Ikea.  We used it as a kitchen island when we still had our old cabinets.  We moved it from the center of the kitchen and switched out the drawer pulls to match our new cabinets.  It holds a terrific amount of large serving dishes.  One of my kitchen designers took one look at it, and said that I obviously was not afraid of open storage.   Actually, it would be closer to the truth to say that it was cheap, the right size, and not too horrible to look at.  It is certainly extremely functional. 

There was a time when I had a LOT of roosters in the kitchen.  I think I have successfully pared them down to a manageable group, but they still tend to populate the countertops.  But I'm searching for creamware now, so I'll have to find someplace to store all the rest for a while...

And of course, all of this will have to come down when I start stripping the wallpaper.  Yikes!