Just a mini project today. Nothing ground-breaking, and nothing challenging. But a nice one for me nonetheless.
As we’ve been unpacking our kitchen boxes, it’s been lovely to rediscover the items we have collected over the years. Some we’ve had since we first moved in together and took that exciting young couple trip to Ikea for the basics. Other items have been passed down from my step-dad as he’s a cooking enthusiast and often updating his stash, so we get some pretty smashing second hand goods. Others are wedding presents, and the rest were Christmas gifts from this year as edged closer to the kitchen completion date. All have been lovingly wrapped in bubbles or newspaper and put safely away from harm. For a very long time.
This past fortnight we’ve slowly been unboxing. Washing everything of the dust and finding new homes for all these items.
Four mugs we got at Christmas were one of my favourite items. I adore them. I’m one of those people who has too many mugs – which is unusual, because Joe and I never use them! We don’t drink tea or coffee at home. But our guests sure do, and we plan on having lots of them once the house is in a better state.
These mugs were a lovely surprise from my sister and brother in law (and baby niece – hey Annabelle!). They’re huge so you could get a whopping hot chocolate in there. And I didn’t want these to go up in a cupboard. I wanted them on display. I’m an animal lover after all, and I love that the handles are tails of a fox or squirrel. Too cute.
So I found a cheap and cheerful Bamboo (gotta look after that environment!) mug tree. It was a fiver from Homesense which I don’t think it bad. You can get them cheaper off eBay but I was already shopping so just grabbed it. And to make it fit in with our new kitchen theme, I painted it with the paint sample of 1829 Craig and Rose chalk paint in Smalt Blue – the colour we are soon to use for a feature wall over near the dining area.
Being a chalky paint it went straight on, no sanding required, and as I had some Annie Sloan wax left over from my recent dresser project, I buffed in 2 coats to keep the paint from getting damaged over time.
As we’ve gone for a pretty neutral kitchen, with whites, greys and soft browns, these pops of blue are going to really help to add that burst of colour and personality. Not bad for a 15 minute addition at the weekend.
