Kitchen Dresser Update

While I like a welcoming and pretty home, anyone can tell I’m not about fussy.

I don’t have vignettes on every flat surface and layers of stuff all over my mantle. In fact, the easier to dust while maintaining character, the better if you ask me. That being said, I do like to change things up every now and then and because moving furniture isn’t that much of an option in this house, the displays I curate get swapped around on a regular basis.

A long time ago, when we were young and broke, we had three sets of china. One was used every day. It was cheap and if I remember had a blue and yellow pattern on it. The second was the Noritake china my mother gave me for Christmas one year. It was had burgundy and gold edging and if I’d had the chance to choose I would never have picked that pattern. The Noritake was the good china. It came out for occasions but I avoided using it if I could. The last set was the Burleighware Willow Pattern with gold edging given to me by my grandmother. I’ve always loved it and had it on display in every house we owned. Until the farm, our house was always decorated with that set in mind. But it never got used. It was only for decoration.

After moving to the farm in 2018, I decided that good china would be a thing of the past. I was going to use everything I owned because life’s too short to keep it stacked in a cupboard or on a shelf. In my view, that’s the reason vintage and antique decor have such a bad reputation. People see the items as dust collectors, not as items to be used.

So, now, we have a dresser that’s used for our everyday china. But unlike the way I used it before, the dresser is filled with pieces I love and use. If they break, they break. And because I like to shake things up… it’s time for a change!

Most recently, our kitchen dresser looked something like this after I introduced green accents to the living area using a piece of pottery designed by my father in the 1950s as inspiration. It added a certain freshness to the room for spring and brought the outdoors in.

Then, as the kitchen was installed and the room began to take shape, I moved the dresser and became more neutral by mixing white/cream with the green.

With summer here, I decided to change the green for a fresher blue. And what better way than to get my grandmother’s willow pattern china out of the cupboard!

I started by changing the green cross-stitch above the dresser to a more neutral watercolour and reinstating my two enamel jugs, one which I filled with faux eucalyptus to add height and presence. I then layered out the blue and white china, introducing double layers behind the horizontal surfaces to give a feeling of fullness to the dresser.

NOTE: This is our everyday china. It’s not for only display purposes (other than the pieces that lean at the back of each shelf) Therefore, the pieces need to be accessible and not too stacked. Otherwise, they’re hard to get to when you want to use them.

To add texture and contrast, I added the little china hen in the centre and some of Mr GGF’s old rugby trophies. No, we don’t use these but the tarnish of the pewter really plays nicely with the blue and white and the little hen is a cute decor piece that adds the farm touch.

What do you think?