My Dream Kitchen

Even though we rent our house, and thus have no control over the colors of the walls (plain old white), floor (mismatched beige linoleum), or cabinets (ugly fake brown wood) in our kitchen, I still have "kitchen colors" that I try to work in. The colors I've chosen are aqua and yellow. I was first inspired by an apron and matching potholder that I received a few years back as a Christmas gift:

Both from Anthropologie

I loved the color combination, and since then, have been slowly purchasing little kitchen items in those two colors. I especially love love love love the family of aqua/teal blues. I have so many little things around the house in these shades. I have to stop myself from purchasing things in only those shades all the time.

A quick tour of some of the lovely aqua or yellow "accessories" in my kitchen...

Rug in front of the sink

Sunflower- embroidered cloth

Teacups and plate from Anthro

Mat in front of the backdoor ($5 at CVS/Pharmacy)

Magnetic timer from Anthro

Vinyl tablecloth from Goodwill

A display of some of my dishes. They are a discontinued Pfaltzgraff pattern. We use these as our everyday dishes, and don't own any fancy china. The teal shade is darker than my other aqua-colored kitchen stuff, but I think the colors complement one another.

Some lovely teal shot glasses and decantur up on the glassware shelf (a gift from Tom when we were dating)


My beautiful "Ice Blue" Kitchen-aid Stand Mixer

I also have the Kitchen-aid hand mixer in Martha Stewart blue (from Macy's)

And Martha Stewart handtowels...

And Martha Stewart measuring cups

Even the cats eat off a bright blue cloth


And this lovely clock Tom made me out of foam board and cut-up calendars. It was a birthday gift he gave me several years before we even started dating. And somehow, that makes me cherish it even more.

I love all these little items I've collected. I think a kitchen should be the brightest, happiest room of the house. And bright blue and yellow do a wonderful job of making it look cheery!

What prompted this post was that yesterday I was searching for new (yellow) oven mitts online, and stumbled across some pictures of AMAZING retro-style kitchens in aqua!

Behold:


Ahhh! So much blue! I stared in wonder at this picture for a little while. I love the metal cabinetry (Tom would go crazy over that too). This does look nice, but as I look at it more, I think that it's perhaps a little too much blue...I'd want to work in another color (yellow!) for contrast.

Love love love the retro-style appliances. These are NEW, but look old. I've seen similar ones in magazines. I don't know what companies manufacture them, but I'm sure they are wayyyy out of our budget.

Sweet stove.


And this is the kitchen where I think they actually got it close to perfect. Almost everything is yellow or blue, but it's not overwhelming as in the first kitchen. It's bright and welcoming, old-fashioned and modern at the same time. The crazy thing is, on the site where I found this image, it said that the homeowners live in the very neighborhood where I grew up (and where my parents still live, and which is about 5 minutes away from me). Craziness! I sort of want to track them down, and ask them if I can come in for a little while and drool over their beautiful kitchen :-)