My Kitchen Cabinets

Yesterday, I spent the entire day reorganizing my kitchen cabinets. My house is a 1926 Craftsman and the kitchen is small and ugly! I have one cabinet that has two-sided glass doors and I have been struggling with opening and closing these since day #1. Hubby suggested that I put all my nice China and Crystal in that cabinet and they will look nice and I won't be opening the door all the time.

Oops! Once that project began (with a trip to the store to buy red non-slip shelf liner), I took all the old food jars, meds & vitamins (check expiration dates today, I was shocked how many things I was still taking that expired last year!), washed the shelves, lined them, I could not stop.

Hence why I say I suffer from obsessive compulsive organizing because when I start, I keep going!

Here is what my kitchen looks like now. I am a huge collector of the Desert Rose pattern by Franciscan and have been blessed to stumble across many of my pieces by accident. I have a butter dish without the finial which is a rare find & I got it dirt cheap because the seller thought it was broken! The tea kettle is the original one made in Thailand and I used it up until recently when I got one that whistles.
The basket at the bottom was a piece I located at Ross & while it is made in China and all the other pieces I have are the original pieces made in the USA or Thailand, I found yesterday it makes for a great vitamin basket for my daily vitamins, aspirin, etc.

This second picture is just a bit closer shot and straighter shop. The pitcher and glasses were another find. They are actually peach blossoms by Gay Fad, but match the Desert Rose great!

The crystal are by Libbey glass!

One thing that amazes people who know me is that I have so many pieces and I don't seem to be the 'type,' that would collect these.

Okay, so what type of person collects china and crystal? My great-grandmother had a set of these and promised them to me as a child. When grandma passed away during her funeral my great Uncle Bobby went to her home and stole everything he could including the dishes, I was so sad!

But is isn't just about the dishes, because as most people who know me can testify to you and these pictures will also, I use many of these as my daily dinnerware! This picture is of the built-in china/dish cabinet in my dining area (you have to love these older homes!) As you can see, I have my dishes I use daily and they don't match my bowls, but who cares? The other pieces you see in this picture get used as well!
If you look really close up on the top shelf and to the right, you will see the original doorknob taken off my best friends home when he demolished it to build new. That door knob gives me comfort every time I see it!

So, I moved the china to the food cabinet, the food to the dish cabinet and the daily dishes closer to the kitchen table.

Now for the last piece of organization I wanted to show everyone, my sewing closet. Remember I am not able to have large space for my quilting and crafting projects due to the size of our home, so hubby created my sewing closet.

Here is the shelf above my sewing machine. You can see I labeled not only the shelf, but each container so if someone borrows something from me, they know exactly where to put it back (like that would ever happen)!

Now, onto today's projects, finishing a quilt and painting some walls!