Open House!

Welcome to Open Kitchen Day! My friend Penny at Lake Lure Cottage has invited all her friends to show where they work. (Or play, depending on your perspective!)

I live in a small house, about 800 square feet, with a smallish kitchen. I have managed to cram a lot of toys in there though! The oak cupboards were there when we moved in, relatively new at the time, so we took our decorating cues from them.

The house is a semi, we don't get a lot of light from outdoors. Most of the windows are small and high up, but it is cozy and warm and we like it.

On the Valentines Day after we moved in, 9 years ago, hubby wallpapered the kitchen in a miniature rose pattern for me - I must have a million roses on my walls!

Fortunately I had some pics of my kitchen on hand. You might recognize a couple. Little has changed.. except I have more salts and spices.
I love my kitchen, and spend the bulk of my time either there or on the computer... looking at other peoples' food..

We often sit at the island on stools, and the Food Network keeps me company in the background on a little 13" television.

As he is handy and creative, hubby has made me kitchen furniture and accessories over the years. He made the kitchen island (yes, those are floor tiles on it..), the chalk board, spice racks, pot rack, kitchen island cart.... all in the same oak style finish.

He even left room on top of the pot rack for my beloved Bundt pans! And teddy, guardian of the Bundt pans.

Um, mini Bundt pans.. if there is a 12 step program for pan collectors.. I don't want to know about it!

Even though he made me nice spice racks.. I now have well over 100 spices so they also have a cupboard. Actually, by now they have taken over the top shelf too.

And my salt rack for different kinds of salt.. now I have 20+ smaller jars of specialty salts sitting on top. I am a bit of a collector..

I like the country like flair that the rose and oak give to the kitchen, seems homey.

A pantry peek, lots of goodies! The wire shelving was originally holding beanie babies.. now they live in a bag in the closet. Poor beanies.

This pantry is actually a closet. We took down a wall to the back bedroom to open up the kitchen and fit a table in, about 4 years ago. The closet became my pantry. Very handy indeed. I just wish it was twice as big.

Actually, I now have a shelf unit in the hallway for mason jars filled with beans, legumes, grains, etc. The whole house is slowly becoming part of the kitchen.

This is the extended part of the kitchen, now that the wall is down. It used to be my daughter's bedroom years ago. Yes, the rooms are small here. It is amazing how much bigger the house seemed when we took this wall down. Now we don't have to detour through the living room to get to the bedrooms and bath.

The left hand door is the closet/pantry. There are two little doggie beds against the back wall. (Also two little doggie beds in my office.. but they sleep with us at night. We like our pups to be comfy!)

This table is 5 feet across. It was a hand-me-down and I love it. It has more chairs, they are in the basement.

Hubby built the buffet and hutch, as well as the bookcase. Very handy, I think I'll keep him.

Don't forget to keep an eye out for other kitchen reveals today - and we hope you have been inspired to show off your kitchen!