Kitchenish

[mrissa]

I don't think I've ever uploaded an image to my lj before, so please tell me if these do horrible things to your pages. In any case: Timprov took these of the redness of the kitchen. This is just about as dark as it ever is in there, early dusk.





The large map on the one side of the table is a 19th century map of the city of Minneapolis. Facing it, not visible from these angles, are a bunch of Ursula Vernon's strange fruit pictures. We're planning to add two of Timprov's pictures above the stove and the sink.

I am ridiculously pleased with the Darth Vader birthday card I found for Robin (and may, in fact, return to the store in hopes that they've restocked, so that I may send the wondrous thing to many other people who might need it), and I am mildly annoyed with the clothing designers who have decided that multiple rows of ruffles on the bustline are just what we need for spring. (Ma: you're not getting a shirt like this for your birthday. No matter how you whine and cry for it.)

Bunches of stuff going on here recently, some good, some worrisome. May is going to be a Red Queen sort of month here, running to stay in place. I don't actually want to stay in place, but running faster is not coming quite as well as one might hope. Trying not to be terminally distracted. Taking things as they come to hand, which is not my strong suit, and filling in the calendar bit by bit with practicalities around family/visiting plans, which is.

I'm pretty sure I can tell which direction forward is from here. Maybe. Almost sure. In any case: some of you wanted kitchen pictures, and now you have some.

Comments

[aliseadae]

ooh, that looks gorgeous.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I am very fond of it.

[aedifica]

Pretty! That does work well.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

That's a really nice kitchen (also huge, *envy!*). The color is wonderful, really cozy.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Your kitchen makes me want to hang out in it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I find it very hang-outable, but mostly I want to bake things while I'm hanging out in there. Which is not, it turns out, the end of the world.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I'm quite fond of hanging out in kitchens where baking is occurring. Really, it'd be no hardship.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yes, that.

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

Pretty! I can so see you cooking in there. Good buffet counter. ;)

But why is there a giant chopstick holding the upper cabinets closed? Are they swingers?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That, my dear heathen, is not a giant chopstick, but rather a lefse turner. It got stuck there while we were moving, and then we were sort of amused by having it there and left it. (And yah, the upper cabinets have another opening on the other side, so we don't want to accidentally push something into the front that will make the back come open.)

Chopsticks do not come with rosmaling. If they did, I would totally buy that set of chopsticks, and never mind the nice wooden ones we already have.

[hypatia-j.livejournal.com]

My mom keeps talking about learning to do rosmaling. If she ever does, I'll make sure she does some chopsticks for you :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That would be so awesome.

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

*grin* That's one of the many reasons you're my friend; else, how would the West Coaster know these items of wonderment?

Somewhere out there, someone is asking "Why do you have a lefse turner in your cupboard?" and someone else is saying, "Oh, dear."

(Also, did you know while I'm being completely heathen-ish, I had to look up "lefse" because I had no idea what it was? Yes. *places a bet on whether she can hear the screams from here*) and you're the ninth picture on Google?!? *dies*

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Oh dear god, that picture of me desperately needs to go.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Honey, you come here for a visit or Fourth Street or whatever, and we will get you lefse. I promise.

Then if you don't like it we will get you something else and I will eat the leftover lefse. Because that's just the kind of friend I am.

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

That's a deal! I imagine had the economy not headed straight down, I would have been there long ago. :P

But it's very noble of you to sacrifice yourself on my behalf. *grin*

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

Your kitchen is almost the exact color of my wedding shawl! Also, I would KILL for a kitchen that bit. We have a wee little galley kitchen that is impossible to cook in, for a variety of reasons.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My family traditionally measures kitchens in butts. Our Concord kitchen was a one-and-a-half butt kitchen. Hayward was more two-and-a-half. This one three, four if you organize them well. Much better.

[moiread]

Being the visual person than I am, I have long since wished to know what your kitchen looked like. Ever since the first time Tim went wandering to fetch a glass of water with the wireless headset on and I heard dishes clanking around, really. Now I do know, and this pleases me to no end.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You and my mom, although of course she's known what the kitchen looks like for Quite Some Time Now. But when we lived away from home it was a pretty big thing with her to be able to picture roughly where I was. I took her past the grocery store and the post office and stuff when she visited us out in California, so she'd have a visual sense of my routines.

[pameladean]

Oh, that will be so nice in the winter. I'm sure it's nice now too, but wow, in winter it will just be splendid.

P.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Wow, that looks lovely! Thank you for posting those!

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

That is a good color. Roasted Pepper is a good name for it, too, as it is not actually Pompeiian Red, though I think the two are cousins.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

the clothing designers who have decided that multiple rows of ruffles on the bustline are just what we need for spring

And then there's Eddie Bauer, who appear to have decided that the way to differentiate new shirt designs is to stick ruching at random places. (Seriously. In the middle of the stomach? At the widest part of the bustline? What were they thinking??)

My kitchen is eensy, though at least it's functional. I miss US kitchens.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, Eddie Bauer's line of shirts this year, other than plain T-shirts, seems to be dedicated to 1) things that will make my breasts look ridiculous (ruffles, ruching at the widest part of the bustline--like lace on a Sherman tank, I swear) and 2) things that will make my breasts Announce Their Presence With Authority. It's one thing to have a dress that's constructed with elastic just under the bustline; that is enough of an Announce Their Presence With Authority problem. But a button down shirt with gathered elastic immediately under the bustline? Y HALO THAR WE R THE BRESTS WE R PLEEZED TO MEK YUR QUAINTENS. Which, it turns out, is not my goal when I get dressed in the morning.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

My most recently-purchased bras are a 32D. The Nordstrom saleswoman assured me they're just cut small, but you can imagine the shock to someone who was a 32A from age 15 (AA before that) into her 30s. You can probably also understand why I will be wearing my recent EB purchases only with my least constructed bras.

Fortunately 3 of the 5 are rucheless. The other two... well, we'll see. Also a loose linen tunic should not be tight in the arms, either upper or lower, just because a person might lift a few weights now and then.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

A person who lifts a few weights now and then might sympathize.

Seriously: I know what serious weight-lifting looks like, and it's not the little bitty stuff I do, so why is this an issue? Why???

[athenais.livejournal.com]

It is a splendid kitchen, made more splendid by that delicious color. I feel strongly my kitchen would be more splendid if it were also a roasted pepper color.

This spring's colors are revolting to my eyes. Even if I needed new clothes I wouldn't buy a thing until the designers came to their senses. Preferably by fall.

I hope you get a flamingo croquet game or two out of your Red Queen May, at least.

ETA: That was not the icon I meant to use. This one is!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Several stores have made things the color of blueberry juice stains. I like this all right if only it didn't have ruffles or ruching.

[intrepida.livejournal.com]

Lovely color, and I agree with the previous commenter who said it would be especially lovely in the winter.

[talimena.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is lovely. The colour is wonderful and I also especially like the bay window. (Is it a bay window when the jutting out part is not just windows? The window alcove? The bit where the table is.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think you're right that a bay window means that only the window is the jutting out bit, although I am no expert.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

It's a nice, cozy red kitchen in either view, but I think the second picture gives the bananas a more becoming angle.

First they dropped the Return of the Babydoll look on us, and now bust ruffles? Oh, the humanity! I'm hauling out the vintage dress patterns and sewing my own, I think. At least in the 1950s, they thought it was a good plan to balance things out. Really, my Chairlady of the Garden Club/DAR/Society for the Doing of Good Unto bosom does not need any help letting the world know it's there

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Bananas, like most of the rest of us, look better in partial profile than head on.

[panjianlien.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a great color. I wholeheartedly approve. Also, your mom did a lovely job!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

She's really good at this sort of thing.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

I love it! Looks like a great place to have a cup of tea. :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Actually if markgritter makes me tea, he brings it up here to my office, and if I make myself tea, I tend to take it into the library. But I don't see any reason we shouldn't have tea in the kitchen.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

And cake? Can we have cake and tea?

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Or death.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No death. Just cake.

But not until Sunday.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ooh, kitchen porn! *wants kitchen*

[crimini.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I love the red! Take some photos in daylight for the glory shot. :D

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

That warms the cockles of my Dallas-raised heart, which is convinced any kitchen smaller than yours is no real kitchen at all.

(By which standard, no, I haven't had a real kitchen since I moved away to college. What we've got right now is about the size of one of your countertops.)

[biguglymandoll.livejournal.com]

Beautiful; great color in the kitchen! I has Kitchen Envy, just a little. ;-)

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

Thank you, belatedly, for these pictures! Red red red. I could totally have red, though I expect mine would be brighter. Are your ceilings higher than eight feet? My low ceilings make for a puzzlement of cabinets.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't know that they are. markgritter and timprov and my dad can easily put a hand up on the ceiling, at least in the food prep area, where there's a dropped bit over the fluorescents.