A Right Royal Show

As I may have mentioned before, I am very proud of my vintage home. I have put a lot of time and effort into making it just so. There are odd little areas, though, where there is room for improvement, and a corner of my kitchen was a good example of this. I have a space near my fridge that needs something in it, but it's difficult to decide what. Previously I had a kitchen trolley, with baskets full of baking ingredients and some vintage kitchen bits and bobs on top. I was never too enamoured with this though. The trolley always looked a bit untidy and it never really looked vintage enough, no matter how much vintage stuff I piled on top, so when Alex and I were browsing a second hand furniture store and saw a lovely cabinet for sale, well, what could I do but buy it?

This gorgeous little specimen was a whole £10, it is quite wonderful and I knew I had to have it, even if it meant having to rearrange my kitchen cupboards just so I could fit my baking stuff and pots and pans in them (my pans were previously on a shelf above the trolley).

We had no means of transporting it home that day, so we came back a week later with Alex's van to pick it up. This turned out to be quite eventful as the van got a puncture and we had to wait for a nice RAC man to come and help us. Anyway, we got home and got to work. 

I knew I wanted to keep my Royal Albert China in the cabinet, as it had been in a cupboard before and definitely needed a showcase, so Alex and I spent an afternoon tidying, organising and general rearranging of my cupboards until we had room to fit everything in. This was a good thing as it meant I could get to things much easier and as things were arranged better, I had way more room than I did before.

This is my Royal Albert tea set, it was left to me by a friend of mine's mother, who knew I loved things like this. Isn't it gorgeous? It has 6 cups and saucers, 6 side plates, a sandwich plate, jug, sugar bowl and Bon Bon dish. It was just missing it's tea pot, but I found one at the right price in Alfreton, so it's all there now. My Royal plates behind were a charity shop find and are made of tin that has been lithographed. They are quite rare, apparently.

I have quite a lot of china, I see this pattern a lot in antique stores, it's very pretty. 

This is Pareek china, it is rare too and very delicate. I only have these pieces as whenever I have found any others, they are at extortionate prices.

The top of the cabinet has this great retro clock in it. It's wind up but unfortunately it's been overwound at some stage, so no longer works. It makes no difference to me though, I love everything about this cabinet.

It makes a huge diffence to that corner of my kitchen, in two ways really; 1, it highlights just how modern my fridge looks and 2, it looks way way better that my trolley did. I do realise that I am a very lucky girl to have these beautiful pieces of furniture, especially as they will just become more rare as the older generation disappears and is replaced by a younger one that generally wants all the modern streamlined and high tech stuff that's on offer (you know, a sideboard that can play music and has a pop up flat screen and stuff). I do a lot of leg work when it comes to sourcing things, a bit of time and effort always pays off in the end and I'm then the proud owner of a house full of things that make me happy. Now about that modern fridge.........

                                Till next time dears xx