Why is it that the kitchen is often the last place in a home that is made beautiful and comfortable? It's where everyone wants to congregate, but the floors are left bare and the walls unadorned. The kitchen is perhaps more about function and functionality than any other space in the home, but as we maximize its usefulness we shouldn't forget to make it beautiful in whatever small ways we can. After all, we spend so much time here.
Beautify: Flowers in the Kitchen
Flowers are just a given in our kitchen. We have talked about flowers in the kitchen on more than one occasion, including this one. They are a little luxury that has become a necessity.
But they don't need to be an expensive luxury. I clip my herb plants as they get bushy, bringing in snippets of basil, rosemary, and sage. They live well in little cups of water or bud vases, brightening the kitchen with that small pop of fragrant green.
Another tip: separate inexpensive bouquets from the grocery store or Trader Joe's into individual buds and groupings of two or three flowers and scatter them through your kitchen and on the dining table.
Don't throw out entire bouquets - often there are just one or two flowers with some life and fading beauty left. These particular ranunculus are the last sturdy remnants from the buckets of fresh flowers I used for my wedding centerpieces last week.
And when even flowers are gone, use your produce for color and beauty! Tomatoes make great centerpieces. The natural harvest beauty of eggplants, tomatoes, pumpkins, knobbly squash and gourds, ridged kale, papered onions and white garlic all can make your kitchen more beautiful when they are allowed a place to shine.
What are you doing to beautify your kitchen this month?
Related: Get more inspiration for daily flowers in the kitchen from Matt's PlantTherapy features at AT: New York.
(Images: Faith Durand)
Comments (3)
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okay, i love that tea set in the picture. do you have any details?
view Signe's profile
I painted the walls in my kitchen as soon as I moved in, put up shelves and a clock, too. Now I'm going to get really narrow shelves and display some of my serving platters for decoration. My cookbooks too, maybe.
view Tiamat_the_Red's profile
my roommate, who does not cook at all, often leaves me a few surprise flowers in a small jam jar on the windowsill in our kitchen. makes me smile EVERY time.
view nyalli718's profile