i love to see through windows. divided and protected by layers of reflection. a narrow perspective that gives only limited access. softening the truth, distilling it to a story. unpeeling and segmented. a story framed. overlapping aperture interrupted with diaphanous smoky images. the mundane with added value. this is my kitchen. the back window that sits over the sink and looks into the yard. the light is melted and golden. the dirty dishes and pile of compost by the door has disappeared. the trees are reflected in the glass and the painting by the fridge is a dark hollow space. windows and baskets and the busy-ness of an evening meal, it's there but it's ready for you to make it your own.

i love subway tile. it is a constant elegant and timeless look. and with every house we do, i'm amazed how the simple white tile takes it to gasp-worthy in a single day. today at our latest house, we finished the kitchen backsplash. tom had tiled it yesterday and this afternoon, it's full beauty emerged when we grouted it....yep, i helped. i'm still digging grout from my cuticles and fingernails. i had to fight for this one. there was an existing backsplash......tiny glass tile that they told me was almost impossible to remove. which meant if i wanted it gone, i had to do it myself. so i hammered and chiseled it away, or most of it to prove it was possible, and they finished it off. and now, my tenacity has paid off with another graceful and pleasing kitchen in shades of gray and white. so lovely!
we are at that wonderfully satisfying stage when the work is mostly finished and it's down to the finishing touches. everything needs to be cleaned and polished.....the floors and windows, shelves and sinks. soon we'll be moving in furniture for the living room, dining room and bedrooms. and colorful bowls and cookbooks for the kitchen. the light fixtures need to be hung. a few paint touch-ups. this is where tom and i are a magic little team. we'll spend the next week or so cleaning and doing little jobs. oh, but he does still have the basement floor to lay. my dad is helping him with that tomorrow and thursday. and then on the weekend we'll rush around making it beautiful.

i love mornings. usually edgar gets me up pretty early and i have a lovely chunk of quiet time before the house starts humming with the day. the quiet time mostly consists of the computer and breakfast. sometimes coffee. sometimes tea. sometimes orange juice. i've been known to have all three. this morning i had dessert after my cereal.....a couple girl guide cookies. i know i know....we don't usually have overt junk food in the house, but naomi is selling them for brownies. and they are so delicious!!!
but then the kitchen pulls me into it's vortex....feeding edgar and the cats. putting away the clean dishes that washed overnight. sweeping the floor. listening to cbc. there is a kitchen energy that exists when the house is working the way i like it. the work of the kitchen feels cheerful and bright when the energy is right. chores without the heaviness of obligation. and that's the way i'm finding it these days.
i must force myself off to run mundane errands.

i love my old kitchen. 11 1/2 years ago we restored our 150 year old house. and although most renovations include, or even revolve around, the kitchen, i loved the 1940's feeling that our kitchen exuded. gray formica countertops and backsplash, with lovely grooved aluminum trim all along the edges. deep porcelain sink with porcelain drain board, although it was worn down to the iron in some spots. an abundance of wooden cabinets with several coats of white paint and sleek aluminum handles. i couldn't demo this classic 50+ year old kitchen. so i had the cabinets painted red with a yellow interior, and added a red & gray linoleum tiled floor that worked so perfectly i sometimes forget it wasn't original.over the years i've tried to make it work in a way that fits with our more modern lifestyle. i loved it visually, but i needed to make it practical. i used a lovely '50s kitchen table for a couple of years. it didn't work. then i had a tile-topped table on casters that i used as an island and extra work space. i removed some of the cabinet doors years ago to fit larger pots and jars of food on the shelves. and brought in a credenza and baker's rack for more storage. but it just became more crowded and cluttered and even less organized.so when i saw a tool bench at costco a few weeks ago, the plans i'd spent a decade making for my kitchen, slipped neatly into place. i bought two of the tool chests immediately......costco has broken my heart in the past. i knew better than to wait. we were leaving in 2 days for jamaica, but i managed with the help of friends, my husband and my parents, to get 1000 pounds of stainless steel and maple into the kitchen. and then we left for jamaica. when i was dreading leaving the sunny beaches of jamaica and returning to the snow and arctic air of canada, i would remember my kitchen project waiting for me at home and the cold didn't seem so bad.

and now it's complete. with the added bonus of a lovely little breakfast table for perching with a morning coffee.

and i checked......our costco is sold out of the benches.

i'm spending this week cleaning out drawers, reorganizing closets, throwing away things that we've been keeping out of habit for a decade. all the things that are keeping our house from functioning smoothly. i draw no inspiration from tv shows that make heros out of nazi organizers, or that take rooms and strip them into vacuous lifeless boxes full of color coordinated department store crap. i draw inspiration from my own home. i love my home. i just need to get rid of the stuff i don't use, need or love. my wall of books in the dining room is perfection for me. if i ever try to over-organize this, something has gone terribly wrong in my brain. this is the top half of my wall of books. the bottom section is 2 feet deep to hold all my large art books. books are the foundation of my life and our house is built around finding homes for them. one of my favorite book features is the built in bookshelf on one wall of our staircase. when we were restoring our 150 year old limestone house, i felt such excitement when i saw the inside of the walls, the lathe and plaster, the beams....i didn't want it all covered up again forever. so, on the staircase, we removed the top layer of plaster, exposing the joists and lathe & plaster of the other wall. in the several inches between we created shelves. i love glancing over my books every time i run up the stairs, and seeing 150 year old plaster oozing between the thin strips of wood holding it all in place.i have learned to shelve my books two layers deep, where i can. i have a fabulous old corner cupboard that i absconded from my parents garage. my father had kept his tools and gardening equipment in it for 30 years. but i thought it was much better suited to books. it's about 7 feet tall and full of books, 2 layers deep.i'm also firm in my belief that my books need to be surrounded with all the other curiousities that i find interesting. so they are at times haplessly thrown together. but it works for me. i need/want to see all the things around me that i love. in fact, several years ago, i decided to take the dors off our kitchen cupboards so i could see things better. i find if i don't see the things around me, i forget they are there. this is so much more manageable for me. but back to the books. there are so many. and i love each of them. this summer when i was moving studios i moved books with the wheelbarrow, loaded on a blanket to keep the remnants of dirt out of their pages. i still have the garage stacked high with the books i haven't moved. that will be a project for next summer. but the book room at chasing lightning bugs studio has enough beautiful piles that it is a perfect winter hideaway.and now back to organizing. and cleaning and preparing our house and our books for a new year.