Mini Makeover: Repurposing Crockery

While I wait for a plan to form re the garden (and a controversial one is brewing….) I’m turning both hand and eye elsewhere in an attempt to put a bit of finesse to the place. Window shelves, fireplace mantles and cupboard tops are all getting a critical once over as I try to put to use tips I’ve learnt from many a blog about styling up surfaces (Swoon Worthy is a good one for this).

This blog is also on the receiving end of my critical eye, so over the next few weeks you may see tweaks to the design and layout as I try out a few things. In the meantime I’ve decided to pepper usual progress-style posts with a ‘Mini Makeover’ series where I’ll share in more detail some of the mini-projects Im trying my hand at ….

This week inspiration came from both the need to spruce up a window ledge and the clear out and subsequent organisation of our kitchen cupboards and larder. Our everyday china cups are readily accessible on a wide wooden shelf which wraps around our kitchen but a multitude of others are kept in a cupboard within the tardis-like island.
“I don’t know why we have so many….” S has muttered many a time as he is attacked by a tower of ceramic on opening said cupboard door.
“We need to keep some for the builders….” has been my stock reply.
“I’m rather hoping” S had said “there won’t be many more builders…”

So with that logic in mind I ruthlessly culled.

That said I couldn’t quite bear to part with a few of the hoarded specimens…a couple of organically shaped cups from Habitat reminding me of single days when I’d bought the pair in the hope I might find someone to share morning coffee with. A Pantone mug given as a leaving present by a director I much admired and pretty vintage cups both sourced and then gifted by my mother in law when she found out we were using a green palette in the kitchen. Extracting from the larder our Piquotware I dotted it, along with my sentimental crockery, along the ledge. Filling the cups with soil I then popped in a cutting from one of my many houseplants. Et voila.

The remaining 192 white mugs are headed to the charity shop….