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formerlyflorantha

Kitchens that feature a 'Collection' or two or ...

formerlyflorantha
12 years ago

Having been advised that 3 or more similar objects equals a "Collection," my kitchen has a lot of certifiable Collections already and I'm considering displaying more.

Anyone have a kitchen that is designed to cater to a collector's whims (usually a negative) by turning them into a design feature (a positive)?

(I've already addressed bookshelves but more commentary is welcome from cookbook "Collections.")

Here is a link that might be useful: my previous query for book display in kitchen hall

Comments (6)

  • chisue
    12 years ago

    My kitchen installer built a buffet to match the kitchen cabinets. The top has glass doors and interior lighting. It houses 'memorabilia' -- my mother's music box, an antique brass pan, Great-Grandmother's reading glasses, etc.

    My kitchen is a long rectangle with a cooking "L" and a long island that creates a 'galley' on the cooking side. My desk and the buffet are on the 'walk-through' side.

  • SusieQusie60
    12 years ago

    florantha - I'll be making my final decisions about what is displayed in my kitchen after its actually complete. I have some open shelving and some glassfront upper cabinets that I'm planning on using for both "regular" storage and display.

    I have a few pretty pitchers that I'll probably want to display - I have crystal, glass, metal and ceramic. I also have a large basket collection that will probably take a spot on top of my hutch/bar (the only cabinetry I have that won't go to the ceiling.)

    Honestly, my entire kitchen was sort of designed around a very large collection of my everyday creamy-white dishes. I purchased a complete set when we got married, and then I got all of my mother-in-laws when she passed away. They're not exactly the same dishes - but close enough to make it interesting. They'll have a nice spot on my open shelves, and I'll probably have some of the accent pieces in various locations.

    As I said, I won't be making any final decisions until after the construction is done. Believe it or not, I don't like clutter at all, so while I want to put my pretty things on display, I have to be sure my countertops stay clear, and nothing looks messy or crowded. I also like to really use everything that I have - the baskets, the pitchers, all of the dishes...

    I can't wait to actually see my "stuff" with a beautiful new background. SQ

  • melissastar
    12 years ago

    Florantha...I confess, I have multiple "collections" in my house and that includes the kitchen. There's a small collection of that kind of ceramicware that looks like vegetables (it's not majolica, but maybe a knock-off of it)...cabbage tureen, lettuce pitcher, onion s&p shakers, etc. That's in the glass fronted part of my upper cabs. There's a huge selection of Portmeiron botanical dishes in the "butlers' pantry/scullery part of my kitchen. There's a small but growing collection of yellow ware bowls. And there are two budding collections...only two objets in each, but with plans to acquire the necessary third, fourth, etc. One is of vintage cast-iron cobbler's shoe forms (one of which acts as my "towel pig"). The other is of vintage cast iron/bronze faces...hard to explain, but one came from Argentina and was used as the receptacle in a sort of coin-toss game, trying to get it in the gaping mouth. The other...who knows.

    So, yes...I understand collections and think it's great to have places to show them off in one's kitchen and elsewhere!

  • melissastar
    12 years ago

    The 60 plus mason jars of all sizes crammed with five kinds of flours, five kinds of sugar, grains, beans and assorted other things...filling the four shelves of an antique pine step-back cupboard.

  • cooksnsews
    12 years ago

    I collect cast iron. Thank goodness I chose a 36" range, because there are always at least 4-5 CI pans residing on it at any given moment (too heavy to stow them away after each use...)

    The rest of my CI collection is in the form of antique sewing machines. At present, none are in the kitchen, although most horizontal surfaces throughout the house hold several.

  • vitamins
    12 years ago

    I, too, have multiple collections, and hope to find a way to display some of my collections of old kitchen utensils in my new kitchen. I plan to start a new thread, showing how I displayed some of them before, and hoping to get ideas for how to display some, but by no means all as I don't want it to look as cluttered as it did before, of them now.

    In my dining room I have my grandmother's antique china (actually only half of the service for 16 she had, even though I offered to buy at FMV the whole set, because she didn't want it all to come out to California), plus our various champagne flutes. Most of the wine glasses are in the kitchen, but not really on display as we don't have any cabinets with glass doors.

    I also have a basket collection, some of which I will display in the kitchen, at least the two shaker baskets made for me by a dear friend who died a tragic death several years ago. And I have a cookbook collection, which I plan to weed out the surplus from before putting them on the bookshelf I think I will have in the pantry.

    We have several antiques, but the only antique that will probably make it to the kitchen is the antique shaker desk that came from my my Dad's grandfather or great-grandfather (I wish my Mother, who died last year at 95 and whose memory was fantastic, were still around to tell me the history of it). I've had a piece of granite cut to fit the top, and am hoping to use it to roll out pie dough, etc., as my old hoosier cabinet that I used to have in the kitchen is not going to fit into the new kitchen.