Going Green

I love, love, LOVE my kitchen. Seriously. There's the fact that I barely had any kitchen for the past two years in Boston (I mean, a fridge outside the kitchen in the hallway? Clearly, not a real kitchen. Yankees, I tell you, priorities all mixed up...) and then there's the fact that this kitchen is now exactly what I've always wanted.

Vintage green walls? Check.
Black and white checkered floor? Check.
Beloved Kitchenaid mixer? Check.

What else does a girl need? Not much, obviously :)

However, despite having all of these things, as I put my kitchen together after I finished painting it today, I realized it is really chock full of everything and everyone I love. Here are the pictures, keeping in mind that I am still in the process of removing and painting the cabinets and cleaning and waxing the floors, then I'll explain:

I just realized that I didn't take any pictures of the wall with the fridge on it. Probably because I hate the decrepit thing. Oh well. At least now the room is actually black and white, instead of black and beige, so the fridge matches.

So why so awesome? Putting things in here, I realized how many of my special things live in the kitchen. I know this is not shocking, but... still, you know. Revelation. I have my late grandmother's vintage blender (on the Castevens side, she's the reason I'm Ashley as it was her maiden name) and my other grandmother, who is still living, recently gave me a vintage blue timer and I have her old Jello mold (I also have a cool towel decoration her sister, my super fabulous great aunt Vivian, recently gave me hanging on the wall as well. The Ashley family really shows up a ton in my kitchen, because I've also got my grandmother's stool from her kitchen, a stool her baby brother my uncle Red made for me when I graduated college, and pottery that was given to us for our wedding by Great Aunts Jeannette and Margaret and Ashley cousins Linda and Marilyn. I left the tags inside of the dishes from my great aunts, one because it's on my late Great Uncle Paul's business card and I love, love, love Uncle Paul, and the other because Aunt Jeannette wrote for "Ashley & Bab" on the tag and I love how she calls him Bob. So precious!

I've got my Kitchenaid and knife block set from my mother, and a black vintage glass dish from her older sister, my Aunt Jackie who I adore. All of the glass jars from our candy buffet at our wedding are now my kitchen storage containers... I really dig them, too bad they don't hold chocolate anymore... and a Mississippi-shaped dish that a group of our Delta friends gave us lives in here too. I've got a Persian-style teapot that our dear friend Zana helped us locate, with beautiful Persian tea cups that were a gift from Babak's aunts Zhila and Parvaneh (Babak has aunts that are equally as awesome as mine, which is saying a LOT because my aunts on both sides are flat out fabulous). So, you see what I mean? And that doesn't even count when I open the drawers, where I see the silver and silverware from Aunt Jackie (which holds such a special meaning that my sweet husband guards it like crazy), silverware from Babak's Aunt Fariba, and lovely serving pieces from Aunt Jane.

LOVE IT! You should all come enjoy my kitchen with me :)