Here's What You Do (Décor): Decorating an Outdated Kitchen with Food

Greetings, HWYD Friends!

Food as decoration - we do it all the time! And not just on the plate! If you are having a dinner gathering in a space that just doesn't have the feel you are going for, think about what you have on hand in your pantry and on your shelves around the house that you can put together the feel you want.

The room that follows is in a 1980's dated house with beige, peach, and country blue. The meal is north African. Think delicious cous-cous. That doesn't really scream peach. So we are going to transform the space with red! And we are are going to do it by centering the room around the red in Campbell's soup cans.

Shelf 1

Red books. But not too many. Overall, we were going for primary colors mixed in with the colors already in the room. This is the layer where we are working the primary palette in with the pastel one. Some books are cookbooks, but some are from around the house and are filling in for color.

Shelf 2

The centerpiece: Campell's soup cans. You can't go wrong with popart. If Warhol can do it, so can you.

The rooster plates are from a thrift store. The plates are a pattern by Maxcera. They say, "Bonjour," "Buenos Días," and "Good Morning!" around the rim.

The small glass liqueur glasses are to add depth.

Shelf 3

The fancy $2 red salad plates are from a sale at Dillard's two years ago. The shape is really unusual and they were reduced from $15.

The foreign phrases in the rooster plates got me thinking about travel souvenirs. Along with the popart , I added the Coca-Cola bottles in Arabic from Morocco.

And I added a little camel given to our daughter. A man we met in the street in Tethouan was so charmed with her that he came and found us again later in the day and gave it to her as a gift.

Morocco, April, 2006

On the ends, we red heart-shaped glass votives. But because they are on a high shelf, you can't tell they are hearts.

Top

Pulling in all possible red, you see a glass candy dish and vintage bowl. For more color, I took a plate off of the children's art shelf, finishing with a kindergarten graduation picture with a red background and a set of Russian nesting dolls.

On the table, I added a Pier 1 pitcher filled with garden greenery with red placemats and napkins. The white dinner plates are my Dollar Tree specials, and the crystal is Longchamp by Durand. This crystal is very common and inexpensive. You can find a ton of it on eBay.