Dishes are a chore. I think that's why we want a view, something to distract us from the daily drudgery. It's a kitchen window we look for when selecting or building a home. It's a scene we create like no other. The intimacy expressed, the personal choices we make, the way we express ourselves through the window sill vignette speaks loudly to who we are and what we value. It is an expression of beauty and dreams and memories.
A blue and white unmarked teacup has sat on my kitchen window sill since I found the cup in a secondhand shop. An English idyll with stream and bridge, a home in a village overlooked by the manor house. People lying on the stream bank, some on a punt in the river, others overhead on a bridge. Village life beautifully represented. It is a scene I wish I had from my kitchen window.
Wildflowers picked from the path to the barn are in a mason jar above. Below Eryngium from a floral bouquet survived to find a home on the kitchen sill. Dried now, they sit in a pot in the living room. But while they thrived, the sunlight in the kitchen kept them alive a little longer.
The curtains at the sink are an old Jacobean floral pattern centuries old. Repeated in embroidery, then prints, this traditional pattern of flowers brightens corners of my home from bedrooms to the kitchen and library.
The dishes, a necessary chore, are softened by the filtered light streaming through in this morning shot. A large floral Redwing serving platter was inherited from a cousin through my great grandmother, Marie Dent Reeves. The blue sponge bowl from Casey Pottery in Texas was found at a thrift. The $1.91 price remains on the unglazed bottom. A chipped square bowl holds my scrubbers. Another petite jardinière lined with stones holds the dish brush. Each time I find another blue and white 6 inch Delft tile, it joins the queue over the sink. A Blue Willow sugar pot with a lost lid now holds a plant and tiny white rabbit from the Rose Tea collection.
A plant that came in a bouquet from a guest I named the Dr Seuss plant because it reminded me of the Truffula Trees in
The Lorax.
What sits on the sink ledge is as much a part of the kitchen window sill scene as that in front of the glass. These garlic chive flowers came from my front lawn. Sown over 20 years ago, these self seeded and survived even after that part of the garden was no more.
Little green onions grown from the white root and about an inch of green stem regrew and kept the kitchen supplied for months before moving into
pots on the front porch the following spring. A row of elephants are my second favorite addition, after the English teacup. A Dutch salt box rests behind the onions.
Kitchen sinks are traditional spots to water and rinse indoor plants such as this orchid. In the top right corner of the window sill, a plant cutting is rooting in the sun. A dish cloth hangs to dry in the light. Small blue glass items rest on the upper ledge of the window. A hummingbird medallion hangs from the window latch.
As seasons change and new things rotate through, the scene changes on the window sill. Above, an early iteration of my kitchen sill. Since then some permanent additions have found a home and other things come and go. The moss terrariums above could only survive the Winter sun before new plants came in.
Below a spice rack was converted to grow root cuttings. My daughter now has this on her kitchen window sill.
The rising and setting sunlight throughout the day alters the scape hourly changing everything that creates the kitchen sill scene.
And it's nice to see my photo get picked up and shared by others...
