It's the Little Things

Do you get yourself a Christmas gift?  I try to or at least I think about it.  I take great care about picking it out. It is usually something that I wouldn't buy for myself, but something that I will really enjoy.

One year I bought a really nice gradient set of yarns. I thought about yarn this year.  There are so many nice ones.  But I do have enough really.  Sort of.  I debated about what else I might like.  I thought about books, but I buy those anyway.  Then I came up with the perfect thing. This year, I bought myself a mini kitchen.

Some of it came before Christmas.

And then I dithered.  I had to decide just what era the kitchen will be from.  It took longer than you would think for me to make up my mind.  I sensibly ordered from a Canadian source and got everything I wanted and more.

 

I needed a wood stove.  My maternal grandmother had a wood stove till after 1968 and I remember it well.  It was required. 

The dry sink was negotiable.  There was a pump and a cistern in the house when I was a small girl, as well as at my aunts house.  It wasn't in the kitchen proper though but for my purposes here, this works well. And that is it for major furniture.  Note there is no icebox.  A prarie farm in the 20's to the mid 50's and later, which is kind of the period I am aiming for, would not generally have had an icebox.  They would have kept stuff cool down the well and if they were lucky, would have had a chilly root cellar somewhere too.

I picked up a bunch of little things to fill my kitchen with.  I ordered all but the white furniture from the Little Dollhouse Company. 

One of the first things I ordered was a $5 dollar grab bag.  As you can see it was a really great buy.  Each of those little things would have been somewhere between 3 and 5 bucks or more on its own.

These were purposefully chosen. Baking pans and wooden mixing bowls and knives, and a coffee pot and good plain cups.  The lovely little delft like plates arrived because they did not have the blue enamelware I wanted in plates.   The jars are for filling with goods from the farm wifes garden.  And yes, there will be a garden.

They also, sadly, they did not have the enamelware pots I wanted either.  Enamelware is popular.  I opted for a much more familiar and authentic to the place and period, cast iron look pots.  there are still some small things that I need and plenty more that I want, but this would be a very good kitchen set up for most homes here in farm country.  

There are lots of little things I can make for my kitchen.  Bread, buns, pie, pickled carrots and cukes, canned beans,  pes and beets.  The list goes on.  Eggs.  The milk bucket.

That will come down the road, but for now at least my wee housey is a home.  Or will be very soon.