Update: Kitchen Nook Gallery

On a whim, we decided something needed to be done about the space above the little desk nook we have in the corner of our kitchen, pictured above. The desk currently houses a TV, tin full of pens and a wooden office organizer where we keep everything from our Farmer's Almanac, seeds, phone cables and coupons.

Here's what it looked like before:

We've mentioned before having a larger structural project taking place on our home before tackling bigger things, like painting. Because we haven't painted, we've sort of kept all our framed art leaning against the walls in the general rooms we think they might end up. Well, over the weekend we decided to just go ahead and get cracking on hanging up a few things in this small kitchen nook since we know it will be a good while before we get around to painting this room and for some reason, inspiration struck for a gallery/vignette.

We'd had each of the following framed pieces in the other home, Tim had collected and framed each of them long before I ever moved in — but they were all in different locations around the house. After almost 5 months of sitting with them in the new space, we decided they complemented each-other quite well and actually fit this little space perfectly, measurement-wise (is that a word?).

Here's what we had to work with:

1. Vintage Guinness Poster — Tim actually got this from the brewery while on a trip to Dublin.

2. Vintage menu from the Jefferson Hotel —Tim found this on Ebay years ago, loving its local history and because it had to do with food. It has menu items like "Half broiled milk fed chicken" for $1 and "Filet Mignon" for $1.75 per person.

3. Vintage reproduction Unicum poster. Unicum is a Hungarian digestif made up of herbal bitters. Years ago, Tim took me to Hungary with his parents and we got to tour the factory where Unicum is made — this is where he got this poster and later had it framed. It's kind of a scary image (a man drowning with a big smile on his face looking at a bottle of Unicum?) but reminds us of our time in Hungary together. Yes, we are weird. And yes, Unicum can kind of make you feel this way after a long night of eating and drinking...

We'll have to give you more history on our love of Unicum at a later date, maybe a whole post, but just know it's an acquired taste and the American version is actually significantly different than the true Hungarian blend. We are continually on the search for the real deal.

4. Oh, our beloved deer skull. History on this guy here and here.

After a little tweaking, we came up with the following grouping:

The final touch, being the antlers, didn't go up without a little horseplay from these two:

Poor Basil. Tim was basically taunting him with the antlers, making Basil's determination to conquer them that much stronger. There was so much wild foolishness in fact, I couldn't even get a still shot amidst all the action. Just look at that gaze of intentness:

 Yes, that is a dirty pair of socks tied in a knot that Basil stole from under the neighbor's fence to play with.

Long after Tim had finished messing around, Basil had not forgotten. You may recall, Basil was the one who actually uncovered this deer skull out in the wilderness and used to stare and bark at it in its place on the wall in our old house.

He watched patiently and purposefully as Tim hung the final touch in this little area of kitchen wall space. I believe his determination to one day destroy the deer skull has only worsened after this latest episode.

Exhibit A:

And Exhibit B:

I don't think this battle is quite over. That being said, we are thrilled with the final outcome in this little nook:

We keep walking by it and pausing to take another look — much better than the bare wall before! Thanks for joining in as our space continues to evolve. All the little changes here and there help remind us that even slow progress is still progress!