My Kitchen's Chicken Wall

When I was younger, I mainly decorated my home with themes.  Whatever I collected would be displayed and the accompanying decor would tie it all together.  I stifled my eclectic persona.  My rooms were beautiful, but lacked the personal touch I so love.  Family photos were restricted to the lovely antique frames on the side tables.

Whenever I was at a home decorated with kids school pictures, I thought it lacked aesthetic appeal.  I love looking at my friends and family's photos, but I never would have given them the "looks like a room from a magazine" award.

Now I surround myself with family heirlooms.  Most of the things in my decor have memories or loved ones linking them to me.  The paintings I bought at the starving artists sales now hang in my mother's apartment.  My awesome Rembrandt print has been passed to my daughter.  The pictures that decorate my walls come straight from the old family albums.  The nicknacks have been taken from drawers and basement shelves.

So have I given up on the 'magazine' decor?  Nope.  I still love the decorator look.  I've just discovered ways to merge the two.

When I designed this house, I had in mind to give it a farmhouse decor.  Since Hubby was planning on having his own chickens someday, I went looking through the family albums to see what might relate.

We don't know who this kid is.  Neither my FIL or MIL recognize him.  If you do, please let me know.  He is someone in the family or at least someone close enough to the family to have his photograph placed in the pages of the old family album. 

This next one is a picture of Hubby's grandparents.  My FIL's folks raised chickens.  I love this one because she looks like she's just posing.   Hubby and my FIL really look at lot like Grampa.

I knew the perfect spot for these pictures!  Actually, it was the perfect spot for three pictures...  I decided to reserve a spot for the future flock.

Here's how the spot looks today...  (enlarge this one to see the various items)

There are stories galore on that wall!  I added a new item last week.  See the wooden-handled whisk between the picture frames?  That came with a piece of pottery we bought on our trip last week to Gatlinburg.  You'll read more about that later on my Essays blog.  (Took Hubby forever to find it when he went to use his new pancake bowl!)

The potato masher gets the most use...  It was a wedding present to my in-laws over 60 years ago!   The spoon rest was always sitting on their stove in their old house.  It just was part of who they were when I met them.

I've always loved the print of the over-sized tea cups.  It's been in three different homes.  I made the matching frame.  Take a close look at it.  I'm quite proud of that one.  It's a perfect match for the wood in the picture.

Well, back to the chicken pics...  The picture on the right is just one I 'antiqued' to make it fit in.  It was merely a placeholder for Hubby's.  He finally put on his flannel shirt and bibs for me today.  It just didn't seem right to have a picture of him in an old concert T.  So now I finally have the third picture for the wall...

This is my beloved feeding his flock.   Worthy of the wall, don't you think?