I’ve been meaning to do a summer table for the blog since…well, since back when it was still going to be a spring table. I’ve been working on putting together a collection of blue and white transfer-ware for awhile now, and I finally had enough to fill a table (along with some other recent acquisitions). But I never quite got around to it until we came back from our summer vacation to find that our house sitters had left us this beautiful bouquet of flowers:
A few words about our house sitters. We found them by signing up for a site called Trusted Housesitters. The idea is that some people are looking for house sitters and other people are looking for a place to stay on vacation, and wouldn’t it be great to get those two groups of people together for a mutually beneficial experience? We put a listing up on the site and got several great sounding responses very quickly. The people we went with are a couple who retired to Florida but lived in our area for many years and still have friends and extended family here. The dogs came with us on our trip, but they stayed here and took care of the cats and the house and were just wonderful all around. They sent us updates on the cats regularly, and we came home to an immaculate house (and flowers! and banana bread! and a bottle of wine!) After we’ve had a couple more experiences with Trusted Housesitters I’ll do a full write up about the whole thing, but our first time trying it out was a huge success.
Anyway, so the flowers were just sitting around looking so pretty that I finally broke down and gave them a job to do, acting as a centerpiece on my summer table.
My dining room’s future is still a bit of a mystery; I can’t decide if those impressionist paintings taped to the wall are growing on me or if I’m just getting used to them so I don’t notice how much I don’t love them anymore. The very observant will notice that I changed out the tape holding them up from the black tape in the corners that looked like cartoon eyebrows to less obtrusive regular masking tape along the top edges.
But the table! I picked up that pink fabric at the thrift store years ago, and have never managed to find anywhere to use it. Until now!
I’ve been picking up the blue plates here and there. I’m up to six so far, which is enough for a family dinner….but I suspect I’ll probably just keep adding to the collection whenever I find more. The gold chargers are thrifted (sense a theme?), but the stickers were still on them, so I can tell you they’re from Pier One originally. I just had plastic chargers before; these are real metal, which makes me feel super classy.
The green polka dot napkins are another thrift find; sadly there were only four of them, so I’ll have to find more that coordinate somewhere. I stuck them on here so that there would officially be SO MUCH COLOR on this table. For summer! Yay summer! I picked up the little etched glasses recently, too. The pitcher was a handmade wedding gift from a friend of Dave’s family. And I tossed in a few little bowls I picked up on clearance at Target awhile back:
And, finally, here are my little salt and pepper shakers that my friend, Tracy, brought back from Hawaii for me last year. I’ve never been to Hawaii, but having these is the next best thing. They’re hanging out in front of a fake plant from Ikea:
I got the table done just in time; the flowers are finally getting droopy and dropping petals now. They hung in there looking great for days and days and days, though! I guess that’s how it goes when you don’t wait until the flowers are on clearance to buy them like I do ;).
those flowers were such a sweet touch from your house sitters! and i love the tableware- you know blue and white always wins for me! everything looks great together- love the mix.
Thanks, Cassie!
Gorgeous! I love it all. Pink and green together was always my favorite when I was still dressing Lula.
Maybe this is my way of coping with never having had a girl to dress 😉
I love all the colors. I think the green polka dots would go nicely with some blue checks, or something else that turns up. I have a lot of blue china myself.
that’s a good idea! I didn’t even think of getting a different color napkins to go with these; I actually bought some plain green ones, but they didn’t look right with the polka dots
Heh. Quiltmaker’s eye at work! 😉
I love old french advertising posters and every year I choose a calendar with all those lovely and colorful prints. When I need to spiff up a wall I buy foam core board and cut it to fit my prints(if you got black you could cut them a little larger to make a “frame”) I then use spray adhesive, stick them on and voila. Add some double stick tape (you could use the 3M ones that will come off easier than what I used (read that as ‘lifting the paint when I try to reposition them’) if you want to move your stuff around). That is what I think you should do with the Impressionism prints. I LOVE the green polka dots with everything else. Nice job.
Thank you! Great idea with the foam core board….I just have to decide how committed I am to these pictures….I go back and forth between liking them and wanting one, larger scale thing in that space
Lovely! And I’m going to have to look at that site.
Yes! It’s really a brilliant win/win idea 🙂
Okay, I’m totally intrigued by the house sitters website. I am in general a trusting person, but I trust no one with our house. Or our kids. Or our dogs. I’m really warm and open like that. But you may be making me come around.
As an aside, my sil and bil have been using the same dog sitters in the Chicagoland area for years and on their last trip, the people stole HUNDRED OF DOLLARS out of the DRAWERS IN THEIR BEDROOM. I mean, really? It is bad enough that they stole, but they looked through underwear drawers? Creeps. (They were caught and supposedly gave back the money, but STILL.)
I was nervous, but I figured it was a really inefficient way to wreak havoc on people’s houses, since first they’d have to go to lots of places and do a good job to build up some positive reviews, and then the game would be up after just one house-destroying romp :). Although your in-law’s experience suggests some people try it anyway–crazy! Also, we’ve had mostly bad luck with people we’ve known and were paying to house sit leaving things a mess, so I figured we might as well try the free route.