Homey Kitchen Is the Apple of My Eye

By Sandra Gonzales of Klamath Falls, Oregon

ONE country delight I’ve always had a taste for is apples. So when it came time to redecorate our kitchen and the adjoining dining room, it was easy for me to pick out an appealing theme for both rooms.

The kitchen is the core of the home my husband, David, and I own in southern Oregon. And because our family members and friends naturally gather there, we use the kitchen and dining area as one continuous 14-foot x 35-foot room. There are bushels of ways I tie these spaces together. For instance, I use two coordinating wall coverings in both the dining room and kitchen, a pretty plaid and a striped apple print.

Each room is topped off with an eye-catching border, jam-packed with fresh-picked apples. These pretty papers set the rooms’ color scheme, featuring my favorite shades of bright red and crisp green.

You’ll find the accent is on apples in my food preparation space, too. I love the fruit that crops up as ceramic door pulls on the kitchen cabinets and drawers, as well as the apples that decorate my towels, hot pads, wall hangings, a paper towel holder and throw rug near the sink.

As you can guess by our nostalgic coffee grinders, scales, crocks and kitchen utensils, David and I are antique buffs and recyclers. My grandma’s old preserve jars now serve as containers for dried beans, nuts, noodles and rice.

To bring more country sunshine inside the kitchen, we put in a skylight and a garden window above the sink. We also painted our birch cabinets off-white to better reflect the light and added glass doors to cupboards by the breakfast bar that showcase our apple dishes.

The kitchen appliances look appetizing, too, thanks to the apple-trimmed wall plaque, clock and rolling pin that brighten the area.

When I cooked up our kitchen’s new look, I found old wood is a nice complement to my apple accents. David has a part-time business refinishing antique furniture, so we’ve filled the whole house with oak pieces.

The dining room Hoosier carries on my apple motif in a woven runner and a soft-sculpted Holstein toting a harvest basket. Opposite, I’ve propped a washboard adorned with an apple garland on the server chest where I store our linens. Beside the chest sits a secretary that displays my collection of green Depression glass, including quite a few pieces in the apple blossom pattern.

I’ve gathered even more red and green in our hard-wearing flooring. The kitchen is covered with a rust brick-style vinyl, while a green nylon carpet warms the eating area.

When there’s a nip in the air, we pull chairs around the dining room’s brick fireplace and listen to its cozy crackle. The white hearth and mantel make a great backdrop for family pictures and my latest apple additions.

It’s been a pleasure showing you the fruits of my kitchen decorating. Maybe some of my ideas will grow on you.