Ode to Blue

"COLORS ARE THE SMILES OF NATURE" ~ Leigh Hunt, British poet 

First and foremost, let me apologize for the smudges on the mirror and the dust on the buffet. I love you, my dear dear readers but since you are my FRIENDS I figured you wouldn't mind a bit of dust and smudge. What's a bit of dust and smudge among friends? My sister in law has this great saying that goes something like this, "If you are coming to visit US, stop by ANYTIME, if you are coming to visit my HOUSE, please call first!". I LOVE that saying...although her house is perfect all the time. Michele, you know I'm talking about you. ;-)

Our dining room has been this lovely delft blue above the chair rail for several years. EVENTUALLY, my handy dandy handsome husband is going to put raised panels below the chair rail but we have projects in rooms we LIVE in that we would like to finish first...plus we like to eat now and then. As you might know, I have a mini obsession with a local junk/antique shop nearby. I've showcased it a million times and I'm sure a few of you think I'm getting a kickback from the owner or something. I. Am. Not. I. Swear. ;-) It's just a fun store if you enjoy the "DIG" to get to the "FIND!". This mirror above the buffet has been looking a bit lonely lately. Every time I go to Bob's (the aforementioned junk/antique shop), I admire his GINORMOUS collections of plates. I did a mini little plate display in my foyer of brown transfer ware (some of those are from TJ Maxx...shhhh don't tell the antique aficionados!). While doing that, I fell in LOVE with divided restaurant ware plates. I think it's so cool that old cafeteria style restaurants would use such lovely plates! Plus those suckers are HEAVY! As a former server, I think there is something about them that just warms my eating out lovin' little heart! Bob mentioned to me that he has some Blue Willow "grill" plates. That's what he calls these restaurant ware plates. I don't know if that's the real name or not. That got me thinking....they might be very pretty in a display around that lonely mirror in the dinning room. The other cool thing is that they are NOT expensive!

All that talk about the restaurant ware and I'm NOT showing them to you! That's because I don't have them yet, they are on hold.  Instead I purchased these other two plates to start the collection. (BTW, that GORGEOUS Ironstone pitcher is ALSO from Bob's and the sweet little pitchers were my husband's nana's. LOVE them all! When I get the other plates, which are only like 6 dollars a piece or something, I'll have Matt hang them in some hopefully fabulous fashion around the mirror. So what do you think?  OHHH and if you want some of these cool plates, he has PLENTY and he ships too!  His number is in the 3rd link down in green.
If you want to see some of the oooodles of posts about the junk/antique shop (It's called the Ye Ol' Curiosity Shop), here are some links:
Hob-Nail milk glass
Beautiful blue Mason jars, milk carrier and shoe forms
LOTS of PHOTO GOODNESS you won't believe. This store is FULL! Check out older posts below this one too!