When I was 5, we moved out of a beautiful brick house in town to a crumbly old farmhouse in the country. I was not happy to leave my little friends, my backyard sandbox or the sticker collection on my bedroom window. I eventually grew to love our new house (once my dad's hard work made it habitable), but even though I only lived in my first childhood home a few short years I still have fond memories of it.
My family is often surprised at how much I remember in detail about that house, which makes me realize it won't be long before Johnnie starts caching bits and pieces into her memory bank. (Yikes!) I think I could draw a pretty accurate map of the old house, including the door frame in the basement where my dad recorded our growth, and the braided oval rug in the foyer where we used to play with Micro Machines and have hamster races! (Barney vs. Betty!)
Anyway, the point is that I remember our kitchen radiator had a cabinet around it with perforated sheet metal panels, which popped into my head when brainstorming door ideas for our wall oven cabinet. (That was quite an unnecessarily long lead-in to get to this point, wasn't it?)
S was intrigued when I brought it up, and a little Google search brought me to this Better Homes and Gardens tutorial which I think has sealed the deal for us. We even like the black painted look, as we have some black wrought iron pieces (such as a big row of meat hooks that belonged to my grandfather) that it would play off nicely... whereas the raw steel look might just look like too much steel (as opposed to too much wood if we built wood plank doors).
If all goes as planned, we'll have a functioning oven tonight! Dare I get my hopes up?
PS - My parents' farmhouse (which they've now lived in for 23 years) has a similar radiator cabinet in the laundry room, complete with the perforated panels, but oddly that wasn't the one that spurred this idea. Weird that the house from my toddler years was the inspiration, huh?
I really like the painted black. It's elegant and subtle.
ReplyDeletei love that look. i might have to do this to our glass front media cabinet in the living room. make it a bit less IKEA and a bit more in line with everything else cottage-y.
ReplyDeletei have tons of memories of the house we moved from when i was 6. but almost no memories of the house we lived in when i was 8. weird, huh?
I think it's $33 for a 3' by 3' sheet at Home Depot. I think it would go great with your house's feel too.
DeleteThat is weird! Maybe you are repressing your 8-year-old memories.
This is going to look awesome! I love the idea of something a little unique and I love the history.
ReplyDeleteI moved from our first house when I was five and Ryan and I were just discussing how I remember next to NOTHING about it. I remember the neighbors - one had an apple tree and one smoked cigars. I remember there was a big fireplace in the basement. And I remember my canopy bed and "trading up" to a daybed. That's it. In 5 years? I am still amazed. This is why I take lots of pictures - not a great memory in this noggin.
You probably remember all the important things though. Unlike me, who remembers all the minute details of childhood and therefore has no brain space leftover for the important things in my adult life. I still remember the phone number from our house we moved from when I was five. WHY? WHY DO I REMEMBER THIS?
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