before and aftah

Before:





After:

I wish my mom was alive so I could ask her (seance, anyone?) but as I was screwing in my 25 new cabinet pulls, it occurred to me that the reason I probably picked these is that *I think* they are very similar to the ones we had on the cabinets in the triple decker I grew up in. There's a definite gut familiarity to me in how they look and how they feel and that can only be why.

The more that I look at other people's design decisions and the more I examine my own longheld preferences, I realize that what looks and feels "right" to me, especially in relation to bathrooms and kitchens (i.e. pantries, clawfoot tubs, beadboard, soapstone, super-deep [I think they refer to them as "farmhouse" these days] kitchen sinks, and apparently this cabinet hardware), is all predicated on my growing up in that house/apartment that had all those 1920s fixtures that hadn't (thank god!) been updated. When I was a young woman, I admired people who had new houses, because to me, that was what rich people had, while old houses were what poor people like me had, but I nevertheless always preferred how old houses looked.

Anyway. The other revelation I had when I was screwing in all those pulls on Friday night was that my kitchen cabinets were that delightful mixture of disgustingly greasy and grossly sticky. DON'T JUDGE ME. So when I was at Target for the second straight day yesterday (and I gotta go back today, because something I got was wrong; Jesus wept), I bought me some Murphy's Oil Soap and I spent three and a half hours last night scrubbing my cabinets. Unfortunately, I left the upper cabinets closest to the stove for last. I probably shoulda done those when I was fresh, because Oh.My.God. I gave up around 11:45 because I was just too tired and my ankles were swelling from apparently standing on chairs and counters with my arms over my head, or something.

I felt the cabinets this morning and they still aren't all perfect. (They do look better though.) I should probably give them another once over. Again, DON'T JUDGE ME. You people know I'm not good at this domestic shit.

xoxo