An Extra Foot

We have limited space in this little cottage, but I love having things on display.

In January I spotted a beautiful plate rack on Pinterest and knew it would be perfect solution to our limited space.

  I searched online and found a few more plate racks for inspiration before I spoke to Steve

Rooms For Rent

At the Picket Fence

- he absolutely hates to hear the words, "I have an idea...".

A neighbor said the racks would be a fun project for him so Steve designed the racks

and I found new places for the ladder and shelf

while Joe built the racks.

Last month Joe hung the racks and even before they were painted I had to to throw together a quick display.

After I painted, I took much more time in my styling, adding little bits and pieces here and there.

I felt that something was missing above the shelves so I moved our street sign - we scored the sign when the city changed all the signs at the beach to blue.

A little blue mixed in with the white is perfect for summer.

I love that I can create vignettes on the wall and grab plates quickly when I need them all without taking up any valuable space in our tiny dining room.

I could live with the crisp blue & white all year long,

but I look forward to using fall colors

and can't wait to see them decked out in red, white & greenery at Christmas.

The title of the post is "An Extra Foot" - the amount of space we gained for walking through the room.

I loved staging the ladder against the wall, but it stuck out about 15"

and the shelf was 12".

The plate racks are a mere 3" in depth

so our walking space is 12" more than we had before and believe me, that space makes all the difference in the world.

The dining room isn't the only room where we have gained a few inches of space, but that's for another post.

..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..

I'm linking to


Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson for SYC

More dishes ?

I found these cute anchor dishes at Tuesday Morning and debated with myself about buying them - love won out over need.

I didn't argue with myself over these little square dessert plates because I will be using them at my Mad Tea Party.

But, it is difficult to justify the purchase of more plates when our limited cupboard space is taken up with rarely used dishes.

The winning argument of "silly self" over "practical self" was that the anchor dishes are perfect for a beach house and if I passed them up, I would never find them again.

Last week, I did a simple red, white & blue table setting and used the square blue plates for our dessert.

This week I stopped in at Paper Source (never a cheap move) and spotted this anchor stamp.

My thought was, "how cute would anchor napkins be with those anchor dishes!" so I brought the stamp home, made napkins and stamped a couple little bags.

From one Friday to the next, the table setting changed considerably even though the same dishes were used.

I frequently use dish towels for place mats and like the horizontal stripes on these towels.

Of course the wine bottle doesn't exactly go with the anchor dishes so red napkins were used to hide the graphics.

I usually have flowers as the centerpiece, but yesterday I went for a sea theme.

Starfish candle sticks came out of the cupboard, bits and pieces of my shell collection filled up some fish containers I just purchased for my upcoming tea party and the base was another dish towel with horizontal stripes and no graphic.

You might be asking, what about the anchor stamp and the napkins?

Well, the ink on the napkins was the wrong color and the bags just didn't work, but

I just found these cute sailboat dishes (which I couldn't pass up)

and some new pasta bowls so I know the anchor napkins will be used soon.

 I had a lot of fun playing house yesterday.

Once the table was set, I began moving things around the house.

Pitchers from the entry way ended up on the dining room shelf and

wire baskets from the dining room ended up on the entry way cabinet.

The dining room is definitely sporting a blue and white motif and

the entire house is looking ready for summer.

Yes, this little seaside cottage is definitely ready for a Mad Tea Party on Monday.

And, as I sit at the dining room table putting the finishing touches on this blog post, I am struck by the message on the dining room table -

"if you are lucky enough to live at the beach, you're lucky enough" - and yes, I am lucky enough.

..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..

Join me at

Boogieboard Cottage - Masterpiece Monday