Where do I put the collection of white dishes that continues to grow? A question I have been asking myself for months as I stacked the dinner plates, the salad plates, the soup bowls, the serving bowls, and the cake plate first on the china cabinet, then on the sunspace breakfast table, then on the countertop in the kitchen, but most often on the rustic pine dining table.
The question was always in the back of my mind as I went about my normal activities.
As I turned around on the new covered porch this week to look at the French style metal plant stand, I began making a list in my head of small bedding plants to buy this Spring for the plant stand.
Ivy... mint... white lobelia...
Then I stopped in my tracks. What if....
this Spring the plant stand became a P L A T E stand?
Last fall I moved the plant stand from the kitchen to the new covered porch to hold flower pots, gardening tools, Christmas greenery, and a handmade birdhouse.
Now, I began envisioning it sitting back in the kitchen sunspace holding white dishes.
Once the idea took hold, the follow-through plan began immediately. After sitting outside all Fall and Winter, the gray metal stand was covered in dirt. Wiping the dirt off with a cleaning cloth was not enough to clean the stand.
Nope. To remove all the dirt and grime, buckets of water had to be poured on the shelves, then wiped down to remove the excess water.
Once inside, I loved how the white dishes look against the gray metal shelves.
As I loaded the dishes onto the shelves, I modified my plan a little.
This Spring the PLANT stand became a PLATE stand with plants.
Faux hyacinth buds and blooms in vintage French zinc seed pots flank the stack of white plates, serving bowl and small pitcher on the middle shelf.
White cyclamen fill a vintage stoneware chamber pot and are bathed in late afternoon sunlight.
Spring is less than four weeks away officially, but Spring is popping up both outside and inside. Daffodils and redbuds are blooming outside, and a brown toile bunny sits on the topiary pot inside.
Sometimes an answer to a nagging question is right in front of you.
You just have to see the question with new eyes....
and change a plant stand to a plate stand.
Any nagging decorating questions rattling around in your mind?
See how the French metal plant stand has looked before.
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