It's a jumble in there! Walls, floors, ceilings, and everything in between. And I'm forced reluctantly to acknowledge that no matter how good the house's bones are, and they are good, and how much I re-paint and decorate ... I'm just not a very good housekeeper. I'm getting better, but were I to wait until the house was in magazine photo condition these pages would never get done. So just look through the clutter, and you'll see blood, sweat, tears, unending expenditures ... and wonderful new flesh on the good old bones.

The "hunting lodge" kitchen had to go - the 'before' doesn't show it, but the whole front wall was timbered in that same dark wood that you see on the ceiling and below the coffee cups wall, and the coffee cups wall was papered in a cactus motif - very handy for hanging straight rows of coffee cups but otherwise eye-boggling. Paint and a minuscule chair-rail edge molding calmed and cheered that up a bit, plus of course the coffee mugs. As serendipity would have it, I ran out of travel coffee mugs exactly when I ran out of wall to hang them on!

The great moments in kitchen renovation were the center table and the pot hangers. The center table is counter height, great for working and for breakfast ... and it was a bargain, too. It's Swedish imported butcher block on stainless legs which are braced just right for separated dog feeding stations. It was a floor sample, marked down from $400 to $200, and when I asked the clerk for more information about it she said 'it's going on sale tomorrow so you can have it for $100.' I bought it, and forced it by sheer willpower to fit in my car.

I've always wanted a pot hanger, but the ceiling is really low and pot hangers seem to cost about a hundred dollars, even online. But one day I was wandering through the garden department at Big Lots, and there they were! The ceiling hanger is a 10" plant dolly ($2.99) - took the wheels off, turned it upside down, and used the screws from the wheels to fasten it to the ceiling above the center table so I wouldn't hit my head on the pots and pans.. My independent hardware store, unlike Home Depot, had the right sized "S" hooks, and voilà, a pot hanger! The wall pot hanger is an upside-down half-round planter ($3.99.) Ha!

The raised dogfeeders are another Big Lots garden department find. They're 18" plant holders ($2.99) holding a dogfood dish ($1.00)- in coordinating decorator colors, of course.

The plant is an homage to Celia Rocca. It's a "money tree," and Celia brought me a small one when we met at Birds for dinner shortly after I had gotten out of the hospital. When she walked in with it, the whole bar gasped and Alicia said, "What is that?" If you look not too closely, and most people do look not too closely, a "money tree" is a dead ringer for a marijuana plant. I love the effect on visitors.

The one thing I absolutely would never change about this kitchen is The Gate. It keeps the dogs in the living room, which is very very useful for opening the kitchen door and for getting things done without the "Surround Hound" effect. Even Bella hasn't figured out how to open it (yet.)