restoring the roost

North Carolina Country Living and Farmhouse Style

North Carolina Country Living and Farmhouse Style
since 2010

Summer Table

· decorating the roost

I love eating meals during the summer on the porch….we are fortunate to have one screened-in off the side of our house. Thank goodness it has a ceiling fan to make the Carolina heat tolerable! I can’t think of a better way to celebrate summer than to casually dine in vintage style!
My kind of summer table setting is a relaxed one: piles of plates, napkins, utensils, and food spread out in the potluck fashion. A wire basket holds beverages. I’d rather save the fancy place settings and elegant vignettes for more formal Holidays during the colder seasons and for hosting special occasions. During the summer I’d rather be eating meals surrounded by nature and with our chickens close by to keep an eye on (you gotta watch those little stinkers when they are out free-ranging by themselves!).
I like to pair my green vintage-inspired porch furniture with my great-grandmother’s casual green and white table linens. The vintage scale was a gift from a friend of ours and is labeled,  “Old Kentucky Home,” from a manufacturing company out of Louisville – how perfect! Of course, I had to throw the limes in there for aesthetics and to enhance the effect of the summery greens.  

I’m linking up with:



Summer Table

· decorating the roost

I love eating meals during the summer on the porch….we are fortunate to have one screened-in off the side of our house. Thank goodness it has a ceiling fan to make the Carolina heat tolerable! I can’t think of a better way to celebrate summer than to casually dine in vintage style!
My kind of summer table setting is a relaxed one: piles of plates, napkins, utensils, and food spread out in the potluck fashion. A wire basket holds beverages. I’d rather save the fancy place settings and elegant vignettes for more formal Holidays during the colder seasons and for hosting special occasions. During the summer I’d rather be eating meals surrounded by nature and with our chickens close by to keep an eye on (you gotta watch those little stinkers when they are out free-ranging by themselves!).
I like to pair my green vintage-inspired porch furniture with my great-grandmother’s casual green and white table linens. The vintage scale was a gift from a friend of ours and is labeled,  “Old Kentucky Home,” from a manufacturing company out of Louisville – how perfect! Of course, I had to throw the limes in there for aesthetics and to enhance the effect of the summery greens.  

I’m linking up with:



Organized Linen Closet

· decorating the roost, Homesteading

Don’t you love it when your linens and towels are freshly and beautifully folded right where you can see and easily access them? I used to drool over the Martha Stewart images of colored coordinated linens all nicely pressed, folded, and tied up in a bow.

Well, I’m definitely no Martha Stewart when it comes to domestic perfection, but I’ll certainly make my best attempt at creating a beautiful and organized linen closet. I’m not sure about you, but I need my linen closet to store as much as possible because I always seems to be out of space to store things (I’m still working on that simplifying thing…).

I decided to keep sets of sheets and towels folded and exposed for easy access. Same for the toilet paper–I just simply stacked the rolls and keep them to one side of the shelf. I used my “Derby Foods” vintage box for storing soaps, green cleaning products, and other bathroom toiletries when not in use during Derby time. Lastly, I hung a home-made curtain with a tension rod to hide my husband’s beer-brewing equipment in the open space underneath.

a home-made curtain hung by a simple tension rod
provides valuable hidden storage space

Ahhh, a fresh look for my linen closet!  If you don’t have the luxury of a linen closet (we used to not have one when we lived in our apartment just a few years ago), you can create one either by using a free-standing book shelf or cabinet that will adequately hold your linens and bath necessities. Try adding baskets or decorative boxes for pretty storage for things that you don’t want on display.

Linking to:

Organized Linen Closet

· decorating the roost, Homesteading

Don’t you love it when your linens and towels are freshly and beautifully folded right where you can see and easily access them? I used to drool over the Martha Stewart images of colored coordinated linens all nicely pressed, folded, and tied up in a bow.

Well, I’m definitely no Martha Stewart when it comes to domestic perfection, but I’ll certainly make my best attempt at creating a beautiful and organized linen closet. I’m not sure about you, but I need my linen closet to store as much as possible because I always seems to be out of space to store things (I’m still working on that simplifying thing…).

I decided to keep sets of sheets and towels folded and exposed for easy access. Same for the toilet paper–I just simply stacked the rolls and keep them to one side of the shelf. I used my “Derby Foods” vintage box for storing soaps, green cleaning products, and other bathroom toiletries when not in use during Derby time. Lastly, I hung a home-made curtain with a tension rod to hide my husband’s beer-brewing equipment in the open space underneath.

a home-made curtain hung by a simple tension rod
provides valuable hidden storage space

Ahhh, a fresh look for my linen closet!  If you don’t have the luxury of a linen closet (we used to not have one when we lived in our apartment just a few years ago), you can create one either by using a free-standing book shelf or cabinet that will adequately hold your linens and bath necessities. Try adding baskets or decorative boxes for pretty storage for things that you don’t want on display.

Linking to:

My, how they’ve grown!

· chickens

My sweet little chicks are quickly turning into adolescents! In April one of our hens, Rosemary, hatched out seven chicks. One of the chicks hatched a week later than the others and she rejected it, so inside it went soon to be joined by a Partridge Rock chick. The Partridge Rock was supposed to be a pullet, but we are afraid it might be a roo. You can read about this chick’s story here. We primarily raise Dominiques, the oldest American breed and an endangered one at that, but now that we have a Partridge Rock, I am toying with the idea of bringing more of their breed into the flock.

They are nearly ten weeks old. It’s amazing how fast they change…

exploring the great outdoors
taking a dust bath together
checking out the lavender

“Little Bit” and the Partridge Rock chick
this Partridge Rock, whether it turns out to be male or female, is the sweetest
chick ever….lets me hold and pet and doesn’t fuss much- and it has the sweetest little cheep noises too 🙂
noooooooo the chicks aren’t friendly at all….not at all…
ok, just kidding…the females actually love
to fly up on our shoulders to roost

Soon we will be giving away three of the chicks to some friends and getting rid of two of the males. We have yet to name the ones that remain. To continue with the herb/spice name theme, I’m considering the names Basil, Tansy, Coriander or “Cori” for short, and Peppermint or “Pepper” for short. What do you think?