Heart of the Home

 Sadly for many reasons the kitchen has lost its honored place in many homes.  None of which I feel like going into right now.  But in our home our kitchen is the heart of our home.  It serves a multitude of purposes, the least of course not being food preparation.  However that is just one of many things that takes place in my kitchen on a daily bases.  Food preparation of course is a large part and it truly is a love hate relationship.  I have few greater joys then putting something before my family that pleases their palate nourishes their body and that was made with my hands.  I do enjoy, for the most part doing the dishes.  The hate part comes in when I feel rushed or I’m exhausted from the days work and clean up becomes the last thing on the list.  But that is all part of memories made.  You take the good with the bad and there is an awful lot of good that comes from “the heart”.  Our kitchen holds our family’s source of heat for, yes, the whole house.  We heat our home with a  wood cook stove.  It cooks our food, dries our clothes, heats a lot of our water and as stated, heats our humble abode.

It demands a lot from us in terms of cutting and splitting wood and tending it through out the day but it gives us a lot back. 

 Also in our kitchen at our table is where our children our school, Bible lessons are given, bread is broken and friends and memories are made. 

 I love things from the past and the history that comes with it.  Recycling unwanted pieces of old furniture is a hobby my whole family loves.  Years ago when we started keeping house we kept our eyes open for what I refer to as backyard antique stores, also known as garage sales.  One income and a growing family made it important to be frugal.  We found some really good deals and a couple well, weren’t such good deals but what we considered investments, like our woodstove.  The one we currently have we just got.  Our previous one is a 1928 model but it worked well for the most part but it wasn’t until we got the new that I realized how much it was worth the investment.  We also have had a tendency over the years to move so we made sure that our kitchens were decorated with cupboards so they could move with us verses cabinets.  My floors, walls and ceiling need to be refinished but even left undone its still home to us.

 I wanted to post a couple of photos and see if anyone wanted to share pics of their homestead kitchens.I put a few pictures on here but have a couple pages of pics on our website at  http://plainandsimplysaid.com/    If you get a chance and would like to stop by the pics are under Heart Of The Home.  My site is still very young; we are still working out the bugs and have a whole lot of adding to do to it but its fun to play with and hopefully entertaining.