Living Room Shelf

After moving my ironstone cupboard across the room to the dining area, I had a blank wall underneath this shelf to decorate. The pegs gave me a place to hang up some of my linens, both new and vintage, and a small chippy white bench underneath is a perfect height for display. This shelf combines so many of my favorite things... white, rustic wood, natural linen, ironstone, simple stripes, and primitive antiques.

It's also a pretty nice mix of old and new. An old grey weathered wood bucket sits next to a not-so-old recipe box painted in a grey-blue color. An antique linen jacket and wood hanger share peg space with a new linen apron and tea towel, and one of my hand-stitched kitchen towels with my own initials in blue. A shelf full of antique white ironstone gets a touch of garden green from a pair of (faux) topiaries. Even the shelf itself was a thrift store find that I painted and glazed to look nice and worn.

Love this wood bucket... It has such a great patina, with traces of black paint on the outside and a touch of rusty red on the interior.

The wood hanger is from an old dry cleaners shop, Sam Wexlers in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I found it, along with the child sized linen jacket at an estate sale in Pennsylvania, and brought it with me to Nebraska. Quite a travel history for this little hanger.

I like the touch of black that this dark tin antique candle mold adds to the predominately white and light grey vignette.

A mismatched pair of rustic wood cobbler's shoe forms (his and hers) hangs from twine on one of the pegs.

Ironstone plates and platters with embossed patterns mix with simple pitchers, a footed bowl, and an old pudding mold.

A tarnished silver spoon plate stand from Anthropologie holds a large ironstone platter in the center of the shelf.

An antique pudding mold with a corn design adds lots of texture to the ironstone display.