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Moving right along from the living room we come to the kitchen area. Really not many changes from last year but since it all worked so well-this is a room of function after all-, I decided to leave it pretty much the same.

I am once again extolling the virtues of a baker's rack. In the past, this rack was at the end of our dining room and pretty much only served as another space for decorations. When we did our major "shake-up" last year, all sorts of things got moved around. I will admit to not being very happy about losing that decorating space-especially since I also "lost" the large hutch in that same room...truly made Halloween decorating a challenge as many, many vignettes were once home on these shelves.

All of that being said, I am just loving the baker's rack being used in the way it was intended-sort of. I guess its name tells us it was meant to be used to store all sorts of baking supplies to keep them right at hand, but I think any serving things that are handy are just as good a purpose. For years, when I decorated for holidays, I would pretty much empty all of my cupboards of "regular" china and serving pieces and replace them with ones themed for the holiday. Believe me, that was a LOT of work! But, I did it because, well, you know me, I love my holidays.

 But, when this rack had no where else to go but to the end of the kitchen-and, my decorator daughter insisted strongly suggested that I not simply fill it with holiday STUFF again, I decided to use it for its original purpose...and, I love it! I no longer have to empty cupboards as I store all of our dishware of the season here as well as most of the serving pieces that I have. This way, I seem to use all of these things so much more frequently as they are so easy to access. Don't you tend to use things more frequently that are easier to get to? Proof in point:

I snatched this tray off of the bottom shelf just to hold the pumpkin donuts for their VERY short life span as our grand children were invited over for an after school snack and that was that for the donuts!  Probably would have just put them on a regular plate if I had had to go digging over and under things in the cupboards!

So that is pretty much it for autumn in the kitchen but there is more to come. Wish I could say our weather is catching up with my decorating, but I am ever hopeful that will happen soon! Stay tuned.