Welcome back for part two of my Early Spring Home Tour!  This is a continuation of part one where I shared my living room and dining room for the Hop Into Spring blog hop with nine other amazing home tours. Today I will be taking you on a tour of the kitchen which is also decorated for early spring in cottage farmhouse style. True friends are back door guests, so come on in! Since this is our main door into the kitchen, we are starting the tour here today.

This past fall I painted our old metal screen door a dark green color that is so nice for decorating with wreaths. I am loving this consignment shop wreath that I “doctored” up by removing some flowers that were too summery and replacing them with thistle, forsythia and a new bow. I will sharing more about this wreath later this week.

I am on a big yellow kick right now, so I added this pretty yellow houndstooth and burlap bow and the bright forsythia in my wreath (basket).  As you come in the back door there is a tiny little “mudroom” entry area right before turning into the kitchen. I have brightened it up for spring too!

After a week of snow, the sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home! I had fun styling this little space for the tour. While I was taking pictures I realized I have never really written a post about this entry, including the DIY antiques sign or the Kentucky “home” state chalkboard I made, so I will share the mudroom decorated for spring in a little more detail in a future post.

My Hunter rain boots, vintage umbrella, and canvas tote and keys are just waiting for me to grab and head out the door for a rainy spring day of junkin’ adventures! By the way, that “shiplap” is my DIY $10 peel and stick vinyl flooring from the dollar store!

The simple addition of forsythia stems in my Hunter boots adds a fun color pop for this home tour and carries the yellow theme from the back door wreath into the landing, and on into the kitchen. It is just a few steps up and to the left of the back door which is handy for loading groceries right in and plopping them down on the island.

It has been brightened up for spring with more pops of yellow and green, and touches of country farm and garden style. I love to embrace French country and cottage farmhouse decor using vintage junk treasures. Decorating seasonally in the kitchen is super easy by changing out seasonal vintage junkin’ finds, florals and references to foods that are in season.

Childhood memories of Easter and spring are filled with yellow! Daffodils and forsythia bushes were scattered all around our country property, and downy yellow baby chicks were often found chirping in a box beside my Easter basket on Easter mornings when I was little. With those memories in mind I displayed charming references to “spring on the farm” here and there.

We also raised chickens and collected eggs for coloring Easter eggs, so roosters, hens, chickens and fresh eggs, are just as much “Easter” as bunnies to me.

As I mentioned in part one of my home tour, I really wanted to stick with the “use what you have” decorating motto for Easter instead of buying a lot of new commercial Easter decor. I chose to focus on the springy farmhouse hen and eggs theme in the kitchen, but I didn’t have a hen to use. I do however have an old cast iron Rooster door stop that I found while out junkin’ this fall, so, why not?

Daddy rooster is watching over the eggs this spring! I love his bright beautiful colors next to the vintage marble eggs and fresh flower bouquet. This combination is a simple centerpiece for the little folding table at the window banquette breakfast nook. For the seating I added a yellow pillow cover I found on clearance for $2.oo at Hobby Lobby last week, and I am using the same black ticking stripe pillows from the living room and dining room that I shared in part one of my Early Spring Home Tour.

I was originally going to use a bunny and cabbage theme all through the kitchen, but the cabbage in my fresh flowers bouquet died before I could get enough pictures, so that’s when I switched decor “tactics” and resorted to the rooster. I really love how it all turned out, and sometimes the best decorating happens spontaneously out of necessity. For a while I had no clue where the decor for the spring kitchen home tour was going, so with only one day left until I was scheduled to post, I was rushing around trying to be inspired by using anything I had on hand.

I tried messing around with a cute vignette for the island and in this instance I truly was getting desperate for something…I resorted to using less than fresh produce from the crisper drawer! Still, this sweet garden bunny doesn’t seem to mind and is enjoying his “gourmet salad” of lettuce and freshly picked daffodils served on an antique ironstone butter pat. I think this just might be my best “use what you have decorating” idea! Even though I didn’t stick with the bunny and cabbage (lettuce) theme, I wanted to share it here because I think it’s fun!

A few more sprigs of forsythia added to an old country crock in the back corner of the nook brighten up the space even more.

Spot the “mistake” in the pic? When the sun came out briefly in between the gloomy snow storm, I grabbed the black stripe pillows from the church pew in the dining room and threw them on the bench as quickly as I could in order to snap some photos before the glorious sunlight disappeared again. I really love this photo anyway, so I decided to include it even though it’s not “perfect.” I have found that my readers and friends enjoy seeing some real life added to my blog posts, as I also enjoy when bloggers that I follow share a little bit of real life on their blogs too.

The kitchen is definitely filled with cozy cottage, vintage farm and garden charm for spring and Easter! As you can see, I am a bit of a vintage hoarder, which is why I needed to break my Spring Home Tour up into two parts. And there’s a lot more where this came from! I will share more vintage and shabby chic Easter ideas on March 28th in the “Vintage Joys Of Easter” blog hop and linky party.

Over on an unused counter space I have put together some spring farm and garden vignettes. Two vintage green picnic baskets and various potted herbs are reminders that warmer days for picnics and gardening will soon be here! A few colorful eggs are hidden among the grassy-green plants.

Although I  don’t usually go crazy for decorating trends and primarily stick to my own personal vintage style, I ended up getting caught up in the Rae Dunn pottery craze when I realized how much fun I could have styling whimsical, seasonal vignettes by combining my own vintage finds with the pottery.

I packed away my faux herbs after Thanksgiving and I have been waiting for nature to give me clues to bring them back out. As soon as I saw my herbs coming up in the garden right outside of the back kitchen door, I happily began adding them around the house. I get a lot of questions about these pretty faux herbs, so if you are interested in them you can find out more here.

I also made a little spring “wreath” out of vintage spring veggies and herbs seed packets. The black and white packets look great displayed on the door of a retro cabinet filled with Rae Dunn and other black and white pottery, and the green images tie in with the predominately spring green theme I have for early spring in the rest of the house.

For spring I added a simple Easter vignette to the top of the retro cabinet using a glass Rae Dunn “cloche” filled with pastel jelly beans and a creamy-white chocolate bunny. An antique Easter postcard and some green cotton pulls the vignette together.

This concludes part two of my Early Spring Home Tour! I have enjoyed sharing my home with you over the past few days, and celebrating the arrival of spring with all my friends and readers in blog land. I truly hope you have a “sweet” Easter!

If you missed part one of my Early Spring Home Tour and all of the other beautiful spring home tours on the Hop Into Spring blog hop, you can continue the tour via the links in my post below:

Early Spring Home Tour Part One

Hop Into Spring Home Tours

Happy spring everyone!

Amber

Linking up:

Farmhouse Friday Link Party

Sundays at Home

Share It One More Time

Amaze Me Monday

A Bouquet Of Talent

Inspiration Monday

A Stroll Through Life

Tuesdays At Our Home

Dishing It Digging It

Make It Pretty Monday