A Dining Jewel

My daughter's friend recently moved into a new apartment. It's the first floor of an old home that retains many of it's old fashioned charms like hardwood floors and this small built-in china cabinet in the corner of the dining room. 

Doesn't it look sweet, filled with an heirloom china tea set that belonged to her husband's grandparents?

However, that's all the storage area this room offers. And she owns a lot of beautiful dishes. She needed a place to house her dishware and linens. When she saw this beautiful piece at the thrift store, she fell in love.

She debated a bit but with my nudging, combined with the fact that everthing was 25% off that day and it would cost less than $40, she made the purchase.

The wood is similar in color to her dining set and the vintage hutch is right at home next to the modern pieces.

(Notice those gorgeous candlesticks? They were also a thrift purchase that day.)

She gathered all of her dishes and let me play and arrange. When I was finished we were both ecstatic.

When displaying dishes in the open, it always looks best when there is balance. Do you see how every shelf contains something that is red, gold, cream and glass. Even the patterns are spread throughout. And just for fun we added two huge pears ($1 each thrift finds). 

Now all that's left is to add new hardware and this thrift store find will be the jewel of the dining room.