Food cupboard

I assembled the nice little set of three shelves I bought at Miniatura.  They are precisely the right size for what I wanted and very plain which I also wanted.  I painted them with left-over Country Cream Cuprinol shed paint (!); let them dry and rubbed them down with wire wool - hoping to dirty them a little.  It was only a little.  I repeated the process once more and settled for this, though they are not as scruffy as I would have liked.  I wanted them to match the dresser I bought ages ago which is very 'distressed'.  They pretty much do that.  

My brainwave, shown here, was to make shelf paper and glue the food on to that and then load the shelves.  I had spent ages fiddling around with tweezers trying to set things on the shelves but something was always throwing a wobbler.  This was the solution; it was easy to position the items on the paper, easy to load them paper and all onto the shelves and it will also be easy to re-do them somewhere down the line if I want to.  

Don't worry about it all looking a bit rough and ready - honestly it was the look I wanted to achieve.  These would have just been some shelves from the draper's shop workroom which Ellen would have painted to match the dresser.  There was a great fashion for light coloured painted furniture so I expect a lot of Ellen's stuff to be rehashed pieces from Summerlee House.  I made the shelf paper out of some wallpaper that I had.  I just cut off the part where there was a border and cut roughly round the border to give it a more interesting edge.  They are supposed to look like the shelf paper you used to be able to get quite cheaply.  It could be replaced fairly often when it got grubby with food bits and bobs.  It looks as though Daisy has only just changed it!

This is the equivalent of Ellen's pantry.  She doesn't need much as there isn't a lot of food preparation done in the apartment.  There is enough stuff between here and the food safe for breakfast and suppers and the occasional piece of dripping on toast or a jam butty.  You will notice there isn't a bowl of fruit in sight.  Even by 1911 they weren't that great at eating fruit and vegetables.  Five-a-day was unheard of.  Also food was seasonal so, by October, there would pretty much only be apples, pears and plums easily available.  Even those might have been scarce in October 1911 as it they had just had the summer which broke all records for heat and longevity, ending on 13th September.  I suspect the fruit harvest had arrived early that year.

These are the shelves in the context of the kitchen.  I am very pleased as it looks just how I wanted it to look.  A modern young lady's 1911 kitchen.