Re-Creating the Details

I tend to notice details when I'm watching a TV show or a movie.  The things that I really love stick with me, so that eventually I'm compelled to try to re-create those elements in my own way.  I can easily think of several instances:
     - the mantle of clocks in 1960's The Time Machine
     - the lamp on the table by the front door in The Waltons
     - Christina's bedroom in Flambards

     -Miss Farnaby's sitting room in Mulberry
And, of course, there are more.

One image that struck me particularly was Homer's family kitchen in The Best Years of Our Lives.  (In fact, I admired the whole house!)  On the kitchen wall near the refrigerator, there was a small food cabinet.  I loved that little cabinet from the moment I saw it.  When I saw a similar cabinet  with a glass door in a book about vintage English style decorating, I realized that this must have been a typical item in many places during the earlier part of the 20th Century. 

Pardon my sloppy scanning, please.  The little green cabinet is on the right, of course, and you realize the size it must actually be when you note the bags of flour inside. 

I fruitlessly scoured flea markets for years for such a find.  Then one day at the dollar store, I noticed a leftover clearance sale Christmas gift item:  a similarly-shaped cabinet, much smaller, unpainted, loaded with soap and candles.  And I thought that it might just do--it would share the intention of the original, in any case.  So I bought it, re-homed the soap and candles, and gave it a few coats of the green paint that I favor.

Yesterday while I was cooking a pot of noodles, I again noticed that cabinet, tucked between the counter and the "real" cabinets, and thought about the search I made that took me to finding it.  The little cabinet still makes me happy.

We can't always find the exact thing that we wish we could have--life doesn't necessarily supply us with smiles.  It's better, really, to struggle and to bring our own smiles to the process.

Life is good.