Have I mentioned that I have a friend who owns a restaurant? It’s not just any restaurant, either. It’s the best gosh darned breakfast or lunch in the northern hemisphere, if you ask me. You did ask, didn’t you? Katrina’s Café – the best in the West!
As if Katrina doesn’t have enough to do running this restaurant (along with her husband), she frequently gets the urge to decorate. When this happen, her husband just groans (like husbands everywhere) and stays out of the way. Her partner in decorating crime is her sister, Cindy.
Their latest project was to cover blank wall space with plates. Lots and lots of plates. They’d been collecting plates for quite some time. I met them at the restaurant on one of the two days a week that it’s closed. They had boxes and boxes of plates of all shapes, sizes and colors. Some had been in their family for years and some they had picked up at yard sales and flea markets. They also had a bottle of wine. Oh, that’ll help this project move along!
This gives you an idea of some of what we had to work with. I would just like to say here and now that having these plates spread all over the floor made me nervous. I know me. I’m the one who has the “falling flat on her face” gene – the one so kindly passed down from Butterfly. I made a point of walking around the piles of plates. Two others I know braved walking through them. Guess who broke plates? Not me!
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check out that blank green beam
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look at all the blank space on the red wall
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Here you see our targets. The plan was to cover that green beam and the red wall across the back of the restaurant with plates. Most of the yellow walls are made of concrete blocks. We were looking for “easy” so for the time being, we stayed away from the yellow walls.
Cindy started hanging plates in a very carefully coordinated manner. We spent a great deal of time sorting, matching, measuring, arguing and using a level. Truth be told, the decision from the get-go was to hang the plates in total mish-mash disorder. The crazier the better, the only rule being that, as Cindy said, “no matchy-matchy allowed”. There was not a tape measure, ruler or level in sight. The only tools used were a hammer and various swear words.
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the beam is blank no longer
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That green beam was taking on a life of its own and we were quite pleased with ourselves.
Located at the center of the beam is table for two next to a wooden divider. The section right above it is painted yellow. As we were selecting plates for the green beam, we started setting aside a collection to hang above that table.
The three main plates are from a series of “hunting plates” – a fox, a pig and a rabbit. Cindy and I spent much time arguing over which of these 3 plates should go where, based on which direction the animal was running. I wanted them running away from the “situation” (to escape the hunter). Cindy just rolled her eyes and mumbled something about my lack of decorating skills. I went back to dressing plates with hangers and sorting through nails.
Along about this time, tummies were beginning to growl.
“Do you have anything to eat in this place?” asked Cindy.
“It is a restaurant, after all, despite the CLOSED sign,” I added.
Katrina laughed and headed for the kitchen.
“Don’t do any work!” we yelled after her. “Just get some bread and brie – we’ll be happy with that!”
She ignored us. Soon delicious smells were wafting from the kitchen. In short order Katrina appeared with her famous Chicken Brie Mushroom sandwiches for us. We both dropped what we were doing (thank goodness we weren’t holding plates) and slid into seats at the table, salivating. The brie was melted all over the rosemary bread, the chicken was smothered with sautéed mushrooms and brie … and a glass of Chardonnay beckoned. Heavenly. I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture.
We thought we had died and gone to heaven and were thinking about getting back to work, when once again Katrina came out of the kitchen.
We were once again glued to our seats while we inhaled some of these warm, fudgy babies. I am so, so sorry you weren’t there. Truly I am.
Although we wanted to curl up in a fetal position and go into a coma, there were many more plates waiting to find their home on the wall.
It was time to tackle the red wall the runs across the back of the restaurant’s seating area. We started at the left side and worked across to the right.
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I'm going to see plates in my dreams ...
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We got to the clock and kept on going.
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No one may ever find the clock again.
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We kept going right across the top of the specials board. Katrina warned us to be careful there because the board goes up and down twice a day. There is one board for breakfast specials and one board for lunch specials. Just how long do you think those plates are going to last? I’m suggesting we put some of those 3M sticky hangers on them to make them more secure.
We took plates all the way across the red wall. There were already a few plates in place, but not nearly enough to satisfy our now rabid need for plates, plates, crazy plates everywhere.
Even the little dog above the door ended up surrounded by plates. Not sure how he feels about that, but I told Katrina I think the dog needs a collar of some sort.
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one more spot to be "dressed"
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There used to be 3 plastic plates hanging above this table, but we fixed that. Katrina tried these pictures that were elsewhere in the restaurant and they looked perfect. The orange plate was sitting around looking forlorn as we had already hung the apple plate on the green beam. So down came the apple plate, and we thought the pair made a nice statement between the two pictures. It wasn’t like it was very difficult to find a replacement for the apple plate.
I asked Katrina and Cindy to pose with all of their beautiful work. I think it’s a sight to behold. Let’s hope the customers agree!
