Prosperity Hutch Rewind

In moving my husband and I acquired an old china hutch from my mother. She tells me it's ancient, maybe even antique. It's cute and small and bursting with subtle personality, but I wanted to update it a bit. I thought about re-painting it, but I'm always weary about painting old furniture. So instead I decided to give it a bit more pizzaz by wrapping the back panel. We have this little guy sitting in the corner of our kitchen.

I used paper from the Paper-Source. It is seriously one of my favorite stores. You can order paper online or at one of their many stores. They have Japanese hand-made papers, and hand printed stuff from India. I think they know me by now, since I'm in there ALL the time.

I didn't have a ruler, so I eye-balled it. And instead of using spray adhesive (which is the more permanent solution) I used permanent double sided tape because I wanted to be able to change the paper if we move again, or remove it all together if need be. But, it's a simple solution to updating any cabinet, china hutch, or shelving you might have. And let's face it, furniture is expensive. I'll take what I can get from my mother and mother-in-law, but it's important to make it feel like my own; to update it so that it fits into my own home. This is one very simple and quick way of doing that. Plus, it's not at all messy!

Next was the job of stocking my beautifully cute hutch. After all, it is a CHINA hutch.

White plates seem to be wildly popular these days. To be honest, I don't fully understand the mass appeal, however, I am somewhat in love with our Prosperity pattern. Because there is so much busyness going on with the back panel, I thought white Prosperity would make the most sense. It's all white, but has intricate detailing and a unique shape. It also can be paired with tons of our other patterns. I love the history behind it. With the assistance of Mount Vernon we reproduced this pattern based on shards of a plate found on the property of George Washington. Historians dated it back to his time period. It is said that he and his wife were avid china collectors and also did quite a bit of hosting. It is a timeless pattern; as is evident by the fact that it is still modern even 250 years later. How cool is that?

Mount Vernon explains the history a bit better here: click

"Beginning in the spring of 1757 George Washington placed orders to his English agents for “white stone” tableware, also known as English white stoneware. By December 1757 the first shipment arrived from Bristol, and the full set of white salt-glaze stoneware included “6 dozen finest white stone plates,” along with “dishes, patti pans, mugs, tea pots, Slop Basons, butter dishes,” and “mustard pots”. In the 1750s and 1760s the relatively inexpensive yet fashionable white-fired stoneware produced in England was the most widely used tableware in the American colonies, as it could be molded into a variety of specialized forms for use in dinner services and tea wares. In need of all kinds of tablewares for Mount Vernon, Washington ordered large quantities of stoneware for his bachelor household."

Seen in the hutch images above: