Bird Cage Fabric

Here's the table I set for dinner tonight.  We have been so busy and I have cooked so little lately, that I thought I would fix a nice dinner and set a pretty table for the two of us.

This cheerful fabric was the inspiration, and I knew I had lots of turquoise and pink to go with it.  I thought about doing a bird theme, but decided to just let these clear, pretty colors shine.

And this was the inspiration for the location.  This is on our lower stone terrace and the beds here are filling in so nicely.  Of course, like most of the country, we are ahead of the game seasonally, so I decided to use this space which we almost tend to forget about.

These dishes picked up the turquoise and the strong pink. The flower shaped plate is plastic and came from Target a couple of years ago.

This is the back of the china.  I picked it up many years ago at a consignment shop in Cleveland, Ohio and it has a ton of serving pieces.  I think I got a treasure here.

Our peonies are getting close to the end.  I wish I knew what variety these are, because I would love to plant more.  The pink has a touch of salmon in it and is almost shocking.  This is an old McCoy vase.

I was willing to let the peonies be the only flowers on the table, but then I spied these blue hydrangeas in the fabric.

I simply turned to my left and picked matching flowers to tuck into the napkins.  How often does that happen?

The glassware consists of Waterford Lismore stems for water, and turquoise Martha Stewart (for Macy's) tumblers that I was going to use for wine.

Mis-matched silverplate with a mother-of-pearl handled knife worked fine for flatware.

Just for a bit of earthiness, I added old oak barley twist wooden candlesticks.

It made such a fresh, pretty but unfussy table.

I forgot to take two chairs away before I was snapping pictures.

Here's the long view.

Here's the view taken from the upper terrace.

And this angle shows you a bit of the lake.  Those yellow things you see are kayaks on the dock.

As I was loading these photos, I remembered that I did a very similar table in this same area last spring when our peonies were at their peak.  Here's a picture of it.  These same colors were on this table, but have a very different feel.  You can see that whole post here.  If you go to that post, notice how much difference there is in the maturity of the flower beds this year compared to last.

Here's irony for you.  Last year, after I set that table, I heard the weather channel say that bad weather was heading in and I reluctantly brought the whole thing inside when it began to look threatening.  It turns out that it was a devastating tornado that went through the area and we could never have eaten outside without being blown to Kansas.  And today.....I had to bring everything inside again, as it began to rain about four p.m.  It just wasn't the same in the breakfast room, but we were dry and safe. My heart still goes out to those who suffered such terrible loss last year.  Many are still re-building and many lost so much more than material things.  How do you heal?

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