Even though we live at the edge of a growing suburb with new houses springing up around us every year, we sort of think of our house as being in the country. It is still a little isolated and teeming with birds, bugs and lawn-destroying rabbits. And now that summer is coming on, the yard smells like roses and grass (we are actually terrible gardeners, but the roses proved incredibly hardy).

And because we call this country life, we built a country themed shelf for our kitchen with a dairy cow pattern on the sides. The purpose of this shelf is to keep clutter off the counter and store towels and non-perishables in an attractive manner.

The materials for this shelf cost about $10, comprising entirely of leftover lumber, paint, and nails from household projects and repairs. Because large furniture will not fit in our car and shipping is so expensive, we usually opt to building large shelves and cabinets ourselves. The cost of this shelf is even less than the shipping we would have paid had we purchased a similar sized item.

It was lucky for Penelope and me that we attended an unusual private elementary school when we were kids where we were required to learn how to saw and hammer and do carpentry as early as age 7. We have built a lot of unique and pretty furniture with these very basic skills and would like to recommend that fellow frugalites give furniture making a try.

For kitchen storage, we like a country market look. This is easily achieved by lots of wicker baskets, egg baskets, and mini milk crates from the dollar store. Clean, unused trash baskets make nice bins for apples, onions, oranges, and bread. We keep rice and flour in large Christmas popcorn tins which come cheaper than storage containers sold without food.

As for the refrigerator, it looks the way it does, because P. Pince is fond of cleaning my paint brushes there (so as not to waste paint) before they are washed.

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