Turning Our Pantry into a Witchy Apothecary Cabinet
The topic of home decor is one that comes up often between Jill and I. After years of living a minimalist lifestyle where we let go of a large percentage of our belongings and said goodbye to pointless decor items in our home, we now are starting to rebuild on that concept and figure out what truly matters to us. This has been a decade’s long adventure for our family. We moved across the country years ago from Illinois to Texas and sold all of our belongings, save for a few sentimental items, minimal clothing, and toiletries. The rest we sold so that we didn’t have to try moving it all. It felt like a clean slate!
But back to decor… We often ask ourselves, what is the point of it? We enjoy the feeling of home that it can bring. It makes a home feel personal, cozy, and unique. But it can also often leave a house feeling like a gift shop or a museum. As we appreciate antiques and older items, our interior could easily begin looking like a historical museum display, and that is exactly the opposite of what we want. What makes home decor look like it is useful and functional, yet still beautiful and charming? That is the concept that we strive for with how we accumulate the objects for our home. If it has no purpose or use in our daily lives, then it really serves no purpose other than to stare at it.
Which brings me to the topic of making ordinary, everyday objects beautiful. Jill and I had been wanting to bring more autumnal themes into the house. For us, it is always better to begin with a theme or an idea, and this year we felt a craving for primitive folk-art, outlander, witchiness, and dried botanicals. But! These themes have to look natural, they cannot be cheesy. This means no deco signs nor folk-art dolls. It must feel as if you transported into that world, yes?
Simultaneously, we have been organizing our food stores. This cabinet was originally where we were housing the beginnings of our home canned goods this year. The amount of canned corn, beans, and tomatoes was outgrowing the cabinet space so we decided to turn our basement into a root cellar. I will share that soon! So as the jars of canned foods moved to their new home down below, this cabinet was left empty. Our bulk pantry full of dried beans, pasta, grains, herbs, spices, and fresh produce was filled to the brim. We had been shoving and storing the remainder of our food items into the cabinets; these were things we didn’t love looking at: bottles of oil, vinegar, peanut butter, honey, etc. These are all things that we cannot make nor grow ourselves so we must purchase them from the store, and the bottles are never pleasing to the eye. It was not something that we wanted to display in a glass cabinet.
I had made mention of wanting a witch’s apothecary look for a video, and Jill had the brilliant idea to turn our oils and vinegars into just that! Why couldn’t they be pretty? Why couldn’t we store our vinegars and oils in beautiful jars, too? So she came up with this concept! I absolutely love how it turned out.
It really made us step back and reconsider everything about decor that we have encountered thus far. This cabinet now feels like a movie display, yet it serves an entirely useful purpose. It gives off the illusion of a medicinal collection, but it is simply our cooking ingredients. We have been keeping these ingredients in random spots about the house for years, and we really love it. This is, truly, how good stores would have been kept in the past, rather than all stuffed in one little kitchen cabinet.
To us, our harvest is the best autumnal decor we could have! Pumpkins and squash, dried corn and apples, dried corn husks and dried flowers… These are all objects that are mimicked at the hobby store. We love that we can use the real items from our farm.
I think this may be my favorite “Halloween” display we have ever done. I love it so much! What do you think?
Xoxo Kayla
