Valentine’s Day Cupboard And A Love Story

Do you decorate your cupboards for Valentine’s Day? I sure do and today I am sharing my favorite Valentine’s Day cupboard up close with you all – plus, I am sharing a little bit of my own personal Love Story!

Happy Valentine’s Day to each of you! To celebrate this day of LOVE, I am first sharing a space that I LOVED putting together this season. If you follow me on Instagram then you may have seen a glimpse or two of this space already, but before the holiday passes us by, I wanted to share my Valentine’s Day Cupboard up close. (And, selfishly, I wanted to document this space on the blog so that I will always remember it – smile!)

My Favorite Valentine’s Day Cupboard Ever

All I did was really focus on layering in three different ‘things’ – many of which you probably already have around your home. Especially if you love vintage like I do – HA!

Layer In The Hearts And Colors

You can see that I obviously took advantage of the opportunity to add in those traditional Valentine’s Day hearts and colors here. I didn’t want to be too obnoxious by adding in tons of holiday pieces and I also made an effort to choose pieces that supported and stayed within a ‘kitchen’ theme. So, I chose to layer in a few old jar lids that had heart graphics and I used red cookie cutters to add in that traditional pop of valentine color!

Layer In The Linens

I tend to stick with neutral linens all the time, but this year I went with a few reds and pinks. I actually dipped into my Christmas stash for a few hints of red! I used hand towels and tea towels and I even had a few pink place mats on hand to use on the kitchen table.

Layer In The Plants

Using plants is not new for me, but I felt like it needed to be mentioned again here. It was particularly fun this year to hunt for a few live plants for this space that ‘matched’ the theme of the season – love. The pink miniature rose bush is the perfect flower (and color) for this Valentine’s Day Cupboard. And, as I mentioned earlier in this blog post, this green hoya heart is the ‘icing on the cake’ for me!

I also dolled up some of my more plain house plants with the sweetest little red DIY hearts (see how to make them here). I felt these little hearts elevated them and helped to make them a little extra special!

I had so much fun putting this Valentine’s Day cupboard together and if I am being honest I will be sad to see it go! I only pulled a few new pieces from three categories, but when mixed together inside and around the cabinet it can make a big difference! The best thing too is that every year my Valentine’s Day decor seems to always get me in the mood for spring – it must be all that pink!

Our Love Story

While I love to share my passion for home decor and vintage finds here on the blog, I don’t often share many personal moments. But, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought I would share a bit about how Mark and I found each other.

If I am being honest, Mark was my first true love. The first man that I felt a love that was pure and true. We met at a college dance in 1996 a few months after my 19th birthday. While I had dated a few others before him, Mark swept me off of my feet the moment I saw him. I literally watched him walk up to me from across the room to ask me to dance (I honestly thought he was going to ask my friend Danielle that I was standing with to dance), but he asked me. And, that was it. We began dating and fell in love.

That doesn’t mean that our love story wasn’t bumpy or messy. We were quite young and had a lot of growing up to do. I was a freshman and he was a senior when we began dating. Mark left school my sophomore year. So, there were many years of distance between us. We would visit as much as we could after he left but honestly, we spent the majority of our relationship apart.

Then, in the summer of 1999, after college, I moved from Ohio (we went to The College Of Wooster in Ohio) to Atlanta to complete a six month internship required for my Music Therapy degree. I was then offered a full time job there in Atlanta after my internship – and I had to take it. Mark, however, had a very good established job back in Cleveland. We were in limbo. We stayed in that limbo for a very long time and we honestly didn’t even know if we would ever end up together. Then, one fall day in October of 2000, I had a car accident that would change my life. (That is a story for another day.) Mark dropped everything and came to me as soon as he heard. He showed up at the hospital with his bag and waited for me for three days to move out of the ICU (that’s what my parents told me – I was out of it for a while.) I feel that the car accident is when both knew that we were still in love and needed to make an effort to be together again.

The car accident was really a bad one and my pelvis was crushed. I didn’t walk for many months and had to live with my parents after a few months at the rehab hospital. But, after about a year of rehabilitation and a full recovery, Mark and I decided it was time to finally be together. He quite his job the Friday before September 11, 2001 and moved down a few weeks after that. I will never forget seeing the yellow Uhaul with his black Jeep Wrangler hanging off of the back. While I was a bit nervous about how it would all work out – as soon as I saw him sitting there in that Uhaul in the grocery store parking lot, I knew it would be PERFECT. We lived in two separate apartments (in the same building) and we eventually got married in 2003. He was worth the LONG wait.

I have to say, looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing about our love story. I was a baby when I met him and we both needed to grow up and grow into our relationship. All the hard times apart really helped to make me appreciate him and I know we are strong in our conviction to be together because OURS is a relationship that we had to fight for for many, many years – and it was worth it.