Welcome, Friends, to today’s Blog where I’m featuring a table setting and a dining cabinet using Friendly Village china by Johnson Bros. of England. I ran across a set of Friendly Village some months ago:
https://www.thriftingwonderland.com/post/friendly-village-thrift-store-find
It was a great purchase. When I hunted the pieces a couple of days ago, 151 pieces which was more than the 144 pieces I thought were in the collection. I packed it away for the Summer and pulled it out this week. I’ve never owned any pieces of this pattern before so I wasn’t quite sure how it would come together on the table.
The Friendly Village pattern is primarily brown on a white background with accents of red with beautiful country scenes depicted on the china. I had a beautiful quilt, found a couple of years ago at a Thrift Store, that had those exact colors. You can see from the picture above that it is a large patched quilt with areas of red, brown, brown and white flowers and white with red and brown flowers. The colors matched the china really well. So I made that the base of the table setting.
A large rattan place mat in a rusty red picked up the red in the quilt as well as the china. I tried white first but it was too much contrast and made the setting less “comfy”. The red seemed to work well. Then I used the large dinner plate, a square salad/dessert plate and a medium bowl all in Friendly Village to complete the plate stack.
Friendly Village has pieces with different scenes so I did mix them up a bit. Love the Summer scene of the dinner plate. The other two are in “The Covered Bridge” pattern. I was fortunate that this china was in really good condition. A couple of pieces had very small chips but the rest was perfect.
The plate stack was complimented by two Waterford goblets in different patterns. It’s fun to use different non-matching crystal glasses and these go together well. The glasses really sparkle. Waterford isn’t generally considered casual glassware but these two goblets are quite substantial and seemed to fit the setting just fine.
This beautiful silver-plate pattern that I picked up recently is one of my favorites. It is a good weight and simple in design. Love how the fan shape reflects so much light. This pattern allows your eye a rest after the busier Friendly Village pattern.
The centerpiece is contained in a wooded wine box and presents multi-colored late Summer flowers with some Basil leaves for accent. The box is fairly narrow so fits well on the table.
Hand-made candles in brass candlesticks flank the flowers on either side.
Happily, the table seemed to come together pretty easily.
Here’s a few more pictures from different angles.
Once the table setting was completed I moved on to the hutch. With so many pieces, I decided to display a few more. Using the Friendly Village pieces and some all white accents seemed like a good idea. I mixed up the type of piece and the size of the piece to create some interest. The top shelf includes large dinner plates and bread and butter plates. The second shelf has two different sized pitchers and a white teapot with cream and sugar by Michael Aram. Found this tea set at my favorite thrift Store a few years ago. On the next shelf we have two luncheon plates, a small platter, gravy boat, cream and sugar and a covered butter dish. The bottom shelf holds luncheon plates and the cups and saucers from the tea set gathered on a heavy silver-plate tray.
The very top of the hutch continues the white and brown theme with a Lenox vase, some feathered trees and my favorite horse…..all thrifted, of course. LOL
Hope you enjoyed this look at “The Friendly Village”. Happy Thrifting!