Newly Styled Kitchen Alcove

In July, we said goodbye to our sweet 16-year-old pup, Ollie, and it left a quiet ache in the place he spent most of his time with us: the kitchen.

His bowls had always lived in a small alcove—a little nook that, for years, marked the rhythm of our days. Breakfast. Dinner. The soft clink of ceramic. The inevitable request for “one more.” After he was gone, that same space felt impossibly loud in its emptiness. The kind of empty that catches you off guard when you’re just trying to make coffee.

When we brought Ollie’s ashes home, I kept them on an antique chest in the living room for months. I tried to make that feel right, but it never did. Not because the chest wasn’t beautiful—it is—but because grief is strangely specific. You don’t just want a “nice spot.” You want his spot. The place that still feels like him.

A couple of months ago, we hung my grandmother’s plates in the kitchen. And in the way that homes sometimes gently tell you what they need, it became instantly clear: this would be a memory place. A small, intentional corner for the people (and pups) we love, held right in the middle of everyday life.

Within a couple of days, I carried a ceramic garden stool in from another room and placed it in the alcove. The moment it landed, I knew. Ollie’s ashes belonged there—right where he ate and drank twice a day, where he was quietly woven into our routine. It wasn’t about making a “shrine.” It was about making a home for his memory that felt honest and warm.

Now that little spot has become one of the most meaningful moments in our kitchen. It holds my grandmother and Ollie, in a way that feels strangely perfect—both of them, in their own ways, deeply connected to food and comfort and the love that gathers around a table.

And every time I walk into the kitchen, my heart feels fuller. Not because I don’t miss him—I do. But because he’s still there, in the place that always belonged to him, tucked into the rhythm of our days.