Kitchen - before

Kitchen
Again, this is all very warts and all so just pretend you can't see the dirt or the mess. One day I'll have a proper kitchen but given the price of them, this was put together piece by piece over a couple of years. I started with the sink and one of the serving trolleys along with a two-ring hotplate. At the same time I had a book shelf in here. Then I got the fridge and washing machine. At around the same time my sister gave me a mini oven she had in her cellar so I was all set for white goods for a couple of years.

Next purchases were the dresser and a round table and four chairs as well as a second trolley/butcher's block (all second-hand). So the book shelf could be returned to holding books again and I was kind of happy with all that for a while although I had great plans to reupholster the chairs and to make some kind of a curtain to hang around the trolleys in an attempt to keep the dust off everything that I never got around to. Maybe one of these days. There's a post here with photos of how it looked around then.

A couple of years after I moved in I bought a cooker. Another year or so later I got my hands on a rectangular white table on freecycle. I wanted it for my bedroom/office/hobby room (planned space for the other half of my bedroom) but once I had it in the house I thought it would actually work better in the kitchen. I had already realised that it was a bit too cramped to actually have more than one person over to eat so I moved the round table into the sitting room and set up the 'new' one in the kitchen. Instant counter space. So here's how it looks today. Along with a whole lot of mess.

Left-hand side taken from the kitchen door. The two boxes at the far end have jar lids and a few smaller jars in them. Since I ended up not really doing any preserving this year, these are still fairly full. Just need to move them back to a cupboard, once I find a space. The suitcase is full of music as I'm the librarian for our choir, we found out unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago that our normal rehearsal space was closing for renovation and I just had to clear everything out of our lockers in a hurry. So my suitcase full has just been sitting on the kitchen floor since.

Taken from the same spot at the door, view of the other side.

This is the main storage I have in the kitchen. The cupboard on the bottom is full of Tupperware. The drawers have cutlery and other utensils - although they're a tiny bit too small really. The top part has dishes on the bottom and the right side of the two upper shelves with food, spices etc. on the left.

This really needs to be painted, I think, and I'm leaning towards a blue colour for that. Or else I'll chicken out and just do a simple white. It's not a solid wood piece or anything, just a simple varnish and there are actually a few deep scratches on it (the reason it was so cheap even for second-hand) so painting would help to get that dealt with, too. I think I may get a couple of basic white cupboards from Ikea to hang high on the wall, i.e. above the dresser. That way I could move the stuff out of the tallboy, which is currently in the sitting room, back into the kitchen. Just had a look and they're on special offer at the moment with 20% off. Hmm.

And here's the view taken from the window towards the door. I have a couple of things hanging on the walls as I just didn't have anywhere to store those big things and I always liked those kitchens with rows of copper pots hanging from the walls. Even if the amount of dust that accumulates here means anything being left out is actually a really bad idea.




And finally. I bought a stripey Lars Contzen wallpaper to use in the kitchen and just have to get around to putting it up. Well, the hard part is stripping off the Raufaser that's there, I suppose. Like the bathroom, it's starting to come away in places anyway, so I really do need to replace it. And, like the bathroom, the previous tenant just used a standard paint so it's not possible to wipe it clean at all. Not the best for a kitchen area that gets used for more than just heating frozen stuff up in the oven. I plan to put that on the big wall and use a plain white everywhere else. The brown happiness picture I bought the other day will go on the big wall - it's a good colour match to one of the smaller stripes in the wallpaper. And the stuff I currently have hanging on the wall will probably go back but just moved around a bit. I'd really love to put a shelf up across the end wall, on top of the door, too. For cookbooks and the like. That's definitely a project for the future if I end up staying here longer than another couple of years though. Just to give you an idea, I held the paper up against the wall behind the copper jam pan. I think it'll be nice and bright and cheerful in the kitchen.