sparkly floors

Still a liiiitle bit of work (fridge, dishwasher & range hood to be installed, spashback tiled, skirting boards under cupboards, painting...) to be done in the kitchen, but you have to agree it's going to be beautiful. We're so happy with the American Cherry cabinets, and the floors are just stunning.

Below is the upstairs third bedroom/study. Again, a liiiiiitle bit of painting to be done, but almost there.

The front downstairs rooms are also lacking in a bit of paint but looking gorgeous, and while the staircase photo below isn't crash hot when you look at it properly it's perfect.


Enough gushing for now - will post some more photos soon once we have done some more painting and unpacking. We also have to chase up the kitchen guy as he has a bit to do that will make it much more special than it already is, can't wait.

kitchen & render & staircase

As you can see from the title of this post it's been a busy few weeks. The kitchen is well on it's way to being installed, as you can see in the photographs above and below.

The floor to ceiling cupboards with the "boxing rings" in them are the pantry, and then the cupboards to their right are firstly for the television and associated electronic bits and bobs, and other appliances and kitchen gear. The television will hide behind wood veneer doors that can slide our and back so that it can be pulled forward when we want to watch. I love a hidden TV, I hate the way the dominate a space otherwise.

Kitchen cupboards will be Dulux Whisper White veneer, as will the island, but the floor to ceiling cupboards will have wood veneer doors so that they we can differentiate the space and they are more built in furniture than connected to the kitchen.

Now to the staircase, we are incredibly happy with it. Now that I've seen it I have no regrets about ditching the old one and getting this copy made. The brushbox treads match our new floorboards, so will be polished, and the pine detailing will be painted.


Finally, the render. So glad to have banished the scraps of lime green pain from the house forever. The painter has started painting the sides of the house, but the front still needs doing. And in this picture you can also see the balcony.

We're edging closer to completion... sometimes two steps forward and one step back, but we'll get there. And hopefully soon.

more daydreaming

I spend way too much time daydreaming about what my kitchen-to-be will look and feel like. So far I have decided that the walls will be painted a beautiful grey and the benches will be a grey and white marble. We'll eat our meals on beautiful Heath Ceramics tablewear.

And finally butter will be in a pretty pretty dish (go Anthropologie!)

The things I obsess over are really not normal.

how would the perfect kitchen look?

I've started thinking more about how our final kitchen will look. Only slightly jumping the gun.

I thought I hated white marble. Looks like I could be wrong. I love the combination of clean whites and a range of natural wood finishes.

Turning an island bench into a pretty display case is very clever. And very appealing too.

And I love these drawers.

I am constantly amazed by the range of vastly different and equally beautiful options when you're building a house. How do you choose?

why 'minus a kitchen'?

Our house originally had two kitchens.

Once was downstairs:

I'm not really sure that you can even call it a kitchen. It was a carpeted room with a sink and a fridge.

The other kitchen was on the upstairs balacony off the master bedroom:

Pancakes in bed anyone?

Even more interestingly, aside from running water, neither kitchen worked. Broken stoves, broken ovens. It all had to go in the bin. We were minus a kitchen.

Maybe there were a few families or even a few generations of one family living in the house at some stage.

(I should add that we are now PLUS a kitchen, well, a temporary one cleverly constructed by Theo.)