♥ the heart of the home ♥

I think most renovators have one particular area of their home that is most meaningful for them. For us it is the kitchen - we spend a lot of time there, cooking and just hanging out. The man of the house and I both love cooking. Our previous kitchen was tiny with minimal bench space and almost non existent storage space - but we loved it. It opened onto our verandah via bi-fold doors, opening up the space, letting the outside in, and ensuring that you always had company in the kitchen while cooking. Given the Queensland climate, most of our meals were eaten on a table just outside of the kitchen on the deck.

We wanted to incorporate some of the features that we loved about the old kitchen, while giving ourselves more space and modernising the look. This new kitchen is in a completely new space in the house which gave us a bit of freedom, but we also didn't want it to be too big. Of course budget came into it as well.

We were able to retain the idea of the bi-fold doors. The actual footprint of the kitchen is not large, but we will usually have these doors open when we are at home to open up the space.

the future kitchen space viewed from the "new" verandah,

with the space for the bi-fold doors

bi-fold doors completed and seen from inside

the house

bi-fold doors open and the kitchen starting to take shape

It was at this stage that we left to go overseas - not without some trepidation as there would be some major changes while we were away, and for a control freak planner like me this was challenging...... however we needn't have worried as it is all taking shape beautifully:

the bi-fold doors are to the right of this picture.

the benchtop is still to be installed.

We have lots more bench space and an island bench which was high on our wish list - it will be great to have some stools there and to be able to eat/chat/supervise homework/drink wine :-). The lovely Queenslander we are renting at the moment has a similar set up and we spend a lot of time there.

We decided on Corian as a benchtop rather than Caesarstone - Caesarstone is beautiful but I was worried when I heard that it is harder to fix if it chips - knowing that we have an exuberant boy in the house I wanted something more durable. We have chosen a greyish colour called Lava Rock and the cabinets are painted in Dulux Lexicon.

Rather than a large freestanding oven we chose a Neff wall oven - there are only three of us and since space was at a premium and we didn't feel we needed more oven space. The pantry is huge with shelves and drawers - I didn't take a photo of it but will post one soon.

So much has changed in the rest of the house since we were away - it makes it all much more real and our target of being back in the house before Christmas seems possible. Can't wait for the festive season to start entertaining :-)