The White House: May 2012

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

kitchen

The kitchen is my favourite room of the house. We spend most of our time here and the space

works just as we had hoped it would.We wanted lots of bench space,
somewhere to sit, higher bench tops and a space that was warm and inviting.
We chose white cabinetry and after much deliberation

grey benchtops - thinking that otherwise it would be too white for us.

looking down into the kitchen with my much

loved antique scales in the foreground

looking back down towards the front of the house.
we chose Corian over Caesarstone as it comes as one solid
block rather than having to have joins.

searched high and low for these lights and

found them at Ici et La in Sydney.

behind the stools we have a row of bi-fold doors that open

up to the deck. It makes entertaining so easy

as you can feel part of everything while still working in

the kitchen

view from the deck looking back into the kitchen

both the man of the house and I are tall, and so in addition to

higher benchtops, we wanted a wall mounted oven. I know

ovens underneath the stove top look lovely, but I was sick of bending

down all the time. We chose a Neff oven.

this was one of the main selling points for me for

the Neff. It has castors and you can slide the

trays out very easily to check on what is

cooking

the magical "Slide'N'Hide" door was the second selling point.

Going.....

going........

gone!

I seriously love this and it is so convenient.

If the man of the house was reading this (he doesn't read the blog)

he would harrumph loudly and grumble under his breath

"you'd want to seriously love it for the amount of extra money

that door cost".

Our builder talked us through a few rough ideas for the kitchen and then

sent us to his cabinet maker who spent a lot of time with us, finding out what was

important to us and then guiding us in the right direction. I'd be very happy
to recommend them (and my builder) to anyone in Brisbane.

We chose

2Pak cabinets painted in Lexicon

Corian bench top in Lava Rock
Dorf Kytin mixer
Waden reverse osmosis water filter
Highland gas stovetop
Neff oven
Miele dishwasher

Boy of the house was home sick from school today.

That meant I got a day off work to mop his

fevered brow. Everything feels better after a

cup of chai tea in the big bed

loving this weather at the moment in Brisbane.

We have a Japanese maple in the front garden

which provides us with some glorious autumnal colours

just as we are heading into autumn here, everything is coming

alive in Germany - my Mum sent me this photo of

one of the peony roses in her garden. So lovely.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

a singular sadness

boy of the house at about 11 months of age. In some ways

it seems like yesterday. He's now at school.

I haven't felt like blogging for a while. Some of that has been because I've been busy - in a good way.

Work has been flat out, I've been to Sydney twice in 2 weeks, and we've had lots of catch ups with

friends at the old girl which has been lovely.

I've been a bit sad though too. The cause of my sadness is something that may be hard to understand for a lot of people. The boy of the house is an only child - not by choice, but that's what happens when you leave it until your later thirties to have a baby. I know we were very lucky to have him, when so many people are not able to have children at all. While I had a lot of sadness a few years ago when we were in the thick of trying hard to have another baby - with the emotional roller coaster that comes with assisted fertility - in more recent times I had come to accept, happily, that our little family was complete.

So I wasn't prepared this week for the emotional outpouring from the boy of the house.

He's not been himself these past 2 or 3 weeks, and it all came out on Sunday night when I was tucking him in to bed. He spontaneously started crying and asked me why he didn't have any brothers and sisters, how sad he was that it was just the three of us, and why couldn't it be different. "Friends are great mum, but a brother or sister is what I really want". The conversation went on for a long time, and it transpired that he has been sad about this for a long time and has been bottling it up. He is one of only two only-children at his school, and I hadn't realised how perceptive he was about the situation. Never under-estimate your children.

Of course in the grand scheme of things, we are such a lucky family, all living safely and healthily. On a daily basis at work I see children who are coping with acute or chronic illness, and am reminded constantly that good health and a loving family - whatever its size or composition - should never be taken for granted. However I think the thing that is making me especially sad about this is that it is a terrible thing to see your child so sad about something that no one - especially me - has the power to do any thing about. This is one thing I can't make better for him. I'm all for promoting resilience in our children, but he can't change this situation by working harder at something, or by applying himself more.

I am sure we will navigate this sadness, the boy of the house and I. In the meantime I've got plenty of house related things I can post about...... in due course.