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.

some photos from the archives: the old girl in the 90's

When I started this blog, I recounted here how it all started in 1995, with the first wave of renovations, and about how I seemed to have lost all my photos from that time.

As luck would have it, while unpacking boxes this week - and trying not to focus on the fact that over 3 months in, we are still unpacking boxes - I found some photos that chronicle some of the

initial renovations. They are all pre-digital and I have no idea where the negatives are, so I have taken photos of the photos - a bit grainy, but they were an amazing trip down memory lane for me.

this was what the old girl looked like when we bought her.

There were three flats and six sets of stairs. The verandahs had

all been closed in, and there was a big tree in the front garden

that we removed fairly quickly.

another view of the house

one of the first priorities after settlement was to build a fence

as we had dogs

me with one of the dogs sitting on the old stairs.

we had opened up the verandahs by that stage.

verandah railings starting to go up

restumping

new roof

The old roof was like a patchwork quilt of many

colours and we could always pick out the house when

we flew into Brisbane over our suburb

this was our kitchen for about six months. It was pretty hard

but much easier in your twenties with no children

than it would have been now.

The main thing I see when I look at this is the Nescafe Gold Blend -

the coffee culture has ensured that most of us now have coffee machines

of some description at home - I can't honestly remember the last time

I would have bought instant coffee. The second thing is the

prominently placed cockroach baits and spray - we certainly

needed it :(

this was the "new" kitchen under construction - how marvellously

luxurious it seemed to have a proper stove top, oven, and

running water.

this is the old girl looking lovely in about 1999 - freshly painted.

Exterior looked lovely, interior was about to get a revamp and sadly

our relationship ended, and it took a long time until this current

renovation took place.

fast forward to 2011 - how much the hedge has grown.

The Poinciana planted in 1997 is well established, as is the Jacaranda

on the footpath. The house is hardly visible.

another view of the old girl - March 2012

What a journey!