Let's cut to the chase, shall we?
Things that have happened since last I posted:
- I had a keloid scar removed from my ear after having to carry it around for nearly five years
- Subsequently, I rediscovered the joy of earrings!
- We 'properly' moved in to the house - i.e. we sleep and eat here now, too, instead of shuttling to and from the flat
- I had approximately a bajillion and two blood tests
- We made approximately a bajillion and three trips to IKEA
- I was
put under house arrestsigned off work for two weeks with suspected post-viral ME or the equally fun sounding chronic fatigue syndrome - I watched so. many. episodes. of Snapped: Women Who Kill (and its much superior cousin Snapped: Couples Who Kill)
- I spent a small fortune on things for the house on Etsy
- We got wifi!
- The living room, bedroom and dressing room (aka smallest spare room) all got painted
- I met and befriended two random cats
- We had new flooring installed in the downstairs hallway
AND:
- The kitchen got some finishing touches, as well as actual contents in the cupboards
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Seeing as that's probably one of the more interesting happenings (don't worry, the living, bed and dressing rooms will all get their moment in the spotlight soon!), let's go a bit deeper into that, shall we?
You may remember that in parts one and two of the kitchen's transformation I painted the cabinets, floor, walls, tiles, trim... basically, anything that could be painted was painted.
And it looked, great, but it also looked a bit sterile. Cue everyone's (OK, my) favourite bit of decorating - the accessories. Huzzah!
I'm going to let the pictures do most of the talking (and apologies if they aren't the best quality, the camera is... somewhere... so these are from my phone) as to be honest I'm 75% brain fog at the moment and they'll be much more eloquent than I can be!
The shelf over the oven (brackets from IKEA, shelf from Alex's old bedroom) and the little island have easily made the biggest differences. The island is also, of course, from IKEA - we actually bought it when we moved into the flat a couple of years ago in order to give ourselves some more counter space and storage (I cannot emphasise enough how little space we had in the old kitchen!), but bringing it into the middle of this room just sort of anchors everything together. The butcher block top connects the wood around the sink and the surface we put next to the oven, and the open shelves underneath are both handy and let me play with having pretty storage solutions.
The shelf is a great way to display our cookbooks without taking up countertop real estate that is better reserved for food prep, and its placement over the oven sort of echoes a mantelpiece, which works with the fact that the oven is tucked into an old fireplace. The clock was a Homesense find, and the little stool/step (IKEA again, obvs) allows me to actually reach the books 😅
I'm loving this room at the moment, and not just because the two of us can cook in there without being elbow to elbow. It feels fresh and bright and fun - it feels like a 'proper' kitchen. Not to be too clichéd, but growing up the kitchen was always the heart of our home - where we gathered to eat, chat, and most importantly, make tea. My dad and sister visited at the weekend and several times the four of us found ourselves gravitating to the kitchen while we waited for the kettle to boil (my family is fuelled by regular mugs of Yorkshire Tea) or when making food, and I love that we've made a room that's conducive to coming together and chatting about nothing. Its almost aggressively domestic and I adore it.
Viva la kitchen, and viva la nap I'm about to have to replenish the energy that writing this has taken! Until next time...
