Everything and the kitchen sink

Monday was ‘K’ day, and Rose stayed home to witness the grand installation of our new kitchen. But there were side-shows, too.

The extensive renovations we completed on our last home all grew from Rose’s desire to own her ‘dream kitchen’. And it was, leaving an awful lot for the next one to live up to. In fact, despite going through the whole design process with a thorough and accommodating team in Masterton, she seemed to be preparing herself for disappointment – she’d already had her dream kitchen so this could only ever be ‘the other kitchen’.

It doesn't look much like a kitchen yet...



In designing our home the temptation has always been strong to copy what we’ve done before – and why not? If a decision has worked well in the past why re-invent the wheel?

There’s little doubt that our previous kitchen worked wonderfully well – in fact, it possibly sold that house for us, but we felt it was important to make a clean break this time around to avoid ending up with a pale imitation.

...but it doesn't take too long...

...particularly when the sink is lifted into place...

...and bench tops fitted...

The previous colour scheme was dark and mid greys, so this time we went light instead. The gas stove and hob which Rose tracked down is larger than the usual domestic stove, so fortunately we had a lot of space to play with. And this space has been fitted out with as much storage as we could get away with, meaning that we currently have the surreal dilemma of trying to fill all the drawers, rather than find space for everything. But we we’re under no illusions that the law of households abhorring a vacuum will prevail, and we’ll eventually expand to fill even all this space.

...for a brand new kitchen to be born.  The fridge fits - thank goodness!

At a time when many are trying to make ends meet, I have to say that I do feel somewhat materialistic writing about the pros and cons of a brand new kitchen.  As with our previous home, we hope it will become 'the heart of our house' and so therefore is vital to get right.  It may be ‘the other kitchen’, but it looks beautiful and we both love it.

The glass partition is lifted, carefully, into posiiton

Meanwhile, across the hallway, the 2.1m high by 1.6m wide glass partition was being fitted for our shower. Although it isn’t a council regulation (odd, as everything else seems to be) having a stabiliser to keep the glass rigid wasn’t compulsory. However, once lifted into place, the potential flex in the glass sheet quickly convinced Rose to go with the stabiliser arm option. It’s actually quite innocuous, and doesn’t detract from the overall minimalistic appearance we were striving for. The dream of having our own shower for the first time in almost a year comes ever closer…



We'll probably wear less clothes in here once the water is connected.



While this was happening, baleage contractors arrived to take some of our bales (including smiley face) away to a new home. Anyone who’s been to the Waiararpa recently couldn’t help but notice the excess of baleage this year – the unusually damp spring and summer means that there is more of these giant green-wrapped parcels around than there has been in several decades. Naturally, this is also the first season we made our own, and were left with a thousand dollars worth of feed which was unlikely to be wanted by anyone. Fortunately we’ve managed to sell over half, and will hang onto the rest for the time being, confident that someone will want it when winter starts to bite.

Our 'smiley face' is taken away to it's new home, with half of our other bales. 

And finally, Rose wasn’t content simply to be an observer and managed to finish the cupboard unti for the spare bedroom. Now we have somewhere to hang our clothes, protecting them from our plaster dust coated floors, and can finally retire the very tired and bowed hanging rail which graced the shipping container for all those months. We can find our clothes again!

We'll finally be able to see what we're putting on in the morning.
No more unintentional cross-dressing for me!