As I mentioned in my last but one post, we recently had some major construction work done on the back of our house, which included completely reinventing our formerly tiny kitchen. Previously, we had a fairly large (for a bog-standard 1930s semi) dining room which had a LOT of dead space, partly due to a very small and rather pointless back extension. At the same time, the kitchen was a small galley, with limited storage and limited surface space. It certainly wasn't comfortable for two people to cook in at the same time. The oven was ancient, and one of the five gas hobs hadn't worked in a decade (let's gently gloss over the reason why neither of us ever thought to get it repaired or, indeed, why the oven itself with many year's worth of baked on grime never found itself at the receiving end of a deep clean.) The surfaces themselves were appalling, the decor that peculiar shade of pale, sickly yellowish beige that seemed to be so popular back in the seventies. In short, a bit of a nightmare, especially for people who enjoy cooking and want the kitchen to be at the centre of the home.
Circumstances at last allowed for us to rip it all out and start again. It has been a long, painful and ludicrously expensive process but we are now there, bar a little bit of final painting, and to say that I am delighted is an understatement.
From this...
To this:
Isn't it lovely?
I'll admit, though, I've found it a tiny bit difficult to get into the swing of cooking in the new space. It doesn't really feel completely mine yet and I'm a bit nervous about making a mess. So D has done most of the heavy lifting, cookery speaking, so far. This weekend was the first time I really started to relax and enjoy it a little bit more. I made
floury buns and coleslaw to accompany some excellent hotdog sausages on Saturday evening, and on Sunday we had a joyous
Welsh rarebit for breakfast and bacon chops with mustard mash, smoky
creamed spinach and roasted asparagus for supper and it was all very, very nice indeed.
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