My Facebook friends have been hearing the long saga of my new kitchen for a few weeks now. Apart from one piece of wall, it is all finished and looking fresh, modern, and family friendly. Such a change from the dark and cheap yucky units that a previous owner had thrown in, presumably to help sell the house. The top pic shows my brand new kettle! For years I've been managing with Tesco's own £5 value electric kettle. Nothing obnoxious about it; they generally last about 18 months when they finally fail and I go and buy another one. I've always wanted to get a kettle that just looked good - but couldn't bear to spend the money on it when the £5 kettle worked so efficiently. So it was lovely when my Mum and Dad came round to see my kitchen, bringing me this kettle as a new kitchen gift! Funnily enough, I have been wanting to buy the Dualit toaster, but putting it off because of the hideous price tag. I'm going to have to get it now to match the kettle! In the reflective surface of the kettle you can just about get a fish eye view of the whole kitchen!
I always love to mix and match my crockery. There are some plates here from 24 years ago!
I wanted open, chunky shelving units. To avoid a total white look, some of the shelving cubby holes were painted in different colours. I chose a random selection of tester pots - and I think they've worked really well.
At a bit of a risk, I asked for all the shelves to fit flush with the ceiling - I hate the gap on top of kitchen cupboards, which is where in the past I store things that never get used for a million years, and when you finally move house the top of the cupboard is an inch thick with grease and dust. The risk is that of course, most things are too high for me to reach... but so far it's working well. The everyday things are within reach and a small step ladder is at hand for the things that are used less frequently. A lot of my kitchen things have been treasured, used and loved over many years. On the bottom shelf in the above pic, far left, are some weighing scales my brother gave me for my wedding nearly 25 years ago. The marriage didn't last - but the scales have. They are a wonderful traditional make which are still sold today. I remember at the time I was given them, they cost about £25 without the weights. I had a huge shock when I saw them in a cookery shop just last week - with an updated price tag of £77!!! I would never have thought that scales would turn out to be an investment buy! Now, if only I could find my 1/2 oz weight it would be as good as the day I got it!
My most used during the day shelf! Coffee, tea, sugar - an Emma Bridgewater jug to keep teaspoons in, my favourite fizzy drinking water is stashed in bottles here, my milk frother and my wonderful Roberts DAB radio. I've been lucky enough to have been given two of these. The red one lives in the kitchen, the pink one next to my bed!
And finally, the cooker that started it all!! I hated the previous one with a passion. Aside from £5 Tesco kettles, I've never found that cheap kitchen appliances do any kind of worthwhile job. The previous cooker was a good example. The element in the oven would burn out every 6 months, the gas hob was so badly designed that you'd have to hold pans steady on there - the slightest movement and they'd tip over. It was horrendous. Last year, when I took on a secondment at work that resulted in some very long hours over 5 weeks, I decided to use the extra money I would be paid on a new cooker. And when I finally collected that money in my June pay packet, before I could wobble and give in to the temptation of a new camera lens or two - I rushed off to John Lewis and bought the cooker. The much larger size - the fact that tiles had to come off the wall, followed by plaster, that the kitchen then needed re wiring to cope with a modern and powerful cooker and gas pipes needed re routing, followed by not wanting to put nasty cheap cupboards back on the wall, meant a new kitchen! There are no tiles in the new kitchen. I was lucky enough to find a stainless steel splashback for the cooker in a sale - reduced from £170 to £37! What a bargain! The cupboards below the sink were kept, but given a new lease of life with plain, shiny white doors and stainless steel handles that match the handles on the oven doors.
My Facebook friends have been hearing the long saga of my new kitchen for a few weeks now. Apart from one piece of wall, it is all finished and looking fresh, modern, and family friendly. Such a change from the dark and cheap yucky units that a previous owner had thrown in, presumably to help sell the house. The top pic shows my brand new kettle! For years I've been managing with Tesco's own £5 value electric kettle. Nothing obnoxious about it; they generally last about 18 months when they finally fail and I go and buy another one. I've always wanted to get a kettle that just looked good - but couldn't bear to spend the money on it when the £5 kettle worked so efficiently. So it was lovely when my Mum and Dad came round to see my kitchen, bringing me this kettle as a new kitchen gift! Funnily enough, I have been wanting to buy the Dualit toaster, but putting it off because of the hideous price tag. I'm going to have to get it now to match the kettle! In the reflective surface of the kettle you can just about get a fish eye view of the whole kitchen!
I always love to mix and match my crockery. There are some plates here from 24 years ago!
I wanted open, chunky shelving units. To avoid a total white look, some of the shelving cubby holes were painted in different colours. I chose a random selection of tester pots - and I think they've worked really well.
At a bit of a risk, I asked for all the shelves to fit flush with the ceiling - I hate the gap on top of kitchen cupboards, which is where in the past I store things that never get used for a million years, and when you finally move house the top of the cupboard is an inch thick with grease and dust. The risk is that of course, most things are too high for me to reach... but so far it's working well. The everyday things are within reach and a small step ladder is at hand for the things that are used less frequently. A lot of my kitchen things have been treasured, used and loved over many years. On the bottom shelf in the above pic, far left, are some weighing scales my brother gave me for my wedding nearly 25 years ago. The marriage didn't last - but the scales have. They are a wonderful traditional make which are still sold today. I remember at the time I was given them, they cost about £25 without the weights. I had a huge shock when I saw them in a cookery shop just last week - with an updated price tag of £77!!! I would never have thought that scales would turn out to be an investment buy! Now, if only I could find my 1/2 oz weight it would be as good as the day I got it!
My most used during the day shelf! Coffee, tea, sugar - an Emma Bridgewater jug to keep teaspoons in, my favourite fizzy drinking water is stashed in bottles here, my milk frother and my wonderful Roberts DAB radio. I've been lucky enough to have been given two of these. The red one lives in the kitchen, the pink one next to my bed!
And finally, the cooker that started it all!! I hated the previous one with a passion. Aside from £5 Tesco kettles, I've never found that cheap kitchen appliances do any kind of worthwhile job. The previous cooker was a good example. The element in the oven would burn out every 6 months, the gas hob was so badly designed that you'd have to hold pans steady on there - the slightest movement and they'd tip over. It was horrendous. Last year, when I took on a secondment at work that resulted in some very long hours over 5 weeks, I decided to use the extra money I would be paid on a new cooker. And when I finally collected that money in my June pay packet, before I could wobble and give in to the temptation of a new camera lens or two - I rushed off to John Lewis and bought the cooker. The much larger size - the fact that tiles had to come off the wall, followed by plaster, that the kitchen then needed re wiring to cope with a modern and powerful cooker and gas pipes needed re routing, followed by not wanting to put nasty cheap cupboards back on the wall, meant a new kitchen! There are no tiles in the new kitchen. I was lucky enough to find a stainless steel splashback for the cooker in a sale - reduced from £170 to £37! What a bargain! The cupboards below the sink were kept, but given a new lease of life with plain, shiny white doors and stainless steel handles that match the handles on the oven doors.
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