I'll be cooking in your kitchen, food for everyone…

Hey, a Howard Jones lyric. What were the odds?
Anyway… owing to massive public demand…
Well, large-scale public demand…
OK, you got me. Three people have hassled me for the past five days about why I haven’t updated with pictures of the new kitchen on the site. Normally, I’d just go on my merry way, ignoring their threats, but one of them does own the world’s most dangerous canine. Gulp. I’ll get right onto it, Ma’am.
kitchen1.jpg
Here’s the kitchen as it was. The oven hasn’t worked since the start of the year, none of the cupboards close properly, and the slightly “muddy” blue colour is due to the fact that one of the first things we did when we moved in seven years ago was paint over all the brown paint, because it was just too depressing. Given enough time, however, evil paint will find a way out…
kitchen3.jpg
It looks vaguely clean here – we’ve more or less cleared out everything but the kettle. It’s deceptive, though, as the laminate was badly scratched and pitted after at least twenty years worth of constant use and abuse. What you also can’t see was how badly the design actually worked — there was so much wasted space in this kitchen, like the diagonal shelf you can just make out at the bottom of the picture. It added nothing aesthetically, but meant that all the drawers on the other side were very short indeed.
kitchen4.jpg
Boom. Kitchen gone. What was surprising was how fast it all came down. This was about forty minutes after the builders turned up. They don’t hang around waiting for much…
kitchen6.jpg
The form work for the cabinets goes in. I think I was going deaf at this point. The builders all happily claimed that they didn’t hear the drilling sound any more. Or, as I discovered, much else besides…
kitchen5.jpg
Cupboards on the other side. Owing to the wacky slanted cupboards, there’s a gap in the lino that the new, sensible and normal cupboards doesn’t cover, and it now looks like we’re going to put in either a sanded or floating wood floor. Anyone got a whole bunch of freelance writing work going? 
kitchen7.jpg
Nearly finished. Nearly deaf by now. The amazing thing is that the kitchen takes up the same floorspace as the old one, but has at least 40% more actual storage space in it, thanks to not being designed by a gibbering maniac this time. I’m just guessing, you understand — it’s always possible that the old kitchen was an art nouveau experiment, using only the crappiest materials available. In which case, I’ve arranged for the desecration of a true classic. And you know what?  It feels GOOD.
  kitchen8.jpg
The finished product. It feels weird to have a dishwasher. And a working oven. And cupboards that don’t leave chipboard flakes all over my cornflakes.
kitchen9.jpg
The other side. You can clearly make out the lino “gap” here, as well as the bench, which has been nearly doubled in available length, thanks to shifting the pantry over to the other wall. In proper nerd fashion, there’s a printer just behind the kitchen bench, too. What, you mean you don’t have one there? Why not?

1 thought on “I'll be cooking in your kitchen, food for everyone…”

  1. Nice. It is amazing how quickly the builders can demolish an old kitchen. Was the much maniacal laughter as they swung their sledges and wielded the crowbars?

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