Kitchen Dreams

By far my favourite space in this house is the kitchen. It has enough space for a large family table and large South-facing windows. Sure, I’m not in love with the worktop or tiles but with no frivolous money to lavish on it – I can live with it as it is.

On the surface of it, there’s little wrong with the kitchen. It was installed by the family who lived here before we bought it six years ago. But as I discovered when I began unpacking and found there to be only one drawer: appearances can be deceptive.

Besides the lack of drawer space, the cupboards aren’t entirely innocent. Two of the cupboards are all but useless as they have pillars running through them. The glass fronted cupboards have lights within which burn any food packets which might be on the shelves. A further cupboard is missing a door where we expanded the dishwasher housing.

The hob has ceased to ignite and often takes five minutes of match action to get warmed up. The installation of the electrics was clearly executed by a butcher; let’s just hope they had and electrical qualification…

So while I could live with it, I would have a skippy heart if we could change it. Without a doubt I’d like to get the basics sorted out: cupboards, drawers and electrics that work for us but the aesthetics; I have been dreaming about them for years.

The kitchen I dream of has a well worn feel to it while being practical. Essentially, the bones of my kitchen are good so I would commission a carpenter to use reclaimed materials (like these old science lab worktops seen at Retrouvius) to create new doors, panels and worktops to fit the existing units.

Being a pattern lover I can’t take my eyes off patterned kitchen tiles and I would love to include a traditional patterned tile (like this kitchen tile from past season Fired Earth as seen on UK Home Ideas) or perhaps a mix of patterns from the Moroccan souk?

We have never successfully kept the seal behind our sink free from black mould and once it’s in it permeates the seal making it impossible to remove. To combat this I would choose a composite sink and moulded splash-back to fit beneath our window (loving this one above photographed by Heather Hobhouse for Ideal Home as seen on House to Home).

In terms of the kitchen deign I’d want to keep it classic, after all, we would want to live with it for the rest of our time in this house. This painted kitchen (as seen on the Farrow and Ball Facebook Page) is the bees knees – simple shapes, solid skirting boards, half cup handles and a storage unit to die for. I would love to install a unit (albeit far smaller) like this in my baking corner where cupboard space is scarce and I waste much of the worktop with books.

My final addition would be to install this nifty little cupboard (made by Wood Mode as seen on Traditional Home) in place of the wine rack beneath the sink (there are wine racks all over this kitchen and I don’t drink). I know that a wee cupboard for the tea-towels is possibly a step too far but this is a fantasy, isn’t it?