COLD OUTSIDE - WARM INSIDE

The weather has changed and we're experiencing winter at last.  

It's cold outside but warm and cosy inside.

This area in the kitchen is lovely sit at, after a freezing cold walk.

  

Luckily, we have a wood burner to add extra heat if needed.

We inherited it from the previous owner, who installed it probably in the late 70's.  

To be honest, it's not my ideal looking burner.  I would prefer something at little more

contemporary but by saving money when we renovated the kitchen, 

we decided to keep it.

On cold days like today, it's very good at it's job.

Bought at an antiques fair about 25 years ago, the school trunk is in its original state. 

It works well as a table.  We're not precious about it, so if anything gets spilt or knocked on it, we don't worry about it at all. Great for putting your feet up on too!

WHAT A DIFFERENCE

It always surprises me when I come across a photo of the house as we originally saw it...

above is the garden beside the conservatory as it looks now and below is a photo taken on the day we moved into the house.

Quite a few changes have been made since that day!

The original porch (built in the 70's) has been demolished and a new one rebuilt with the door positioned in the middle and windows at the side. 

The trellis has been taken down. Luckily, the honeysuckle growing up it survived its move and is happy in its new position. 

Patio and steps up to the conservatory have been replaced with York stone.  

The horrible crumbly brick path that went around the conservatory, has been turfed with grass. 

The conservatory has had a complete re-vamp (you can read about it here). 

All windows have been replaced and updated. 

One of the main improvements to the look of the garden, is the very tired, worn concrete paths have had gravel added.  It helps soften the area plus neatens everything up.

KITCHEN MOCK-UP

The easiest way for us to see our ideas for the kitchen renovations, was to make a 3D model of what it will look like when finished. This was such a useful exercise.  We could then look at all four corners of the room from north, south, east and west.

Using foamboard (5mm thick), which can be bought from any local craft or art shop, a scaled down version of the room was cut and stuck together.  The starting point were the walls, then doors, windows and flooring, after this the units and island added.  I printed and cut-out the hob, ovens and sink and made a little Smeg fridge!! ( I know Smeg's have rounded corners on the door but there is a limit to this model making!!!). Lastly, the concrete worktop was included.  

When it was finished, it gave us a great insight to what the 'proportions' of the room would feel like.  We answered questions that couldn't be answered by a flat drawing. These included - was the island going to be too big or maybe too small? 

Were the ovens going to be in the correct position with easy access to the hob? 

What about the sink - was this in the correct place in front of the window? 

And, the shelf....was it to be white and float or something else? 

Having completed the kitchen, (see photos below of it finished) we look back at the mock-up and realise just how useful it was to do. The island is in the correct position and right size, the pleasure we get from looking out of the window every time we stand at the sink, clarifies this as the best decision and the two ovens together in close proximity of the hob, makes for an easy experience when cooking...

The only answer we still needed to make was what shelf to have.  

This will be left for another blog post.