Heart of the Home : ie the Kitchen

One of the area’s that we really did quite like when we viewed the new house was the kitchen.  We love to cook and entertain and we liked the look and “country” feel of the kitchen.  We felt it was a good fit to our thatch house.  When we planned the renovation, the kitchen was not supposed to be part of the equation.

But then we moved into the house.  I constantly was saying to Cliff “something smells in this kitchen” (he thought I was going nuts but humoured his pregnant wife and changed the dustbin bag more often than not) and when unpacking our boxes we realised that the current cupboards were hugely inadequate for our requirements.  Also the little “island” thingimebob that stuck out was a hazard cos Kade kept bumping his head on it when running into the kitchen or riding his bike in the area.

So a very thorough re-work of the budget and some extra money borrowed meant that the kitchen was going to be re-done as well.  I am so glad that we did.  When we stripped the old kitchen out, we found two mice nests complete with dead mice (um funky smell anyone?) and also found the back of the cupboards completely rotting thanks to damp coming through the wall from the kids bathroom.

Our kitchen is now amazing if I have to stay so myself.  It looks way bigger than before (even though it is the exact same space just properly planned and used now) and I love, love, love my granite tops!  I also love our feature wall in the kitchen.  I am nuts about greens/blues and ADORE my mosaic tiles on this wall.

More on the house – The Bathrooms

We viewed our house twice before putting an offer in for it.  Both viewings were done at twilight (after work on our way home to our then house) and granted many flaws can be covered by subtle lighting, but the one thing we knew right from the start was that the bathrooms HAD TO GO.  They were small and super dark and danky.  To add insult in injury the main bathroom was a “wet room”.  No offense to anyone who loves a wet room bathroom but it just wasn’t for us.  The water that goes EVERYWHERE.  The MESS.  No.  Just no.

The baths and basins were also just not to our taste.  They were clearly very old fashioned.

So we broke the walls down between the two bathrooms and decided to use the space where our so called cupboards/dressing room was to extend the space in both bathrooms.

We also had to put ceilings in cos the old bathrooms didn’t have any.  So when you showered the person sitting in the loft TV lounge upstairs could smell your shampoo drifting thru the floorboards.  Delightful!  Also the wet room thing – it made the main bathroom SEVERELY damp!  A fact we only noticed once we have moved in.  So that needed to be fixed as well.

We went with neutral tiles and dark finishes on the basins.  We really love our bathrooms now!  Much better light and a way more hygienic space to get clean in.

    

The second bathroom is pretty much the same as the main bathroom just with a smaller basin 😉

Happy New (?) Year

I cannot believe that we’re already a week into the new year.  There used to be a time where the first few days of the year used to take their time and we were able to kind of ease into life in a new year.  You know doing things like saying “next year we going to…” and then going “oh I mean this year…” and getting used to the fact that you now had to date things one year older when you dated them.

It’s not like that anymore.  Life just keeps carrying on and it doesn’t seem to lose traction, not for one millisecond.  That’s how I find myself a week into the new year with a host of posts that were supposed to have been completed by now and hundreds of posts unread in my feedly reader.  There is still so much to do to prepare for the birth of my daughter (wow, how amazing does that sound?) and life still has to carry on around all the preparations and plans and “stuff”.

So.

Perhaps I need to decompress and put a bit of closure to 2013.  I have heard so many people say that 2013 was a crap year.  One of the hardest they’ve gone through.  Filled with challenges.  Filled with angst, fear, hopelessness and so on and so forth.  I don’t know if it is just me but I have found that as I’ve gotten older I’ve realised that every year of my life is filled with both good and bad.  With victory and challenge.  With hard and easy times.  2013 was no different for me.  There was a LOT that happened during the course of the year, but I can honestly say that overall the good outweighed the bad and that in my mind made it a year worth living.  I never thought we’d get thru the fact that Kade had a broken femur, but we did and his leg is healed beautifully and has no signs that it was ever broken.  I never thought I’d have to experience a miscarriage of a naturally conceived pregnancy but I did.  Not only did I experience that and get through it, I also was blessed with another incredible miracle who is soon to join our little family.

My child started school – twice due to the aforementioned broken femur, and found the adjustment difficult.  Most mornings were filled with angst and trepidation on my part as we neared drop off time.  I often posted guilty angst ridden tweets as my child cried, screamed and cotched his way through his transition to school.  BUT the fact that he was happy at collection time and was literally exploding with all he was learning was enough to get me through most mornings.  He battled the first year of school always sick syndrome.  We had another hospitalization and way too many doctors visits and became too familiar with our nebuliser.  BUT we ended the year with a child happy (if a bit tearful some mornings) to be a school discovering new things and in good health.

We moved house.  Then we moved into a one room cottage for three months to demolish said house and make it our own.  Renovations are not for sissies.  And word to the wise, if you are going to renovate try not do it while growing another human being.  The added hormones are not good for an already stressful time.  Just saying.

2013 was a mixed bag of a year.  I am looking forward to what 2014 will bring us.  I know it won’t all be sunshine and roses.  That there will be tough times, challenges and things we wouldn’t choose to face.  But I know that as long as we face them together as a family and keep our focus on where our strength truly comes from (God) we will be ok.  We will be more than ok actually. We will have another overall victorious year.

Here’s to 2014!  May yours be everything you hope and wish for.