Green Kitchen

Due to the overwhelming numbers of requests, I’ve uploaded some photos of the new kitchen – long-time readers might remember my occasional outbursts of stress around the design and planning of the new kitchen.

I had to search around for ages to find photos of how it was before – seems I totally spaced out taking “before” shots; very unlike me! But finally I found some – ones I took of the house before we first moved in!

So here’s before:

And After:

So you can see we knocked out the ‘stupid’ wall that created a useless, dark corridor to the front door, opened everything up, ripped out the old lino and saggy particle-board subfloor and put in timber boards.

It’s not *completely* finished – I still have to do the tiling/ splashback on the wall above the benchtop, but I haven’t decided exactly what it’s going to be (it will, of course, be green), and the hanging light fixtures need to be moved to be above the island. But It’s all essentially finished, and I’m LOVING IT!

Here’s the view you see from entering the front door:

And a view of the island from the other side:

I have my laundry machine installed in the kitchen, in the place most people would put a dishwasher. But I don’t like dishwashers, and I got used to the washing-machine-in-the-kitchen style in Europe – makes sense to me, and I figure any possible future inhabitants of the house can still put a dishwasher in the space should they so desire.

Little features I love are: the Kids’ Cooking Space – one cupboard opens out horizontally to create a bench-top at small-person height, with the little mini toaster-oven stowed inside. Littletree loves this space, and she often opens it up when preparing food for herself. Makes sense, since I frequently have many small people in my kitchen!

And the semi walk-in pantry with masses of storage space fits all our food :) Yay!

I love love love the white quartz crystal bench tops, we very nearly went for a green marble top, but in the end, it was a lot more expensive, and this looks so much brighter and cleaner. Since we saved so much on the labour (getting friends to do it in return for living in our basement), and we were lucky enough to get all the cabinets and materials at trade cost, we splurged on custom-made hardwood doors from the most local, sustainably-grown timber we could source. They came up looking fantastic :)

We have an awesome, deep double sink, which I actually enjoy washing up in! And the extra little sink on the corner of the island was a fantastic idea. I also got a shiny stainless steel gas cooktop and new oven. Which means I’m cooking up a storm of decadent delights!