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You asked to see it and here it is: The Kitchen – most houses have one and this is ours. Yes, it is the busiest room in our house and there are indeed days when I spend the entire day in this room… luckily we love it!

When we moved into our home we had two kids and a perfectly adequate small kitchen with a concrete yard outside the back door where the kids used to ride their little black bikes at a frantic pace morning noon and night. But clearly we out grew it!

So we two years ago we endured a summer with a kitchen that looked like this…

Some people didn’t mind too much a built in jungle gym… In fact some short people ask if we could go back to these days of dust throughout, the wind rushing through, the dirt floor and did I say the climbing frame…

But the end was insight:

And this is our kitchen now, as you enter the door: Closest to the door is the cooking area and the table we do all our messy crafts on and on the far side is the dining area and where we do most of our school as well.

If you stand in the dining area and take pictures backwards then you see the cooking-crafty section and the cupboards, topped with rows of tins. You can also see: The cupboard and a counter full of appliances: Not least of all our overworked, much loved Coffee Machine and my Kitchen Aid that I got as a gift from a great friend about ten years ago and it has worked daily for us ever since: almost every baking event and for kitchen essentials like play do.

Standing next to the oven looking back you see the sink, the smoothie maker (blender) and the bread machine. Under the sink we keep our play-do supplies and the bread bin, which isn’t a bread bin at all but where I rotate toys with millions of bits and pieces.

The stone back wall has been there forever and the arches were actually bread ovens for when the locals used to come to town to exchange produce on a Saturday morning, in their horse and cart. Seriously, it had to stay and we just made it part of our home. It is very organic looking and can drip in the wintertime because it backs straight onto the mountainside. A small price to pay for something that looks so fantastic.

To the left of the sink is the door leading to the inside-outside room, which deserves and got a whole post of its own! These doors hang open all year round and only close when it is seriously pouring with rain – it really is an inside-outside room.

From the inside-outside room looking back into the dining/school area:

You can just see our deck above the kitchen that overlooks the sea, and our table that was one of our first pieces of furniture – it’s made from 300 year old floor beams! We et nearly all our meals here except for garden picnics, which means that all school has to be done and packed up by lunchtime – a great deadline and very easy to enforce! Behind the table is the biggest washing machine we could find and the loathsome tumble dryer. I loathe the tumble dryer and use it as little as possible, we much prefer sun dried laundry which is free as opposed to expensive electrically dried washing.

Above the “laundry” is our window with rotating craft projects: Our spring flower streamers don’t want to move! and our giant sidewalk chalks… and the chalkboard with our house rules.

Almost done: There is a load bearing wall between the dining area and the rest of the kitchen, this used to be the exterior wall – against that wall rests our school and craft dresser, that could probably do with a bit of a spring clean before we start school again – groan more stuff to sort!

Last thing, since you have made the effort to read this far: Here is a picture of our fruit bowl. It is actually full of beautifully carved round gourds that I bought in a bag off the pavement years ago. They are so pretty and I just pop the fruit of the day on top of them…

That’s it. That’s our kitchen. I can’t believe there is more to blog about in here!!! Hope you enjoyed the tour.

Our Kitchen was featured on Apartment Therapy’s “The Kitchn”, follow the link to take a look!!!

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