Our Kitchen!

Hi there, hope you all had a very happy, fun festive time over the holidays.

We, here in Mars have been working quite hard, and having fun too of course.

There are lots of pictures to show you, so I'll keep the writing minimal.

This is what we started with - a beautiful (non-straight) stone wall. We started by building a pine carcass.





Below, you can see where the wonderful double belfast sink will go.



and the sink in place..... along with the first chestnut side panels (we got our chestnut "rough cut" planks from a friendly guy down the hill, and we put our thicknesser (I know it sounds like a made-up word!) to real good use and made our own planks.



pine carcass taking shape



with back panels in place



Here it is with the chestnut shelves, but no top so far.....



After we had cut and sanded and oiled and waxed the walnut (table that Ben gave us all those years ago) - we attached it to the top. I think you may agree - it looks bloody great! Oh and the tap looks pretty too.



We love the sink!



We also laid some tiles in the middle of the work surface as a place to put hot pots, surrounding a chopping area.



Here it is with all the doors on, draws on.....



In this close up you can see the inlaid walnut strip down the right hand side of the chestnut door, along with the matching walnut handles - obviously all made right here, by us!



Below you can see the basket area that we built into the kitchen - these baskets we didn't make ourselves - but in the future I plan to replace them with homemade ones. Also notice the nice double cupboards - such nice storage.



This is the lovely cutlery drawer, that Monkey Boy made with a homemade, chestnut cutlery divider.



You can see the kitchen in use (I was making lemon drizzle cakes). It is such a joy to use, it makes me want to cook all the time! We better make sure we don't all become super fat!





So that's it! You've seen our new kitchen and it's bloody brilliant! I must just mention this was a very good collaboration between the three of us - with Monkey Boy leading the party and me and Gairy close behind with lots of ideas and hard work.

Just in case you feel like you've been looking at our kitchen for far too long now - here are a couple of cute snowy dog pics from a couple days ago.

Taco - you can't help but love him!



Taco and Rudie hanging out together.



Rudie loves snow - but not as much as she loves stick.



Oh yeah, Monkey Boy made us a fire grate out of an old bed - clever chap, hey?
So, we had our first open fire last night. Yay!



That's it! I have to go and admire our new kitchen. Yes, I'm feeling pretty smug!

Later.
Nikki