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

north, east, south and west.....

afternoon,

yesterday morning when we woke up there was about 4 inches/10cm of fresh snow - nice!

we were going to get some more chestnut to finish the kitchen unit and so weren't that impressed with the conditions but you works with what you've got and so we headed off.....

here are four shots facing north, east, south and west from our new house:

north:

past our old house and up into the woods



east:

across the valley (towards the 'lord of the rings' walk for those who know)



south:

over the vegetable garden and into the pines



west:

across the other valley



and here's a nice photograph of taco enjoying the fresh snow



finally, here a shot of our new home with the boo in front



we're nearing completion of the kitchen and so we'll be posting the photographs soon so please be patient......

cheers, gairy.

signing back on.....

morning,

just a quick note to let you all know that we've been in our new house just over a week now but haven't had chance to update things blogwise as we've been too damn busy building a kitchen.

there'll be photos and information a plenty when we're finished and so please be patient.

cheers, gairy.

signing off (hopefully temporarily)

we're going offline!

today is the day we start moving into the new/big house - that's right - it's finally happening.

not quite the summer move we anticipated but it's finally on.

not sure when we'll be back online (maybe a day maybe a few weeks - we'll see) but we'll see you on the other side.

later, gairy.

p.s. it reached a high of -8 yesterday - oh yeah!

going legit'

BREAKING NEWS!!!

this just in.....

nikki and gairy are getting married!

that's right, you read that correctly, we're only bloody gonna go do it.



in what is being described as 'one of the most romantic moments in history' me and nikki had a conversation on the motorway which ended with those famous words being muttered:

"so.....what do you reckon.....shall we....?"

"err.....yeah.....alright then."

classic!

so.....next august - it - is - on!

more info to follow.....

at last a new blog entry.....

evening people,

it's been a hell of a long time since we last found time to post our progress/news and so there's a lot to get through and so without further a do.....

- it was my 34th birthday last month and nikki (amongst other things) made me some delicious truffles.

here they are:



- we had 'benjamin j edmonds' visit us - which was nice.

here's a shot of him hard at work:



there were rides, walks and even some sub-zero hammock camping - a good visit.

thanks ben for the visit, hard work and 3d model of the house - much appreciated - see you next time.

- the fireplace is finished and the floor of the main room is all but complete.

here's the fireplace when the main structural work was complete:



and with the floor done up to it:



- downstairs monkey boy did some splendid work on one of the windows which needed a new lintel and some pretty hefty stone work repairs.

here's the window before work started:



and after the window sides were rebuilt:



and with the new chestnut lintel in place:



- we (started by me and finished by monkey boy) made some stone steps down to the little stone shed thing outside the workshop.

here's the view from inside up the new steps:



- whilst i started the steps monkey boy was redoing the stone floor entance to the workshop.

i think you'll agree that it looks bloody great:



- mr monley boy is making a chess set at present and he finished the board a few weeks ago.

it's made from branches from our walnut tree (which fell in the heavy snow last december) which have been cut in half and attached at 90 degrees to each other. alternative squares then had lines carved into them and were coloured to indicate the black/white spaces.

it looks amazing:



- in order to make up for a good few years of getting nothing for my family by way of gifts (for any occasion) i thought i'd make them all a gift.

for louise i made a bracelet and two rings.

the bracelet is made from oak and the rings from hawthorn and walnut.



nice - no?

for david (and family) i made 'the towers of hanoi' - a game involving moving pieces, one at a time, from one tower to another without stacking a larger piece on top of a smaller piece - it's tricksy!

it's made from chestnut - the grain is beautiful:



also in chestnut was the jewellery box that i made mamma.

it's lined with brown suede (salvaged from a 70's sheepskin coat my mum gave me) with a little carved pattern on the top:





finally, for pappa, i made a clock from some sycamore firewood we got.

it's got a beautiful grain in the face, has walnut inlays to indicate the numbers and has oak hands.

i'm pretty damn pleased with it:



- nikki also made a clock for her granny's (95th - am i allowed to say that....?) birthday.

it's made in the same way as mine but with more walnut inlays, numbers and sycamore hands.

it's a beauty!



- last but not least here are some pretty photographs that monkey took recently.

a weird cloud formation:



a nice moon/cloud ensemble:



and a shot of the moon through the cherry tree:



ok, that'll do for now.

we're hoping to move into the new house in the next week or so and so look forward to hearing when that happens - oh yeah!

gairy.

autumnal harvesting

afternoon folks,

we're having a day off (at least from building work) today and so i thought i'd take the opportunity to update the blog.....

before i move onto the food related stuff a few updates on the barn progress for those who are dying to know where we're at:

- the main living/dining/kitchen room is coming along nicely. it's now over half floored but we have to wait until we can finish the rest because.....wait for it.....this is pretty exciting.....

- the new stone masons have arrived and started work on the fireplace!!! after we waited for months and months for the previous stone masons to reappear (they never did!) we've now got some new fellas in to do the work and it's going well - we should have a nice stone/chestnut fireplace by next week - photographs to come.

- we've got some raw chestnut planks from which we plan to make the cupboard doors for the hall and various other locations - they should look real nice.

- after some considerable debate/measuring/design we've figured out a way that we can utilise the walnut table top we got (thanks benjamin!) to make the kitchen unit counter which we plan to start soon - it should look great.

ok, now on to food!

we dug up the potatoes, onions and beetroots a few days ago and they're now being stored for use in the coming months.

here's a nice shot of some potatoes:



we've also pretty much finished with the greenhouses for this year as last week we had some pretty severe frost which finished off many of the more mediterranean plants.

the aubergines were already finished and so there was no problem there but the peppers/chillies/tomatoes took a bit of a kicking and so some serious preservation is now underway.

nikki has already made a batch of green tomato chutney and is, as i type, making a green tomato and green pepper relish.

here are the unripe little fellas for your viewing pleasure:



and the chillies hung up to dry (we also have a few jars in oil which were VERY nice last year):



we've also had a few trips to the forest to gather nuts!

here are some of the walnuts that we collected from the huge walnut tree we've got:



nikki has already made some great walnut/fresh basil pesto as well as nikki/monkey boy making great walnut/fruit and nut speciality breads - they're so good!

then, a few days later, we went and collected absolutely loads of sweet chestnuts.

we've had a few helpings of delicious roasted chestnuts already and there are loads more to look forward to!

here they are with a cat in the shot for scale:



finally - monkey boy made nikki a beautiful ash training sword for her birthday.

the photographs don't do justice to the grain, colour or carvings but here are a couple of shots anyway:





it's a beauty - no?

ok, i've got some reading to do and so i'm off.....

next time, gairy.