Kitchen!

So, finally, pictures of the kitchen.

The backstory, if you've missed it, was that we were planning on ripping out our kitchen and starting again, but then the husband lost his job and we reconsidered, and decided to spend much less on buying new storage baskets, fixing broken cabinets, getting an electrician in to fix certain lights and replace others, and painting the doors, walls and tiles.

We'd done everything bar the painting in the previous few weeks, so, after watching bits of the royal wedding despite ourselves, we got to it with the rest of the long weekend.

We started with the walls with one coat emulsion in 'vanilla', and then did the tiles with special tile paint which only came in three colours - we went for the blue one. Then the units were painted with white gloss paint desired for the purpose, which we can still smell, a week later. The Husband spray painted all the handles black.

We split the painting work over two days - long drying times between coats for the tile and cabinet paints made this the most practical way of doing it. On top of this, there was probably half a day's work scraping out sealant and cleaning down before, and a similar amount putting the sealant back in and attempting to remove paint from where it had splashed after things had dried.

Then the paint needed a couple of days to harden before it could be exposed to moisture/steam, which meant cooking was severely limited for a couple of days more.

Most of the paint was easy enough to work with - the gloss on the cabinets being particularly satisfying. The tile paint, however, was evil - so thick it was impossible not to leave brush strokes, and yet still prone to dribble. The finish looks great from a distance, but if you're painting tiles, I'd suggest only doing it if you absolutely hate the tiles you have, like we did.
The handles look a bit retro but were in too bad a state to be left as they were, and we didn't want to spend the extra money on new ones.

All in all, I'd say we spent about £450 - £150 on paint and brushes, £180 on the electrician, and the rest on the storage baskets. We'd have spent at least six times that on a new kitchen, and I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with the result.

There's one more exciting part of the kitchen project to come, when a new bin arrives in a couple of weeks. However, that's probably too boring to blog about!

New toy: electric mixer

I can be a bit of a puritanical baker. Not in what I cook, but in the way I do it. Although I've had a food processor for years now, I tend to mix cakes by hand - it doesn't feel like I'm making it otherwise.

Although I do use the beaters on my food processor for some things, they're not very strong, and using them involves an unholy amount of washing up.

So generally, it's me and a hand whisk - even for meringues. It's good exercise!

However, recently I've been thinking how much easier life would be if I had a mixer - especially as I'm cooking more no-fat sponges, and they're just a pain by hand.

When I mentioned this idea to The Husband, he suggested I put some Christmas money we'd got from his grandparents towards it - because we both knew they'd be happy with us buying something for the kitchen with it. I also put some my birthday money from my Aunt towards it, as I wanted to buy something which has good reviews and a chance of lasting a good long while.

I went for a mixer in the Kenwood kMix range because it was good and heavy and had good reviews online – and, if I’m completely honest, because it's a fab almond colour and has a nice retro look. Until the day when I have the money and the space for a Kitchen Aid, I thought this would keep me happy!

It's good and heavy - so much so that my hand does start to hurt after mixing for a very long time, but no-where near as much as it does when using a hand whisk!

It also comes with a handy stand which keeps all its bits and bobs together - and means it can be kept out on display if you're not quite as desperately short of surface space as we are.

It cost just shy of £60, and I've already had a play with it, making both a very nice meringue and utterly failed mayonnaise. It made short work of both. In every sense, as far as the mayonnaise was concerned, but I suspect that was operator error! I'll blog both later in the week.

A kitchen cupboard drama.

The Husband and I had been house hunting casually for a couple of months when we first saw the Gin Palace. A couple of weeks beforehand we'd stepped it up to serious after he proposed, because we are the sort of masochists who enjoy moving house and planning a wedding at the same time.

We'd seen several flats. And, Edinburgh's housing stock being what it is, even back in those overheated times, many of them had been lovely. I'd thought more of them lovely than The Husband did - being an architect, he's boringly practical about things like, I don't know, not having room for a wardrobe in the master bedroom and having to keep it in the second bedroom, him not being able to stand up in the bedroom because of coombed ceilings, or kitchens too small for two people to stand next to each other - even two very much in love recently engaged people. I do apologise to each and every householder we sickened.

But when we saw the Gin Palace it was different. As we walked from room to room, admiring high ceilings, huge windows, stripped floorboards and storage space, as well as walls that whispered "We want to hang your pictures, we want to store your books" we didn't dare say anything, and just gripped each other's hand tighter.

There was, however, one small hitch. The kitchen. It's small. It's not tiny by Edinburgh standards - although it was once a cupboard, it's also got a good slice taken off the second bedroom. Two people can cook in it together so long as they like each other. The morning after a dinner party, one person can cook a fry up, one wash up, and one dry up drinking tea telling stories about how baffling men are. But there's no room for a stool, let alone a breakfast bar, and a dining kitchen is still very much a far-off dream. Meals are carried the length of the flat and eaten at the dining table in the living room.

And while the décor is fine, it's not great. Blue and yellow checked tiles that owe a lot to the late 90s. Slightly battered wood-effect units that don't have nearly enough room to hold all our junk, and stop a good two feet short of the ceiling. There's no room for a freezer, just a tiny compartment in our fridge, and no microwave. The lighting is dim, as you may have noticed from my pictures

Just after Christmas, we'd decided to take advantage of interest free credit on Ikea and get it redone. We had plans for high gloss floor to ceiling units, teal splash backs to match the Le Creuset (I know, I know), and a little magic with the design to fit in a freezer. No microwave or dishwasher quite yet.

We'd made an appointment for a designer to come out and then… my husband lost his job.

Ikea, bless them, refunded us the £20 deposit for the appointment. And the plans went on hold.

Until. Last week, I acknowledged two basic facts: I am never again going to feel comfortable getting into debt for something I don’t need, and it's going to be a long, long time before I feel comfortable dropping £3000 or so, even if properly saved up for, on something I don't need. And: a lot can be done with our kitchen to make it better for a tenth of that. A lightbulb moment for which I thank this post on the Tiny Assed Appartments blog.

So I've started making plans. Plans involving specialist primer and tile paint, storage solutions and labels, LED light fittings and electrician's quotes, and a stout hammer to fix a couple of the more shoogly units.

The Husband rightly pointed out, as I was making lists with a demonic look in my eye, that starting to paint the units last weekend would have been insanity given that we were both knackered. That's on hold, probably until the Royal Wedding long weekend, because I appear to have joined the ranks of people who think an extra Bank Holiday is an excuse for DIY.

But I did drag him to Ikea. And we did fix part one: the junk on top of the units. Here are some before pictures - bear in mind that our kitchen is strangely photogenic, especially with a flash on - it's not that nice really. All the colours are more saturated.



Kitchen sink, array of pans, and shoogly cupboard



Yes, we did tidy for this. Junk on top of cabinets, part one.

Junk on top of cabinets, part two. Kitchen too small to get far enough away to get whole wall in shot!

And here it is now, with neat storage baskets. We're planning to hang old-fashioned luggage labels on them so I can distinguish the box of tuppaware from the box of baking utensils, and find the emergency tonic stash. The baskets are these ones, £13.27 from Ikea.



It's getting better, even if my baking gear does still peek out

In case you're wondering - we keep a set of small steps in the hallway, and keep things we use slightly less often up there. To be honest, it's much quicker getting things down from a box on the top of the units than out of the back of the corner cupboard.

It's a start, and it makes the kitchen feel much less cluttered. But there is more to come.