Kitchen Dreams…

This is a collaboration.

Now I’ve got myself a ‘regular’ job with a steady income, I can’t help thinking of all the things I’d like to do to get our house in order.
The room that keeps popping into my head as top priority is the kitchen.

Unfortunately I’m not going to be happy with just a deep clean, though this website has definitely made me realise there are options that I MUST consider. 

I have whinged about our kitchen before, I hate it.

I generally don’t envy people. They have things but I don’t want those things – that’s fine by me.
My only weakness is a lovely kitchen. If you have a lovely kitchen then I probably hate you.

Sorry.

Our kitchen is small and little more than functional, we can cook in it, wash up in it and clean it.
I KNOW that’s what a kitchen is there for but I want more dammit, I want a spacious kitchen that serves not only as a place to cook but, possibly more importantly for family life, a place to gather.

I want a space to enjoy a catch up over a cup of coffee. Coffee from one of those big, fancy, whooshy machines, though I would have to learn more about which one makes the coffee I need! 
I want a space where I can cook with the children without fear of tripping over them and spilling things on them.
I want a space to entertain all those guests I imagine I’ll have one day – maybe at my super popular, future Christmas parties. 

I hold my hands up, I may have slightly high expectations for this, the most hard working of all the rooms in the house but I don’t care.
It can be done!  I’ve seen kitchens on Instagram that make me want to weep with joy and I’m not even ashamed to admit it. 

I don’t want something modern though – all gloss doors and wipe clean metal worktops that will be dated in five years.

Oh no no no.

I want something a little more rustic!

I want thick marble work surfaces, a farmhouse sink, cupboards in the muted tones of Provence and oak floors.
The centrepiece HAS to be a distressed, wooden dining table with chairs combining a rustic and luxurious finish (I may have spent too much time on this website)  – the place where visitors naturally gather to chat or where I can sit and drink wine whilst Rory whips me up some culinary delights.

I think, most importantly though, I want to recreate the memories I have of growing up and ideally create similar kinds of memories for my children.
I know it sounds a bit OTT but growing up whenever we visited my Grandparents we would, without fail, gather in the kitchen.
Everything was done in that room – cooking, baking, eating, drinking and of course, putting the world to rights.

As I child, when I stayed at their house, I used to wake up when I heard my Grandma get up and we would sit in the kitchen quietly while she drank her coffee and had a cigarette (it was the 80s) and I had a cup of milk.
As an adult, when I stayed there, I would get up early and quietly join her for a cigarette and a coffee – before the busyness of a day began.

As a *mumbles* year old woman and with my Grandma no longer with us, these are still some of my fondest memories, maybe I can’t force this ideal (sans cigarette of course) on my children but I really would like to give it a go.

I’d like to give them a warm, welcoming, happy space to enjoy as a family and plan world domination.