Transformations: The Kitchen

Here is much of my hideous, badly-organised, tiny kitchen. We had the enclosing arch pulled down before the shot was taken: the original kitchen was a room 11' wide and about 6' deep.

The original kitchen was, I suspect, far better designed than this cheap replacement. If you had a tiny kitchen, would you put in a double sink smack in the middle of your only run of bench space? Would you then put the stove in the middle of one short side? There was no elbow room! Moreover, there was nowhere to put the fresh fruit, or indeed anything that ought not to go in the fridge. You can see in the picture below how much room there was once we'd put in the microwave, toaster and electric jug. Add the crock for utensils and I had barely any room for food preparation. Not to mention the depressing colour!


In the dining room next to it, there were some projecting walls that made it impossible to use our rectangular table comfortably. We kept the table pushed in to the wall until we had guests, then had to weave our way around it to come in and out. We decided that all those walls would come down and we'd have one big room.


Isn't it a relief to chuck out cheap, nasty junk?

And because we were extending outwards from the kitchen wall, we left a big open space where a window had been removed. It's about chair-rail height.


Here's what it looked like after the plaster, balustrade, lights, Marmoleum and painting were finished. It already looks like a comfortable space.


Next thing was having the kitchen carcases installed. They are E0 birch ply. I counted thirteen layers of ply, but I might have been wrong.


It looks pretty nice without the bench top or doors!

Here's what Caesarstone looks like in 'Nougat':


And here is how it looked when the appliances and counter were added:


The last thing to happen was installation of the panels of Recycled Mixed Reds: Australian native timbers recycled from demolished structures. Species include Red Mahogany, Forest Red Gum, Blue Gum, Rose Gum, Bloodwood & Southern Mahogany. Jimmy the Joiner is pretty sure we have some Stringybark as well. As the timber is recycled, there are all kinds of 'character' marks from borers and nail holes. Greener Kitchens sourced the timber from Thor's Hammer.

Now let's just have that Before shot again:


And here's the kitchen complete:


Stay tuned for a follow-up post in which I point out its excellences in detail!