Our country kitchen renovation is now entering month number 2.5 but we aren’t counting the days, actually, we are but it is starting to feel like home. It has certainly taken slightly longer than expected not because there were any problems but just who knew a flat-pack Kaboodle kitchen came with more pieces than the 1,969-piece NASA Apollo Saturn V Lego set I built with my son years ago.
There was also the small issue of being in a small town is the limited amount of plumbers and electricians available and not necessarily at our beck and call. We kept the heater going for Barry so he didn’t freeze to death going in and out of the house, cutting bits and working out which bits go where.
The island bench ended up being an enormous head scratcher; who would have thought, it is just a rectangle after all.
In between a few times Barry letting me know “the pub opens at 10am you know” and I would smile and know I could not offer any form of help but just pure moral support of letting our long suffering builder know that I knew he would find a way. If anyone was going to outsmart a flat-pack kitchen, it was Barry.
Barry has now done 3 Kaboodle country kitchen renovations for us so he knows his way around 1,969 plus pieces but because we decided to have a wine fridge at the end of the island, this created a bit more fiddling around to get it right without bowing in and with floorboards that are over 100 years old. We also got the bargain of the century by being in Bunnings at the right time to score a wine fridge that was the last one so after working out it was 10 mm taller than we could have it and the friendly Bunnings worker telling us we could have it for $100 we knew Jaime could be MacGyver for the afternoon and work it out too.
Barry did laugh when we returned with the fridge and the new negotiation with getting it under the benchtops, something he has told me frequently wakes him up at 3am to figure out and solve these sorts of problems.
So now with enough cardboard to open a recycling centre, we have all the cabinetry in. The electrician has put new power points in and installed the oven. In what may go down as one of my less impressive renovation moments, I somehow remembered the oven, the fridge, the wine fridge, the dishwasher… and completely forgot to tell the electrician where the coffee machine was going. The plumber has connected the gas and last but not least after a 3 week wait the benchtops have finally gone in. Of course, the plumber is now away on holidays so the kitchen sink will need to wait another week. I had no idea a kitchen sink was such a big deal until you have an external bathroom and laundry so it becomes paper, scissors, rock for every meal.
But it really is all coming together and it now is the start of many wonderful cooking adventures in the kitchen. I can’t wait to get back into proper cooking and baking. Yes this does mean being able to buy new kitchen stuff! But it will be wonderful to have friends around the island bench, enjoying the view and the heat from the Rayburn, which we got going this week also. I have fresh cut Jonquils in a vase on the kitchen bench and I just know that there will be many more wonderful moments in this kitchen, and mostly because we kept so much of the heritage within the walls and floors. Now don’t expect me to become the next Donna Hay and my Instagram be filled with amazing recipes and pictures of food. I did create a recipe section on the blog months ago because I was putting together my favourite recipes before we moved. Whether they belong here or not, I’m still not entirely sure. But they’re recipes our family loves, so if someone else enjoys them too, then they’ve found the right home.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to pour a wine from the wine fridge, enjoy the warmth of the Rayburn and admire a kitchen that is finally starting to feel like home.
Then we’ll play paper, scissors, rock to see who’s doing the washing up.
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