The kitchen is probably the area that has had the least work in the house. There was a point where I was going wild in my head for a completely new kitchen and everything, but a lot of things got cut back mainly because there’s only so much I can afford, plus this is my first home and unlikely to be my last.
Notice how I say “area” and not “room”. That’s because the kitchen and living room are actually the same room, which is why I should probably say “living area” instead of “living room”. I’d say probably a quarter of the room is occupied by the kitchen.
Disclaimer before continuing – the kitchen photos shown in this blog post contain two prints gifted to me by Lauren Loves Prints. Lauren kindly gifted me some when I placed an order with her for a print in the living room, I mean, area. One says “Eat, Drink, Laugh” and the other says “Life is like a cup of tea, it’s all in how you make it”. They make lovely additions to any home.
Here’s an old photo of my kitchen (old as in 2015 old!).
Here’s how it looks today:
I was on a mission to banish magnolia in the house, so I got myself a paint brush and some Dulux Polished Pebble and got to work sorting that out. I also wanted to get rid of that wood effect vinyl floor. It was a bit dingy and dark, and really didn’t fit the rest of the decor at all. This was ripped up and replaced with tiles from Crown Tiles, a marble effect sort as marble is a bit of a theme in this house.
Instantly the space felt a lot brighter. I remember it taking off on my Instagram grid back when I posted it with everyone saying how much of a difference it made. I took the trim off the bottom of the units to make way for the Philips Hue light strip.
I then found myself in need of some storage for cookbooks. I started cooking a lot more when I was going plant-based in my diet and then realised I didn’t actually have anywhere to put them. Noting that there was some space either side of the window, I decided to utilise it by extending the kitchen units. I built myself an E-shaped set of shelves in which books could stand and also picked up another set of shelves from Amazon, which was perfect for standing glass jars on.
This is completely custom and the pieces were cut at my local B&Q. It was measured to match exactly with the quarter-circle shelves on the other side that I’d ordered from Amazon, being just as tall and leaving just as much space between them and the window.
The tumble dryer was moved to a brand new room, the Laundry Room (which will likely be the next thing I blog about). I replaced it with a slimline dishwasher, figuring a house this size didn’t really need a full size one. That left a space next to it, so I built myself a bottle rack and filled that space with it.
A lot of the accessories you can see like the tea, coffee and sugar canisters are from Dunelm’s Glam range. The monochrome fits me nicely and I think they are a lot more stylish than the plain red tins I had before (though I still have them). The clock was a birthday present last year and came from Next.
I parted with the big red bread bin I had. I decided I didn’t need it, plus it was really bulky and just wasting space. The photo below shows a few of the new ones up close, though it’s an old photo with the red kettle.
That’s about it! This space hasn’t gone through a lot of work (compared to a full reno involving a brand new kitchen) but since it’s only my first home and I’m likely to be moving on at some point I didn’t want to spend too much money on it when the vast majority of it was fine as it was. You know what they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it! In my next place I’ll probably splurge on a high spec set of kitchen units.
See you next time,
Laura x
The Norfolk Home Diaries 