La Cuisine

Finally the kitchen is finished , or close enough. 

Before - with the previous owner's stove

Note the clutter - and the cellar door in the floor to the right

Removing some existing walls and cupboards certainly made a mess...

Richard and Graham demolishing. This is dust not a fuzzy photo !

Stripped out and ready for stage 2

                                                                           

As the original cupboards were from Ikea (you can’t escape that here) we decided to stay with the same style and re-use what we could and buy extra to improve the layout.  The wonderful Richard, our english carpenter , put it all together for us . He never hesitated even with the changing floor levels and the less than square walls. He always had a satisfactory way around any problem and was never flustered, even with Graham as his ‘helper’.

Richard unfazed by Ikea

 

Graham assisting

I knew that big salon at the front would be useful for something

We were limited with space but managed to spread out a little more and gain some useful cupboards and workspace. Now we can both work in the kitchen at the same time without tripping over each other. As you can see from the ‘before’ pictures we have kept our stove   (la cuisinière) and the double china sink in place so that we didn’t need to move water, gas or electricity and have added a spot for the dishwasher (le lave-vaisselle).

     Useful little corners

We now have lots of deep drawers to hold all those gadgets Graham so loves and plenty of room to use them. We even went back to Ikea for a chopping block unit – another assemble yourself project we did ourselves. We have taken the attitude that you must look on Ikea as a character building exercise.  Graham is still at the  ‘grasshopper’ stage. Those of you of our vintage will understand the reference.

Lots more space to move about

We had to use the layout that we did so that we still had access to the door to the cellar (la cave). A most important consideration.

The cellar door all safe and cozy

Now we have lots of light where we need it and lots of power. There is still some wall tiling to be replaced but that will wait for next year and there are three different floor tiles in this area - at least one too many for me. We have learned lots of new vocabulary like 'finishing oil' (l'huile de la cuisine), drawers (les tiroirs), cupboard (le placard), dust (le poussière) and noise (le bruit).

Yet another Ikea 'project"

I’m thinking of replacing the door handles with black for a more ‘country’ look. What do you think ?


Joyeux cuisine mes amis