Saturday 20 October 2012

What I found there... (2)

Here are some more wanderings from that sunny Sunday morning whilst the house was asleep (apart from the cat and I) and I went looking, and really seeing.


Fridge magnets (1)
Next stop on our little tour, the kitchen.The kitchen is dominated by the enormous fridge freezer that is taller than my Better-half (who is 6' 2"). As the front plane is not entirely flat, but curves slightly the fridge magnets (of which their are legion and deserve their own post) live on either side. They range from sports to places, from music to decorative.










Year of the Dragon!
Keeping the door open
The door into the kitchen is left permanently wedged open, not least because my stool now rests against it. The glass is something that gets attacked on my annual 'I must clean the kitchen sprees' and the rest is decoration!






Simpsons barware
(Mr Burns lost his head)
Herbs and spices
Our kitchen has no high-level cupboards, which means everything lives on one of four shelves or in the cupboard by the door (more of that later). The shelves are generally too high to be of much use, but the ones above the sink (well the lower one) do get used.


Say "Miaow"
There is a splash-back and part tiled wall in the kitchen and lobby. Apart from the splash-back it is mostly hidden by furniture. The tile are hideous, so some years back they were covered in silver vinyl (the same must one day happen to the cupboard doors). With the off-cuts I made some cat silhouettes  - most smaller ones succumbed to heat, but this guy still survives!




Liven up any mirror
The glass mosaic was originally bought for the window light over the front door; there was, however, unexpectedly more than we needed! So some was used to liven up the very dull mirror above the kitchen sink (yes, it is weird to have a kitchen sink mirror, but handy too).






Notice the frog thermometer
The never ending builders next door meant that the long abandoned net curtain from the kitchen window needed replacing. This nice sheer modern version didn't cost a lot on eBay, and is less vunerable to kitten claws than the micro-mesh ones elsewhere... and so preferable to the traditional pattern type (although the one in the lobby isn't so bad). The seahorses have followed me around as long as I can remember, they may once have belonged to one or other of my parents (the provenance is lost). Not just a mobile but also wind-chimes as they chime gently in a breeze.





The feet chime when the bug moves!
I can't remember where the bug came from, I'm pretty sure it is another garden ornament that never made it outside! The shelf above it is too high to use and so occasional goods are protected from kitchen grease and grime in 'Really Useful Boxes'. The framed postcards are mostly from our movie going days, collected free in the foyer.
Picturesque in the sunshine
For the draughts
The back door is most peculiar. At one point un-openable due to junk stored in front, a lost key and being painted shut. I still remember the first day we got air properly into the kitchen and the door open. 



Smaller than your average door in height and being old and wooden letting in the draught it is a very unique door. One year some wasps made a home in it. The dated obscured glass also benefited from the mosaic coloured film. There are two draught excluders as one was stolen by our urban foxes and a new one ordered before the old one was recovered!

What is left of the glasses
Our not very convincing fake Welsh dresser was replaced by this glass fronted cabinet. It used to have three shelves. One day the middle shelf came loose and dropped (and broke) a few glasses. We didn't learn. The next time there was a glass massacre. The shelf is now gone and until we get around to replacing the cupboard there are glasses in all sorts of odd places. 




Some mugs
Happily for the crockery the mugs live on the bottom shelf. We have quite a lot of mugs. Some are for tea, some for coffee, some for hot chocolate - some never used at all. A few we bought but most were gifts, freebies or inherited!







Although small the kitchen does for our purposes... it does badly need some decorating though!