A winter walk

Here are some photos I took while on a cold winters walk in the woods behind my home in Canada...

Happy Boxing Day

Some Canadian icicles to wish you a happy boxing day.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and all the best for 2011, from behind the blue door.

Frohe Weihnachte unn ein gudes neus Jahr.

Optimism

I suppose needless to say, we ran out of time this week and didnt manage to complete our new kitchen. The fact that our 10 day installation period was reduced to 6 didnt particularly help, and neither did the fact that our 200 years old walls were entirely out of alignment. Progress was made today however when the plumber came to connect our new sink.

I suppose however without my initial, somewhat misguided, optimism, we never would have dared to start.

The lavender in this photo is from our front garden and is now sitting in little bowls in our cupboard to keep the moths away.

Kitchen Tap

After much debate we finally settled on our kitchen tap - the Axor Uno2 from Hansgrohe. We liked the simple contemporary design, the shape of the arch and having separate hot and cold taps. Unfortunately, our indecision means it wont arrive until next week which is outside of our installation week, so we will temporarily install the old tap in its place.

All 20 ikea units are now all assembled (phew!), so today we will be making the necessary modifications and cut outs to fit them around the fused spurs, the boiler and pipework. ie. all the tricky bits.

Let it snow....

Last week we had quite a lot of snow, by London standards. Our electricians who were meant to do work on the kitchen in the week while we were at work ended up postponing until yesterday because of the weather.

The kitchen has now been entirely dismantled and the walls torn apart, and looks (hopefully!) the worst it will look during this process. Both the plumber and electrician has been in pulling wires and adjusting pipework, and Ive been busily assembling cabinet after cabinet. From here on it we start putting the kitchen back together so things should start looking better.

IKEA Delivery

All our IKEA cabinets were delivered this morning... just in time for installation week which starts this coming weekend! I had envisioned that the 101 items (!) would take up much more space, but all those flat packs are pretty compact.

Old Fridge Collection

We put all of our old appliances on Gumtree to save ourselves lugging them down three flights of stairs and arranging collections with the council... Today someone came to collect our c. 1978 fridge, and tomorrow someone will collect our washing machine. Amazingly the original fridge manual was passed on by the previous flat owners. I had to take some photos of the super-retro graphics before passing it on.

One month til Christmas!

Tonight Flo and I went to late open night at the V&A. This was the pretty festive view that greeted us when we emerged from the tube.

Flo and I celebrated a white Christmas early with the arrival of all our new white goods this morning. Our fridge, washing machine, dishwasher, oven & hob are all now sitting in our bedroom waiting to be unwrapped. Exciting!

Taps taps taps

We are trying to decide on which kitchen tap to get for our kitchen, and are somewhat overwhelmed with the choice. I found a website with 322 kitchen taps available - and that was just the 'one-hole' taps! We've narrowed it down to our top 8 and have stuck them on the kitchen wall to think about.

Green Doors and Matching Shutters

This weekend we started work in the kitchen. We moved all our food and dishes into the bedroom, and the bed into the living room,(yes, its a bit like a game of Tetris!), removed the upper cabinet, and stripped the woodwork. We even managed to get a coat of paint on the ceiling and walls. But all that isnt particularly pretty to look at.

So here is the house I was telling you about earlier with the green door and matching green shutters.

Cabinetry Handles

I've been looking for a minimal contemporary kitchen handle for a little while know. I really like the IKEA Strecket edge pull type handles (top image), but we are trying to jazz up our basic IKEA kitchen with slightly higher quality finishing touches where we can to make it look less 'IKEA'.

I found these aluminium finger pull handles from Hafele (www.hafele.co.uk) which look quite nice, and are only £1.50 each. (Bargain!) Im going to order a sample to see how they look...

Autumn Leaves Collecting

Here are some photos of the autumn leaves collecting in the corners of our street....

Everthing but the kitchen sink

We finalised our decision for the kitchen sink on the weekend and today placed the order. We have a ceramic sink now and have grown to prefer it over stainless steel as it doesnt show the water spots as much. We've ordered this one from Franke, and plan to undermount it below the countertop as shown in the image. We dont have space for a two bowl so it will just be the large square one. Now to enter into the world of taps....

Window Shutters

On our street some of the interior window shutters are painted to match the front door. Ive always thought this was a nice idea and intended to do the same with ours and paint them the same light grey as our internal flat door. The problem is that when folded away, the shutters are designed to look like wall panelling, so the outside face really needs to be white to match the white panels below.

Here is a test I did on the weekend with the central panel painted grey and the border white, but I think its too fussy. Maybe the whole inner face (visible only when closed) needs to be grey....

Beneath the floorboards

On Saturday we laid some new electrical cable for the kitchen beneath the floorboards. Its amazing how much debris and general crap was hidden beneath! I was hoping to find some old treasure but the only mildly interesting item was a chunk of old horse hair plaster with this wallpaper stuck to it.

Kitchen Plan & Elevation

Here is the layout of our new kitchen...Click on the image for a larger view. IKEA cabinets and appliances have all been ordered and are due to arrive next week - Exciting! Now to sort out a plumber and electrician...

Dishwasher & Washing Machine

Im really excited as after much debate we decided we would get a dishwasher for the kitchen and forgo the extra storage cupboard. We're a bit tight on space, but it will be so nice not to have to do the dishes every day! We dont have space for a clothes dryer (plus they arent very energy efficient) so we've got a washing machine with a fast spin speed to shorten the drying time on the line.

Remember Remember the 5th of November

Last night when I got home I was treated to my very own Guy Fawkes fireworks display from the living room windows!

An Autumn view

This was the view from my window this morning... thought it would be a nice change from white goodss.

Kitchen Fridge

We decided to go for the entry level 70-30 integrated Fridge Freezer with an A star energy rating from Bosch. For us having the maximum interior volume of space was important - and the Bosch brand had a little bit more than the others. One of the space saving tips I read is if that if you are tight on cupboard space you can put food that doesnt normally need refridgeration in the fridge. We will have more space than we do now, but it is a very small kitchen so we need to use all the clever tricks we can.

I cant wait to move up to a proper full size fridge! I havent had one since I moved out to go to University.

Kitchen Oven & Hob

Last weekend we made our final decisions on the kitchen appliances and will place our order this week. Its so important to see the items in reality as the Bosch hob we thought we liked online has this slightly annoying sloped portion where the knobs are. We've decided to stick with the Bosch electric oven, and go with the Siemans gas hob which is the flattest and simplest looking hob we could find.

Happy Halloween!

It starts getting dark now so early that when I come home this is my view.... Seemed an appropriate image for Halloween!

Thanks Heather!

Thanks Heather for your fab house warming package. Someone has been very clever spying on my green felt placemats as the wine covers match exactly!

Happy Birthday Philippa!

A big Happy Birthday to my little sister... xoxo Julia

Happy Birthday Muz!

Happy Birthday Muz! I hope you have a sunshine filled day.... Hugs and kisses from us both.

The Red House

On the weekend we had a nice break from the renovations and did a little sight-seeing with Flo's parents who were visiting. Having just spent 2 months restoring our windows, we were of course paying particular attention to the windows in Philip Webb's Red House, designed for William Morris in 1859, probably around the same time our windows were installed!

Bedroom Before & After

Nothing like some before and after photos to make us feel good about all our hard work and effort! Here is our bedroom the day we moved in, and how it looks today.