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.
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. 
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.
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'. 
Here are some photos of the autumn leaves collecting in the corners of our street....
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....
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.
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.
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.
Last night when I got home I was treated to my very own Guy Fawkes fireworks display from the living room windows!
This was the view from my window this morning... thought it would be a nice change from white goodss.
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. 
