Farrow and Ball Cornforth White Kitchen part two...

A few more photos of some of the changes we made to our kitchen-apologies if you've already seen some of them!
The first two photos are of my dream oven for the space we had- the 60cm Aga Companion. It's made of cast iron and comes in a wide variety of colours. Perfect if you hanker after the look of a full-size Aga range, but haven't the space.
I would have loved this in black for my little kitchen, but the price is way out of my league. I think it's over £3,000....
So I looked for similar mini-ranges that were in my budget, and found the Mini Gourmet 60cm range by Leisure. Leisure used to be part of the Aga-Rangemaster group until only a few years ago, and you can tell that from the classic styling of their range cookers. It has more or less the same oven functions, plus a handy griddle and swing out cooking tray, and is available in black, cream or red, and in a gas or electric model. It also has similar chunky doors, but best of all, it only cost around £420....
As a joke, in reference to my wanting a real Aga, I bought one of the spare enamel Aga badges on EBay for £7 and put it on the oven to see if my husband would notice. It had two little prongs on the back which fit into holes on the real Aga's door, so I sawed them off with my junior hacksaw and glued a piece of flexible magnet on the back! It worked perfectly- the magnet must be strong!
Well, the funny thing is, we ended up leaving it on and everyone who sees our oven always think it's a real Aga and asks if it was very expensive. It always makes me laugh when I tell them the story. My dad thinks I'm mad though!





Another recent change we made to our kitchen was replacing the top two panels of the original pine door to glass. One of the panels had split and there was an ugly crack going right across it, but the main reason we did it was to introduce more light into the narrow hallway behind it. Victorian hallways can be quite long and gloomy, so now we get a lot more light into it from the kitchen. The two bits of glass only cost about £10 to be cut to size, and then I covered them with one of my favourite finds- etched glass effect window film from Peels of London in Dulwich pattern (£16 for a large sheet). You choose whether you want it to be frosted or non frosted (I always pick frosted as it obscures the left-over mess in the kitchen, whilst still allowing all the light to come through).
It looks more like a scullery door now. Another favourite design is called Crystal which is a Victorian etched star pattern. I have used this all over my house- in my conservatory to obscure the top windows to allow more privacy from overlooking houses, on my front door, the bathroom window-all over my house. It's so easy to cut it and fit, and it looks just like real etched Victorian glass but at a fraction of the price.

You can see the etched star pattern called Crystal in the black and white photo. You can also just see the top windows of the conservatory behind, which I covered in it too. At night, I don't like the thought of being overlooked when eating, so this was the perfect solution. Also it looks pretty, and gave my UPVC conservatory a more vintage look in keeping with the rest of our house.

These are the polished chrome handles we used all from EBay. The pull cup handles were supposedly Mark Wilkinson spares, and they do feel very good quality. They were so cheap too.

We also replaced all the white plastic plug sockets and light switches for polished chrome ones-again very cheap from EBay. You can see the old white ones in the photo below, and in the photo beneath that, the chrome ones.


In fact, most things for our new kitchen came from EBay apart from the wood and paint!
And just to finish off, here's the photo of our kitchen from the Estate Agents brochure before we bought the house. All good quality solid oak, but we fancied something a bit different!
It also just goes to show how influential the blogging world is-after I saw how lovely Joni from Cote de Texas' kitchen looked after she painted it grey, I knew I wanted a grey kitchen too! In the UK the grey kitchen trend has really caught on too now, but quite a while after it did in the Sates. It's interesting how trends can be global isn't it?

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Farrow and Ball Cornforth White Kitchen photos...part 1

Just looking back at photos of one of my favourite home makeovers-sorry about the long post! We finally did finish our kitchen makeover- I must take some more photos of it.
I still love the cabinet colour which is Farrow and Ball's Cornforth White. It's a very, very pale light gray, but it's a soft, warm grey. We used acrylic eggshell paint, and it's held up really well.
Looking back, I can't believe we ever got this makeover finished! The reason it took so long was because the OH did it all himself, from start to finish, after work and on weekends. He made the cabinets, collected and fitted the granite worktops, fitted the sink and taps, laid the floor, made the false chimney breast to hide the oven extractor hood-literally everything!
He's not a carpenter by trade, just self-taught and very handy at most DIY things. Usually he loves projects, but this one really started to grind us down, because there was so much to do! We really did lose enthusiasm and motivation three-quarters of the way through. Still, a lack of funds meant that if we wanted a bespoke-style kitchen on our tiny budget, we would have to do it ourselves...
It's not perfect, it's fairly small, but we like it. And similar inset wooden kitchens in magazines usually seem to have cost at least £15,000 upwards, whereas ours cost about £1200 including the granite work tops.
To save money, we kept a lot of things we already had, but improvised and improved them. For instance, we couldn't afford to change our white washing machine, dishwasher and fridge freezer so we sprayed them with Plasticote chrome appliance spray. Also, they worked perfectly, so I couldn't justify replacing them, even if we'd had the funds. The cans of spray paint are brilliant- there's not a chip on anything we sprayed a couple of years down the line.
We were so impressed with the chrome spray paint, we sprayed our gold ceiling spotlights with it too. Now they are chrome, and look much more modern. And it was a lot easier and cheaper then replacing them. We also sprayed the cabinet hinges and the brown fan heater in the cabinet plinths chrome too. Just make sure you get the heat resistant spray designed to spray ovens!
The granite work tops cost £240 if I remember correctly on eBay for three 3m lengths. Luckily, it was a grey colour that went with our colour scheme. We had to collect them ourselves but only from 10 miles away. Lifting them onto our van was an experience I won't forget in a long time....
We got them cut at our local stonemasons yard- the OH drew a detailed template plan of where to cut them, and where to put the sink cut outs and tap holes. I held my breath when they came back, but they were perfect. Best of all, they only charged £150- I suppose it made a change from doing gravestones.
We had just enough work top to do our kitchen, down to the last cm. If money were no object, I would love white Carrara marble work tops, but I am more than satisfied with the grey granite, plus it's very tough!
Part 2 tomorrow!
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More photos...

Just a few more photos of my sitting room-this time of the other half, warts and all, with all my piles of clutter!
This is the little sofa I sit on to watch tv, as you can see from the crumpled cushion and fur throw!
The sofa looks uncomfortable but isn't, and is just right for one! The cushions are all Kate Forman- I love the way they all mix and match together. The largest ones were £45 each when I bought them, not cheap, but I got them for Xmas and birthdays over the years, or saved up for them. The quality, however is amazing- the ruffles are all doubled, and the buttons made in contrasting prints. Each one has a sewn in Kate Forman label too. The linen is lovely and thick and they're stuffed with feathers.
My favourite pattern is the grey and pink Sophia, as seen on both chairs, and the lampshade.
The chandelier was another eBay find. It's an old French one and it got shipped over from France for £25. I remember praying it arrived in one piece! It was £195, not much more than repro ones, although it did need rewired. In fact, most things in my house are either eBay finds or from antique markets. Antique furniture is nearly always cheaper than reproduction although you often have to collect it yourself. Luckily we have a little van!
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View from my sofa.....

Just sitting on my sofa and thought I'd take a few photos of my little sitting room. It's not our main sitting room; we use our larger second reception room for that. I suppose one of them should be used as a dining room, but we tend to eat in the kitchen, or in the conservatory, where we have a table and chairs.
This room is at the front of the house and gets a lot of sunlight as it faces south. Looking back, we've done quite a lot to this room, but I remember when we looked round our house with a view to buying it, I was pleased that all the rooms were smoothly plastered and that they still had the original coving and ceiling roses. I remember thinking all we really have to do is repaint and recarpet!

Needless to say, we ended up doing a whole lot more! First off, we painted the walls in Farrow and Ball's White Tie. I've never been a fan of yellow which is what both reception rooms were painted in (see the last image).
That last very blurry photo is an image from the estate agents website when we were looking at the house. It looks so different now!

The second major task we undertook was ripping up the carpets and sanding the original pine floorboards. This took ages as we used a small orbital sander, as we got so fed up using the big industrial sanders you can hire. The strips of sandpaper easily ripped on those and as they cost about £10 each, it got too frustrating to continue! It was worth it in the end, as the boards are lovely and it really lightened up the room.

The next major change was removing the slate fireplace and surround, as seen in the last photo. It wasn't original to the house, and was much too large for the chimney breast- the mantle shelf overhung the ends of the wall. It was also scumble- glazed in a dark brown colour that I really didn't like. It was a bit Edwardian and gloomy, and our house is Victorian.
I also hated the 1950's inner tiled insert and red-tiled hearth- it was a real mismatch of styles. So I bought the Carrara marble fire surround and hearth on EBay for £100, which was a real bargain, as it's in lovely condition. The OH found an antique black iron insert and we were ready to go. We did the removing and fitting ourselves, it was quite easy really, although it needed two people to lift the heavy marble sections into place.

As you can see, I'm a bit lazy about lighting the coal fire, so I just stand my little electric stove in front of the fire during the winter months. I do love open coal fires, but mostly for the glowing effect of the flames, as our house is warm enough with just the central heating on really. The little black electric stove is brilliant, because you can choose which of two fan heaters you want on, or none at all or just the flame effect. I propped a few logs beside it for effect, and they also hide the electric cable too!

The next thing we did was making a built-in cabinet for the tv. Again the OH made this out of reclaimed Victorian cupboard doors he found in a skip. I still can't believe how many builders still rip out original features and just dump them in skips. We have found so many sets of doors and things in skips- that's the good thing about living in a place where the vast majority of houses are Victorian or older. Inside the tv cabinet are shelves for DVDs and books and things. It also luckily hides the multitude of plug and cable sockets that were on the wall, and looked hideous.

Aside from that, all we had to do was furnish the room, which was the most fun bit of all!

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Stars and flag...

I love this little flag propped up in my conservatory against the star and old shop window. I bought the etched window a few years ago, because I really like etched glass. The OH made me the shabby chic style star painted and distressed in pale blue paint.

By the way, apologies for the poor quality of the photos- at the moment I am posting from my iPhone as my laptop has given up the ghost!

Vintage boots...

I love these vintage cowboy boots, especially the folk-arty hearts and birds!