Our house in Fredericton had a utility cupboard; the washing-machine and tumble dryer were in a cupboard in the hallway, which also had enough shelving for things like detergent, bulk packs of loo roll and kitchen roll, and several boxes of Christmas decorations.
The kitchen in the current porcine chateau is very small. As you go clockwise from the doorway, there's a counter (with cupboards & drawers above and below) which goes at right angles along two sides of the room. The bits of countertop which are usable have: toaster (with wooden toast tongs), a corner with jars of rice, lentils etc, kettle, ceramic hob, salt pig, canister with cooking utensils, a bit of actual counter space that can be used for food prep, microwave, sink, rack with Le Creuset saucepans on hooks which I rarely use as they don't go in the dishwasher, which is underneath the draining board. Then there's the fridge/freezer and the rubbish bin, and that's it, apart from the magic little pull-out cupboard below the draining board which I suspect is meant to hold cleaning supplies, but in this case is my herb/spice rack, as the top rack is exactly the right size to accommodate two rows of Tesco's spice jars, and has a few divisions in the lower rack which are the right size for wine or oil/vinegar bottles.
Things that are used less often (bread-machine, slow cooker, food processor/grinder) are hidden away in cupboards.
Your kitchen sounds vast compared to my first flat. The 'kitchen' was a cupboard off the living room just wide enough for a cooker and a sink (at right angles). I created food prepping space by making a hinged shelf that came down over the sink.
It was originally a 'single end' and what would have been the bed recess off the living room had been divided into kitchen, airing cupboard (with boiler) and shower. I suspect that the cupboard off the tiny hall which contained the toilet would have been for the coal (with a cludgie somewhere out the back yard).
My kitchen is small, and has units, sink, fridge-freezer etc on three sides, the fourth side being open to the dining room. I have no utility room. There are quite a lot of items on the worktops, which still leaves room for food preparation.
Microwave, bread and chopping boards, fruit bowl, slow cooker, knife block, three pots of utensils, Lazy Susan containing various teas/coffee/biscuits, mug tree, kettle, air fryer, 2bottles of oil, usual items on sink, small tray of glasses plus tablets ( meds), toaster, dish for oddments.
I can’t really put anything else away in cupboards unless I were to get rid of items I rarely use, which are on high shelves out of my reach anyway - so no use for much-used items. The air fryer wouldn’t fit in any cupboard. I like it the way it is.
@Firenze as a student in Aberdeen one of my flats had a kitchen just like the one you describe. So very tiny. That was the flat that had a shared loo on the stairs (in the 1980s), the only heating was a coal fire, and had no bath or shower. I think the landlady got away with it by calling it a Bed and Breakfast, and got away with that by hanging a small bag of groceries on our door handle once a week - things from her corner shop downstairs - mainly just past their sell-by dates!
I remember the ceremonial gift of a box of cornflakes from our landlord when I was a student in Aberdeen in the 1980s! We didn't get a box a week, although our flat did have a bathroom. Getting hot water to fill the bath was hit-and-miss, we mostly showered in the Butchart Sports Centre.
That landlord tried to charge us when our ancient hoover finally wheezed its last. If it was a modern vacuum cleaner I wouldn't charge you, but this vacuum cleaner was made in a time when things were built to last, and if it's broken, you must have broken it!
We had one piece of furniture which was very pretty but useless. It was an Art Deco cigarette dispenser, about three foot tall. We didn't smoke, but even if we did it would have been useless as it was designed to hold small cocktail cigarettes. I suspect the cigarette dispenser and the vacuum cleaner were of similar vintage.
The only new item in the flat was one of the mattresses. Much was made of this new mattress. Our landlord asked us to lie on the bed and bounce up and down while he watched to confirm the new mattress was ok....
<snip>The only new item in the flat was one of the mattresses. Much was made of this new mattress. Our landlord asked us to lie on the bed and bounce up and down while he watched to confirm the new mattress was ok....
There’s something about this which feels distinctly iffy!
Your kitchen sounds vast compared to my first flat ...
The "usable prep" bit isn't that big; I've just measured it and it's about 2½ x 2 feet. The built-in hob takes up a hell of a lot of space which (obviously) can only be used to set things on when the hotplates aren't. (In fairness, when I'm making bread I set the machine on the ceramic hob because it fits).)
Having said that, it's almost big enough for anything I might want to do.
I remember David telling of a friend who lived in a flat (probably in Bristol, where he went to university) where the "kitchen" was built into a dumb waiter, which one day unceremoniously descended into the basement, its cords having broken.
I've enjoyed reading about everyone's kitchens and how they are all so different. We rented a small cottage when we were first married and it had good storage plus an upright gas stove with separate grill. It was a very small house though and we only stayed a year or so before buying our own place. This home was bigger, but not in a wonderful state. It had a walk in pantry, another upright stove and a kitchen sink unit that was it. A couple of years after we bought the house we installed an ex-demo kitchen which was being sold off and a few months later added to the length of the bench to make a galley kitchen and added a side by side stove with pot drawers underneath to the former fireplace. It was good to have storage and finally a reasonable kitchen. We did soo much work to that house, never again!!
When we moved interstate we rented a couple of houses that had original 1970's kitchens as did the home we eventually bought. We lived with that for almost 20 years and finally installed a flat pack kitchen made up of one lot of cabinets I bought cheaply online and added other units bought at a hardware shop that was closing down. Cheery husband planned the layout himself. My contribution was insisting on bamboo benchtops and a double oven. 3 years after that was finished we moved house and I hope the new residents of our old place are enjoying the benefit of our labours.
We now have an oldish but still good quite large kitchen with a huge pantry and lots of bench space. This weekend I washed down all the cabinets and was quite pooped after climbing up and down the steps and working my way down the kitchen. I don't know how long it took, but it certainly felt like more than an hour and a half to do all the wiping! We are contemplating some new appliances and a cosmetic refresh in the next 5 years, but there is no rush and I guess I can live with the purple backsplash for a bit longer! It is, if nothing else, easy to wipe down and being nice and dark I can watch the reflection of the TV news as I cook the dinner!
I want to pay my daughter to do that very job, washing down all the fronts of kitchen cupboards and tiles. She adds to her income by gardening and occasional cleaning but won’t let me pay her, though I did give her a voucher a while back.
I have just found a list I made about a year ago of all I have achieved in the house since Mr P died. I was able to transfer several more items from the To Do list on to the Achieved list. Then my son popped in and kindly pointed out what else I need to be getting on with……🙃
There are so many types of stoves now available @Piglet compared to when I was a small child. So, an upright stove is a normal stove, built in a tower. Surface for pots on top, griller section and the oven underneath.
A side by side stove has the cooktop and oven alongside one another, good to fill a wide space like a fireplace. Grill section is underneath the cooktop and often the oven has a warming top so you can put dinner plates on top to heat and that keeps the oven free. I think they are a bit unfashionable now, but I loved having the pot drawers underneath and not having to bend to check the oven.
In the current house we have a wall oven and I'd like to replace that with a one and a half as we found having a small oven for the kids to cook pizza at the weekend worked well for us. I'm also a fan of the separate grill, but these are getting harder to find and oven and grill are combined. We have a glass top cooktop that is not induction and we'd like to replace that as it's very slow to heat and we already have induction pans from our previous house. I'd also like one of those fancy rangehoods that have the motor on the roof and are silent in the house, that will be a save up for it job or buy on the never never.
I quite liked the walk in pantry, but the tendency was to stuff everything in there and it got a bit messy. At our last house we had pull out wire units inside the pantry where one half was attached to the door and when the door was opened, it pulled the rest of the roller shelves out with the door and gave really good access to stuff in the back of the cupboard. We'd like to do that again at the current house, but the pantry has 3 big drawers below and so some cabinet alteration would have to occur, to make that happen (additional expense). I'd happily swap the location of the pantry and ovens here, but unfortunately Cheery husband has good and logical reasons as to why that would be silly. I am sure we can find a compromise if we put our minds to it it will just take us 10 years to get there as we are both (unfortunately) quite stubborn people!
I detest integral grill/ovens if they're the only oven. Putting in a cooker with separate grill/oven and fan oven meant laying extra cabling the considerable distance from the fuse box behind the front door, up two floors, across the roofspace, down into the dining room, across the wall and down to the kitchen unit. But worth it.
We tried 2 different kinds of pull out pantry @Piglet. One had a central runner which was bolted to the floor of the pantry and it pulled straight out. We found that the quantity of tinned goods was too heavy for the runners and so sold that version on.
The second one had a similar track at the bottom but also screwed onto the door, when the hinged door opened (the other version was unhinged) it pulled the baskets out with it. I think being able to store some of the tins on the door and take the weight off the track helped it work much better. Like you we really loved the access and the wire shelves which stored everything. I think for smaller packets we had some nice clear boxes which kept them tidy and also fitted the baskets perfectly. I did not like going back to a conventional style of pantry.
In my kitchen are two corner cupboards, each fitted with different metal racks which make maximum use of the space. One is semicircular and houses saucepans. The other pulls out forwards and then sideways ( it’s hard to explain). I use it for tins, jars, pasta etc. I love both arrangements.
I have no pantry or utility room.
My understairs cupboard’s door is in the dining end of my kitchen. It has shelves right at the back in the lowest bit which are pretty inaccessible, so are used for long term storage. In front of them is a small plastic chest of drawers for small cleaning items. In front of this is the rubbish bin, and to the side a bin for the recycling. On the floor round the walls I keep various bottles and packets eg drain unblocker, replacement washing up liquid etc. on the walls are numerous hooks with bags for all sorts of stuff.
I am sure there are better ways of using the space but this is the best I have come up with. It needs tidying regularly.
Two houses ago we had a walk-in pantry, with a pierced zinc section to the window (which faced east), so it kept the contents really cool.
Our next house had a "larder cupboard" at the north end of a long rectangular kitchen. This had a ventilation grill let into the outside wall so was also nicely cool although not particularly commodious.
(We did have a walk-in airing cupboard in that house, but that is a different conversation)
When we downsized to this little bungalow we had the 1960s square kitchen refitted as part of the renovations. The designer included what he called a "larder cupboard'" but turned out to actually be the boiler cupboard, which is totally useless for any kind of food storage. There is nowhere here suitable for leaving food to cool prior to storing it in the fridge, other than outside on the doorstep (suitably secured to deter the foxes etc).
My late in-laws' house had the cupboard under the stairs fitted out with shelves as a larder, and with a light that came on when you opened the door, like a fridge.
There may have been sundry cleaning things on the floor below the shelves; as I recall, the iron and ironing board (and possibly the hoover) lived there as well.
Keeping those cleaning materials (+junk) in order is very important. We never managed it before moving to this current house. A cupboard in the laundry and in the hallway, what??!!
Cheery husband went mad for the wire baskets on runners including round the corner ones when we updated our kitchen. He put so much work into solving our storage issues and he loved them. Me not quite as much as I wanted every darn milimetre of cupboard I could get and resented the room that the runners took up!! I was intrigued by the pull out corner unit cleverness though.
This week not a lot is happening re anything other than vacuuming and keeping the dishwasher run and unloaded. I really need to do the tiles, but I think that's a job for tomorrow. Oh, that and the washing, particularly the putting away. Trying to keep on top of that too!
Unplanned, I have tidied out three drawers today, two with office bits and bobs, and one of all sorts of things in the hall eg curtain hooks, candles, sweets, passwords for the wifi, cleaning things for spectacles, a ring measurer, neighbour’s keys.
I was searching for something in particular. I have a keyboard with a stand which I haven’t used for ages. It is missing a certain piece of metal and a screw to fix it. It has to be somewhere. If I don’t find it, I will be forced to explore the many screws etc in the garage.
I have enough candles for power cuts every day of winter. Enough tape for many parcels. Enough pencils for several quizzes. You can’t just bin these things. They are Useful Things.
Unplanned, I have tidied out three drawers today, two with office bits and bobs, and one of all sorts of things in the hall eg curtain hooks, candles, sweets, passwords for the wifi, cleaning things for spectacles, a ring measurer, neighbour’s keys.
I was searching for something in particular. I have a keyboard with a stand which I haven’t used for ages. It is missing a certain piece of metal and a screw to fix it. It has to be somewhere. If I don’t find it, I will be forced to explore the many screws etc in the garage.
How complicated is the piece of metal? I could post you a nut and bolt if you give an idea of length and diameter - if you made the metal bit out of bent-up cut-out cornflakes box and posted it to me with directions as a template I'd cut one out for you. Let's hope it turns up
@mark_in_manchester what a kind offer! Thank you.
I have now got the straight piece of metal, one long screw and wing nut. I just need another screw and wing nut. Meanwhile I’ll search the garage supplies today.
My friend was due to come round to watch Star Trek this morning - but she mistakenly thought that the clocks had already gone back, so turned up an hour late!
In that time I managed to do the washing up and the hoovering, both of which I had been putting off for rather too long!
I have checked 3 cabinets each of 50 tiny drawers, all labelled, and one of 25 drawers, mostly screws but also cable pins, clips, washers, screwdriver bits etc etc and have not found any wing nuts or a screw of the right size for the keyboard stand. I expect I’ll have to buy a whole packet but our handiware shop is very good. Meanwhile I will keep searching for the originals as they did not migrate from me to the DIY dept.
My friend was due to come round to watch Star Trek this morning - but she mistakenly thought that the clocks had already gone back, so turned up an hour late ...
Hang on a minute - don't you arrive an hour early when the clocks go back?
There was a bass in one of the cathedral choirs I sang in who always turned up late the morning the clocks went forward.
I have checked 3 cabinets each of 50 tiny drawers, all labelled, and one of 25 drawers, mostly screws but also cable pins, clips, washers, screwdriver bits etc etc and have not found any wing nuts or a screw of the right size for the keyboard stand. I expect I’ll have to buy a whole packet but our handiware shop is very good. Meanwhile I will keep searching for the originals as they did not migrate from me to the DIY dept.
If the metal bit is the brace that stops an 'X' shaped stand folding up while in use, then one end might use a wingnut (the end which comes apart to allow you to fold it up) and the other end might swivel around a normal nut-and-bolt which doesn't undo. Could that work in your setup? (Thanks @Lamb Chopped for the vote of confidence. So far this is the best kind of help to offer, as the rubber of 'my competence' has yet to hit the road of 'technical requirements' ).
I have checked 3 cabinets each of 50 tiny drawers, all labelled, and one of 25 drawers, mostly screws but also cable pins, clips, washers, screwdriver bits etc etc and have not found any wing nuts or a screw of the right size for the keyboard stand. I expect I’ll have to buy a whole packet but our handiware shop is very good. Meanwhile I will keep searching for the originals as they did not migrate from me to the DIY dept.
If the metal bit is the brace that stops an 'X' shaped stand folding up while in use, then one end might use a wingnut (the end which comes apart to allow you to fold it up) and the other end might swivel around a normal nut-and-bolt which doesn't undo. Could that work in your setup? (Thanks @Lamb Chopped for the vote of confidence. So far this is the best kind of help to offer, as the rubber of 'my competence' has yet to hit the road of 'technical requirements' ).
I guarantee you, if you were closer at hand we'd be buffing you constantly for help as we struggle to fabricate custom parts for this freaky old house. Mr Lamb would pay you the supreme compliment which he gave to the washing machine repairman last week (the guy said we could order a part at three weeks and 700 dollars expense, or else just "drill a hole here and use a stick to push right there")--
My friend was due to come round to watch Star Trek this morning - but she mistakenly thought that the clocks had already gone back, so turned up an hour late ...
Hang on a minute - don't you arrive an hour early when the clocks go back?
There was a bass in one of the cathedral choirs I sang in who always turned up late the morning the clocks went forward.
If everyone else has turned their clocks back and you haven't then you'd arrive early. If you've turned your clock back and no one else has (which I believe is the case with @Eigon 's friend) you'd arrive late.
Yes, @Boogie , "spring forward, fall back" is how I remember it, although I still have to give some thought to the early/late and lighter-in-the-morning-or-evening questions. And, yes, we get an extra hour for a lie-in tomorrow.
I don't. The dogs don't agree with daylight saving! 🤣
I always get up at 7:15 so tomorrow I'll get up at 6:45 - that is only half an hour late for them. Then I'll increase it by five minutes a day until we get to the new 7:15.
Back to tidying. My oven desperately needs a clean. Mr Boogs says he'll do it rather than pay a wo/man. But I know he'll just give it a quick wipe. :rolleyes:
I think Mr Lamb and I might get on alright. The only friend I have who is a bigger tight-a*se than me grew up in (notably resourceful) 1980s Poland. I need people like that to scorn me in case I get soft
Mr Heavenly and I did a major book clear out today. It started off quite tense, not because we have problems throwing things away but because the 2 of us have entirely different approaches to how we should sort through things. Obviously his way was The Right Way and I eventually rolled my eyes and went along.
When we decorated the small spare room/study and the landing we had to unpack several bookcases and put the contents on the floor of the large spare room, which already had loads of stuff stored there. So today we worked through all the books, including the old children’s books that already lived in the room. We now have a couple of hundred books in the lounge to take for recycling. Most of the remaining books will have homes on the bookcases we are retaining and the rest will go in a bookcase in the large spare room after that is decorated.
We are having a sort of family get-together w/e as Younger Son & family are in the area for a few days. Friday was home-made pizzas with Elder Son's family. Today was activities morning & afternoon to suit youngest grandchildren, with a lunch for all of huge Gyros at a nearby Greek place. Tomorrow is lunch at ours, so Mr RoS and I spent last week 'tidying & cleaning'.
As is often the way, when you clean & tidy one thing something else looks grubby, so we ended up having a bit of a blitz. We are now cleaner and tidier than we have been since the 'blitz' we had before my bro & s-i-l came to stay for my 80th in the summer.
Hopefully this will see us through to Christmas, and the next batch of visitors
Changing clocks was Mr P’s job. He had so many. The bedside radio changed itself this morning though I had to check with my phone to make sure. The carriage clock in the sitting room will be allowed to run down and be restarted at a suitable moment. I’ll have to get the steps out to fetch a wall clock down and consult the manuals for the cooker and microwave.
Mr Heavenly and I did a major book clear out today. It started off quite tense, not because we have problems throwing things away but because the 2 of us have entirely different approaches to how we should sort through things. Obviously his way was The Right Way and I eventually rolled my eyes and went along.
As I've said on the British thread, we are thinking of moving and Mr Nen is therefore Sorting. This means that while his study is starting to look less cluttered, the rest of the house downstairs is covered with files and piles of paper - on tables and chairs, and also on the floor. I had to wait for him to clear a space on the sofa for me to be able to sit down yesterday. He's promised me that he's going to "consolidate" it all this afternoon.
I had a big clear out of my books years ago, prior to moving into what is now my study, and got rid of some books that I still regret parting with. However, this does mean that pretty much all the books in my study are ones that I want to keep as I'm very careful now about acquiring others, limiting it to ones I know I really want. Mr Nen, however, has been squirrelling books away in cupboards as he doesn't have shelf space in his study, his shelf space being taken up with the aforementioned paperwork, and I know we have at least one box of books that I had sorted as "To Go" and he decided not, so up it went into the loft. :rolleyes:
I will have to tackle my own paperwork soon - notes, letters, cards, sentimental stuff. We are all different as to what we like to keep. Mr Nen has put all his cards from a Special Birthday (including family ones, with some loving words penned by Yours Truly) into the recycling. I have all my cards, from birthdays from way back when, and may decide to rationalise my collection but would never get rid of special ones. We did have a conversation about it and agreed that neither option is wrong; just different. And I'll readily admit that my own paperwork is pretty chaotic.
Clothes will be the next difficult one. I don't have many clothes and pretty much all the ones I have I wear. Mr Nen keeps things because they "might come in for..." or "will be good for mucky jobs in the garage." It's very difficult for him to part with any.
Fortunately our proposed move means we would not be downsizing but, as we agreed, we don't want to be moving stuff we really don't need or want, nor leaving it for the Nenlets to sort if the move doesn't happen.
Clothes will be the next difficult one. I don't have many clothes and pretty much all the ones I have I wear. Mr Nen keeps things because they "might come in for..." or "will be good for mucky jobs in the garage." It's very difficult for him to part with any.
I was heartened to learn that our tip does scrap textile recycling - so the 5 or 6 jeans-with-no-arse-or-knees I have (because denim, right?) could be culled to 2 or 3 pairs to delay the demise of 2 or 3 other pairs, and the rest could be recycled rather than landfilled. This knowledge came about when one of our delightful neighbours to the church fly-tipped another load of wet, dirty clothes and blankets into the church garden. Anything I can't wear because I am now too fat (not seeing 32W again. Probably not seeing 34W again) goes to the charity shop (unless it has had my attentions with the sewing machine, in which case it is, sadly, scrap). This reminds me that having a go on the sewing machine is something I should be doing now. My sewing is, err, 'outsider art'.
I took a load of tyres to the tip this week (in batches, because they thought I was a business) and, actually, it's only plastic film / bags etc which have to go in the grey bin now. And Co-op take them. So on a good week, there's nothing in the grey bin at all (although I did use some diesel going up and down to the tip). I really hate throwing things away.
Our local tip/recycling centre is great, they take textiles, clothes, books, almost everything.
Despite my love of buying books (what’s the point of being an academic if you can’t read lots of lovely books?) I’m not at all sentimental and can a purge them when necessary. I have never kept any letters or cards, and my office studio is completely paperless with the exception of home printed sewing patterns. These days I read all my journal articles online.
Mr Heavenly was surprised how few novels I had, and how many biographies; he may not have noticed I am a historian.
Our tip is great too, and we do well with the kerbside collections. You can put clothes out in a clearly labelled bag, also soft plastics (in a special blue bag provided).
Mr Nen keeps, among other things, car seats (not children's ones, proper car seats) which fit his classic cars (or friends' classic cars), wheels, engines, various metal car parts, all for his car projects.
Fairly recently I discovered some of my mum's letters - I thought I'd destroyed them all - and it brought her voice to me when I badly needed it. She and her own mum kept in touch by letter and she kept them all but my father threw them away . I'd love to have some letters in my grandmother's handwriting.
My son had a decluttering day yesterday. They got rid of their last single bed ten years ago so have lots of spare bedding. Most of it is going to be used by animals ( their son’s girlfriend rescues hamsters etc) but some will go to a rehab centre. I have been given a single duvet and bedding which will come in handy for my new spare room. I just need help to move the single bed from my study into the new room which I want to use as my winter bedroom.
I need to finish working through the remaining boxes, order new curtains and look out for some suitable bits of furniture.
Meanwhile @mark_in_manchester I have not found anything on the keyboard stand to attach the metal joining piece to, so it is definitely a long screw and wing nut that I need, but thanks anyway.
Admiring everyone's efforts from afar, particularly those that are able to declutter books!! I tried really hard when we downsized at Dad's not to bring home too much, and I think I succeeded. Occasionally when the shelves get a bit tight I do get rid of a few novelty type books, but can't manage to get rid of my favourites.
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The kitchen in the current porcine chateau is very small. As you go clockwise from the doorway, there's a counter (with cupboards & drawers above and below) which goes at right angles along two sides of the room. The bits of countertop which are usable have: toaster (with wooden toast tongs), a corner with jars of rice, lentils etc, kettle, ceramic hob, salt pig, canister with cooking utensils, a bit of actual counter space that can be used for food prep, microwave, sink, rack with Le Creuset saucepans on hooks which I rarely use as they don't go in the dishwasher, which is underneath the draining board. Then there's the fridge/freezer and the rubbish bin, and that's it, apart from the magic little pull-out cupboard below the draining board which I suspect is meant to hold cleaning supplies, but in this case is my herb/spice rack, as the top rack is exactly the right size to accommodate two rows of Tesco's spice jars, and has a few divisions in the lower rack which are the right size for wine or oil/vinegar bottles.
Things that are used less often (bread-machine, slow cooker, food processor/grinder) are hidden away in cupboards.
It was originally a 'single end' and what would have been the bed recess off the living room had been divided into kitchen, airing cupboard (with boiler) and shower. I suspect that the cupboard off the tiny hall which contained the toilet would have been for the coal (with a cludgie somewhere out the back yard).
Microwave, bread and chopping boards, fruit bowl, slow cooker, knife block, three pots of utensils, Lazy Susan containing various teas/coffee/biscuits, mug tree, kettle, air fryer, 2bottles of oil, usual items on sink, small tray of glasses plus tablets ( meds), toaster, dish for oddments.
I can’t really put anything else away in cupboards unless I were to get rid of items I rarely use, which are on high shelves out of my reach anyway - so no use for much-used items. The air fryer wouldn’t fit in any cupboard. I like it the way it is.
That landlord tried to charge us when our ancient hoover finally wheezed its last. If it was a modern vacuum cleaner I wouldn't charge you, but this vacuum cleaner was made in a time when things were built to last, and if it's broken, you must have broken it!
We had one piece of furniture which was very pretty but useless. It was an Art Deco cigarette dispenser, about three foot tall. We didn't smoke, but even if we did it would have been useless as it was designed to hold small cocktail cigarettes. I suspect the cigarette dispenser and the vacuum cleaner were of similar vintage.
The only new item in the flat was one of the mattresses. Much was made of this new mattress. Our landlord asked us to lie on the bed and bounce up and down while he watched to confirm the new mattress was ok....
The "usable prep" bit isn't that big; I've just measured it and it's about 2½ x 2 feet. The built-in hob takes up a hell of a lot of space which (obviously) can only be used to set things on when the hotplates aren't. (In fairness, when I'm making bread I set the machine on the ceramic hob because it fits).)
Having said that, it's almost big enough for anything I might want to do.
I remember David telling of a friend who lived in a flat (probably in Bristol, where he went to university) where the "kitchen" was built into a dumb waiter, which one day unceremoniously descended into the basement, its cords having broken.
When we moved interstate we rented a couple of houses that had original 1970's kitchens as did the home we eventually bought. We lived with that for almost 20 years and finally installed a flat pack kitchen made up of one lot of cabinets I bought cheaply online and added other units bought at a hardware shop that was closing down. Cheery husband planned the layout himself. My contribution was insisting on bamboo benchtops and a double oven. 3 years after that was finished we moved house and I hope the new residents of our old place are enjoying the benefit of our labours.
We now have an oldish but still good quite large kitchen with a huge pantry and lots of bench space. This weekend I washed down all the cabinets and was quite pooped after climbing up and down the steps and working my way down the kitchen. I don't know how long it took, but it certainly felt like more than an hour and a half to do all the wiping! We are contemplating some new appliances and a cosmetic refresh in the next 5 years, but there is no rush and I guess I can live with the purple backsplash for a bit longer! It is, if nothing else, easy to wipe down and being nice and dark I can watch the reflection of the TV news as I cook the dinner!
Every time I wash up I wipe down a kitchen front, so they all get a turn once a fortnight.
I'm very envious of your walk-in larder; my s-i-l (who is the untidiest person on the planet) has one, and I'd kill for one (not literally obvs)!
A side by side stove has the cooktop and oven alongside one another, good to fill a wide space like a fireplace. Grill section is underneath the cooktop and often the oven has a warming top so you can put dinner plates on top to heat and that keeps the oven free. I think they are a bit unfashionable now, but I loved having the pot drawers underneath and not having to bend to check the oven.
In the current house we have a wall oven and I'd like to replace that with a one and a half as we found having a small oven for the kids to cook pizza at the weekend worked well for us. I'm also a fan of the separate grill, but these are getting harder to find and oven and grill are combined. We have a glass top cooktop that is not induction and we'd like to replace that as it's very slow to heat and we already have induction pans from our previous house. I'd also like one of those fancy rangehoods that have the motor on the roof and are silent in the house, that will be a save up for it job or buy on the never never.
I quite liked the walk in pantry, but the tendency was to stuff everything in there and it got a bit messy. At our last house we had pull out wire units inside the pantry where one half was attached to the door and when the door was opened, it pulled the rest of the roller shelves out with the door and gave really good access to stuff in the back of the cupboard. We'd like to do that again at the current house, but the pantry has 3 big drawers below and so some cabinet alteration would have to occur, to make that happen (additional expense). I'd happily swap the location of the pantry and ovens here, but unfortunately Cheery husband has good and logical reasons as to why that would be silly. I am sure we can find a compromise if we put our minds to it it will just take us 10 years to get there as we are both (unfortunately) quite stubborn people!
The second one had a similar track at the bottom but also screwed onto the door, when the hinged door opened (the other version was unhinged) it pulled the baskets out with it. I think being able to store some of the tins on the door and take the weight off the track helped it work much better. Like you we really loved the access and the wire shelves which stored everything. I think for smaller packets we had some nice clear boxes which kept them tidy and also fitted the baskets perfectly. I did not like going back to a conventional style of pantry.
I have no pantry or utility room.
My understairs cupboard’s door is in the dining end of my kitchen. It has shelves right at the back in the lowest bit which are pretty inaccessible, so are used for long term storage. In front of them is a small plastic chest of drawers for small cleaning items. In front of this is the rubbish bin, and to the side a bin for the recycling. On the floor round the walls I keep various bottles and packets eg drain unblocker, replacement washing up liquid etc. on the walls are numerous hooks with bags for all sorts of stuff.
I am sure there are better ways of using the space but this is the best I have come up with. It needs tidying regularly.
Our next house had a "larder cupboard" at the north end of a long rectangular kitchen. This had a ventilation grill let into the outside wall so was also nicely cool although not particularly commodious.
(We did have a walk-in airing cupboard in that house, but that is a different conversation)
When we downsized to this little bungalow we had the 1960s square kitchen refitted as part of the renovations. The designer included what he called a "larder cupboard'" but turned out to actually be the boiler cupboard, which is totally useless for any kind of food storage. There is nowhere here suitable for leaving food to cool prior to storing it in the fridge, other than outside on the doorstep (suitably secured to deter the foxes etc).
Cheery husband went mad for the wire baskets on runners including round the corner ones when we updated our kitchen. He put so much work into solving our storage issues and he loved them. Me not quite as much as I wanted every darn milimetre of cupboard I could get and resented the room that the runners took up!! I was intrigued by the pull out corner unit cleverness though.
This week not a lot is happening re anything other than vacuuming and keeping the dishwasher run and unloaded. I really need to do the tiles, but I think that's a job for tomorrow. Oh, that and the washing, particularly the putting away. Trying to keep on top of that too!
I was searching for something in particular. I have a keyboard with a stand which I haven’t used for ages. It is missing a certain piece of metal and a screw to fix it. It has to be somewhere. If I don’t find it, I will be forced to explore the many screws etc in the garage.
I have enough candles for power cuts every day of winter. Enough tape for many parcels. Enough pencils for several quizzes. You can’t just bin these things. They are Useful Things.
I've decluttered a suitcase full of shoes, handbags and clothes from the wardrobe and given it to the Cancer Research shop.
Declutterage of the chest of drawers will have to wait for another day.
How complicated is the piece of metal? I could post you a nut and bolt if you give an idea of length and diameter - if you made the metal bit out of bent-up cut-out cornflakes box and posted it to me with directions as a template I'd cut one out for you. Let's hope it turns up
I have now got the straight piece of metal, one long screw and wing nut. I just need another screw and wing nut. Meanwhile I’ll search the garage supplies today.
In that time I managed to do the washing up and the hoovering, both of which I had been putting off for rather too long!
There was a bass in one of the cathedral choirs I sang in who always turned up late the morning the clocks went forward.
If the metal bit is the brace that stops an 'X' shaped stand folding up while in use, then one end might use a wingnut (the end which comes apart to allow you to fold it up) and the other end might swivel around a normal nut-and-bolt which doesn't undo. Could that work in your setup? (Thanks @Lamb Chopped for the vote of confidence. So far this is the best kind of help to offer, as the rubber of 'my competence' has yet to hit the road of 'technical requirements'
I am going to have a lie in tomorrow morning, aren't I?
Fall back, spring forward. 🙂
I guarantee you, if you were closer at hand we'd be buffing you constantly for help as we struggle to fabricate custom parts for this freaky old house. Mr Lamb would pay you the supreme compliment which he gave to the washing machine repairman last week (the guy said we could order a part at three weeks and 700 dollars expense, or else just "drill a hole here and use a stick to push right there")--
Mr Lamb exclaimed, "You're really Vietnamese!"
If everyone else has turned their clocks back and you haven't then you'd arrive early. If you've turned your clock back and no one else has (which I believe is the case with @Eigon 's friend) you'd arrive late.
Yes, @Boogie , "spring forward, fall back" is how I remember it, although I still have to give some thought to the early/late and lighter-in-the-morning-or-evening questions. And, yes, we get an extra hour for a lie-in tomorrow.
I always get up at 7:15 so tomorrow I'll get up at 6:45 - that is only half an hour late for them. Then I'll increase it by five minutes a day until we get to the new 7:15.
Back to tidying. My oven desperately needs a clean. Mr Boogs says he'll do it rather than pay a wo/man. But I know he'll just give it a quick wipe. :rolleyes:
I have now put all the clocks & watches in my flat back, so I don't have to think about it when I go to bed.
When we decorated the small spare room/study and the landing we had to unpack several bookcases and put the contents on the floor of the large spare room, which already had loads of stuff stored there. So today we worked through all the books, including the old children’s books that already lived in the room. We now have a couple of hundred books in the lounge to take for recycling. Most of the remaining books will have homes on the bookcases we are retaining and the rest will go in a bookcase in the large spare room after that is decorated.
As is often the way, when you clean & tidy one thing something else looks grubby, so we ended up having a bit of a blitz. We are now cleaner and tidier than we have been since the 'blitz' we had before my bro & s-i-l came to stay for my 80th in the summer.
Hopefully this will see us through to Christmas, and the next batch of visitors
I had a big clear out of my books years ago, prior to moving into what is now my study, and got rid of some books that I still regret parting with. However, this does mean that pretty much all the books in my study are ones that I want to keep as I'm very careful now about acquiring others, limiting it to ones I know I really want. Mr Nen, however, has been squirrelling books away in cupboards as he doesn't have shelf space in his study, his shelf space being taken up with the aforementioned paperwork, and I know we have at least one box of books that I had sorted as "To Go" and he decided not, so up it went into the loft. :rolleyes:
I will have to tackle my own paperwork soon - notes, letters, cards, sentimental stuff. We are all different as to what we like to keep. Mr Nen has put all his cards from a Special Birthday (including family ones, with some loving words penned by Yours Truly) into the recycling. I have all my cards, from birthdays from way back when, and may decide to rationalise my collection but would never get rid of special ones. We did have a conversation about it and agreed that neither option is wrong; just different. And I'll readily admit that my own paperwork is pretty chaotic.
Clothes will be the next difficult one. I don't have many clothes and pretty much all the ones I have I wear. Mr Nen keeps things because they "might come in for..." or "will be good for mucky jobs in the garage." It's very difficult for him to part with any.
Fortunately our proposed move means we would not be downsizing but, as we agreed, we don't want to be moving stuff we really don't need or want, nor leaving it for the Nenlets to sort if the move doesn't happen.
All the best with sorting for your move @Nenya - I remember it well!
I was heartened to learn that our tip does scrap textile recycling - so the 5 or 6 jeans-with-no-arse-or-knees I have (because denim, right?) could be culled to 2 or 3 pairs to delay the demise of 2 or 3 other pairs, and the rest could be recycled rather than landfilled. This knowledge came about when one of our delightful neighbours to the church fly-tipped another load of wet, dirty clothes and blankets into the church garden. Anything I can't wear because I am now too fat (not seeing 32W again. Probably not seeing 34W again) goes to the charity shop (unless it has had my attentions with the sewing machine, in which case it is, sadly, scrap). This reminds me that having a go on the sewing machine is something I should be doing now. My sewing is, err, 'outsider art'.
I took a load of tyres to the tip this week (in batches, because they thought I was a business) and, actually, it's only plastic film / bags etc which have to go in the grey bin now. And Co-op take them. So on a good week, there's nothing in the grey bin at all (although I did use some diesel going up and down to the tip). I really hate throwing things away.
Despite my love of buying books (what’s the point of being an academic if you can’t read lots of lovely books?) I’m not at all sentimental and can a purge them when necessary. I have never kept any letters or cards, and my office studio is completely paperless with the exception of home printed sewing patterns. These days I read all my journal articles online.
Mr Heavenly was surprised how few novels I had, and how many biographies; he may not have noticed I am a historian.
Mr Nen keeps, among other things, car seats (not children's ones, proper car seats) which fit his classic cars (or friends' classic cars), wheels, engines, various metal car parts, all for his car projects.
Fairly recently I discovered some of my mum's letters - I thought I'd destroyed them all - and it brought her voice to me when I badly needed it. She and her own mum kept in touch by letter and she kept them all but my father threw them away
I need to finish working through the remaining boxes, order new curtains and look out for some suitable bits of furniture.
Meanwhile @mark_in_manchester I have not found anything on the keyboard stand to attach the metal joining piece to, so it is definitely a long screw and wing nut that I need, but thanks anyway.