My home: an introduction.

In this mini-series, I'm going to share a selection of my favourite things from each room in our house. Hopefully these posts will provide you with a little insight into my style, and give you a peek into what our house is like.

Kitchen

Our fridge

Our fridge is brilliant. When we moved into our house, we found that the owners had left their old fridge in the kitchen, so made do with it for a while. However, it was tiny and had a really bad stench. We coped by putting a pot of bicarbonate of soda inside it, which quelled the smell for a bit, but it soon became clear that we would need a new fridge. I had long coveted the retro design of the SMEG fridges, but knew there was no way we could afford the price tags, so I looked around for alternatives. I found our fridge, the Electra E7316 for almost a third of the price of a similar SMEG. We were so pleased when we did our first big shop after we'd bought it - there was no more sqeezing everything in, or forgetting we had something because it was squashed at the back. The new fridge had masses of space.

I love the retro look of this fridge (which also comes in alternative colours), and the cream goes well in our kitchen. There really was only one place it would fit in our kitchen (see below), as it is quite big, and luckily it slotted in perfectly next to our washing machine.

The things on top of the fridge are:

• a sweet wicker picnic hamper that David bought me for my birthday several years ago
• our digital radio
• a box in which David keeps the seeds he uses to plant vegetables in our garden
• a coffee bean grinder that was a Christmas present from my uncle this year

You can see from this picture, several of the jobs that I need to do in the kitchen:

• finish painting the walls
• fix skirting board to the wall next to the fridge / paint down to the floor if skirting won't fit down the side of the fridge (it was a snug fit)
• seal the window properly (you can't see it from this picture, but there is a small gap down the side of the kitchen window - behind the tall black vase)

More things to add to the never-ending list of things to do around the house!

My red Newgate clock

This clock was a gift from David a few years ago. He'd seen it in a shop in Monmouth, and bought it for me as a surprise. Unbeknown to him, I had seen it in a magazine and had been lusting after it for weeks! The clock used to sit on a cupboard in one of the alcoves in our living room, not because we needed a clock in there (as I mentioned here), but because I didn't really know where to put it, and I wanted to pick a space that showed it off properly. I had thought it would go really well in our kitchen, but there isn't much wall space in there (it's all taken up with cupboards and our fridge), so I tried to think of alternatives. 

Then it dawned on me - the area inbetween our kitchen and bathroom (a downstairs bathroom is common to the old terraced houses in our area) would be the perfect place to house the clock. We never close the door from the kitchen, so the wall that can be viewed through the kitchen door, could almost be treated as an extension of the wall in the kitchen (as seen below).

I think the clock looks great here - we have red accessories in our living room, so having the clock here, carries this theme through into the kitchen, and helps the downstairs of the house to flow well.

What are your favourite things in your house?