Monday, March 1, 2010

House Tour - Welcome to my kitchen

With our kitchen being featured in Brisbane News last week, I thought what better time than now to write the second installment of my House Tour series.

My inspiration

newengland6

This kitchen by Mark Wilkinson was the image I gave to Victoria Ashton in 2006 when she designed our kitchen. When explaining what I wanted, I showed her this kitchen but I didn't want it to be this rustic. No raw timber, not so 'country cottage'. What I did want was glass fronted cabinets, a huge island bench with seating, freestanding oven, shaker style cabinet doors, pendant lighting, integrated fridge and dishwasher, a pot tap (over the stove) and subway tiles.

Victoria did a wonderful job interperting what I wanted and completed our kitchen plans.

I then engaged the services of Anna from Black & Spiro to furnish our home. She provided advice on tile selection and layout, cabinetry design, cabinetry handle selection and tapware selection for our kitchen. Craig Madders from Madders Kitchens was responsible for the making of the beautiful cabinetry.

Here is the result

kitchen

Image via Brisbane News

7

Image via Black & Spiro

What I love about our kitchen

Walking into it every morning - it really is a beautiful space

The zip-hydro tap

The space! And the storage. Those 'to the ceiling' units are a godsend.

Intergrated fridges

Separate pantry/scullery

Display shelving - it's a work in progress

Pot tap above the stove


What shits (oh did I just type that?) me about our kitchen

The honed marble - it marks really easily. You have to be super quick in wiping up stuff. I love the way it looks though.

I won't lie - keeping a white kitchen clean is alot of work. Especially since it is all handpainted. Those Magic Erasers are great for hard to budge marks.

The pendant lights trap insects in them and we don't have screens, there are ALOT of insects flying in. Apart from that I do love them.

I have a love hate relationship with my butlers sink. I love the way it looks, I hate the way it performs. Nuf said.

Make sure you choose machine washable fabric if you are having loose cover barstools. It is a major pain in the backside having them drycleaned all the time.

Hope you enjoyed my house tour kitchen edition. I'll take some close ups of the kitchen in the few days and show you some tricky little gadgets we have that make life easier and keep visitors entertained for hours!



23 comments:

  1. Your kitchen is absolutely too gorgeous. It's interesting to hear what works and doesn't work so well.
    Angex

    ReplyDelete
  2. your kitchen is stunning!! Oh god! I have to- have to save this image for inspiration...love it

    ReplyDelete
  3. this is THE dream kitchen! amazing Sharnel, really beautiful and so well thought!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh to have all that counter space, in my world would be a dream and nightmare. Dream of course for all the cooking, nightmare would be all the piles of stuff people would just drop off on it.

    Thanks for sharing you UBER gorgeous kitchen...
    Amy

    ReplyDelete
  5. I really enjoyed the tour, your kitchen is wonderful!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sharnel, your kitchen is gorgeous!! I have wanted to install honed marble in my kitchen as well. I'm worried about needing to quickly wipe things up though...like you said. I like being able to put hot things down on my granite, since I'm always in a hurry with the kiddos. Thanks for sharing the gorgeous pictures!

    ReplyDelete
  7. apart from the absolute gorgeousness of everything in your house and kitchen. What I love is when we laugh until we cry, the times we have baked together, the seafood platters we have shared with Miss Olivia being our personal server, the indian and thai takeaways with the kidlets....it really is like going on holiday every moment I spend at the Ponderosa...wuv you muchly Big Bear xxx

    ReplyDelete
  8. It is beautiful. THanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I have a love hate relationship with the marble counters in my kitchen also. You know what they say beauty is worth a little pain!

    ReplyDelete
  10. What a fabulous space - so big, white and airy! Stunning - you lucky thing to have such a wonderful room! KG

    ReplyDelete
  11. I am drooling over your kitchen! It's so spacious and airy..awesome blog!

    TF
    http://overlookingmississippi.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  12. Your kitchen is magnificent but your honestly is refreshing too!

    ReplyDelete
  13. HOLY GORGEOUSNESS! (is that a word?!) Who cares, it expresses how I feel! :)

    WOW, Sharnel...it's truly beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Beautiful! I love how bright and clean it all looks. Thanks for sharing and for the honest comments :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Sharnel, this kitchen is the stuff dreams are made of. I love to hear how much YOU love it. Knowing too, how much you use it with all your clever cooking makes it even more lovely.

    My brother has a butler's sink like that and he would agree with you...takes too long to fill and sucks all the heat out of the water, also has broken lots of glass and china in it. Mind you, I'm always telling him how amazing it looks and it's a small price to pay. Hope your week is travelling along okay. Meredy xo.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Beautiful! I'm sure it makes an inspiring place to cook.

    We redid our kitchen last year and I went with the hone marble - I agree. It's beautiful but high maintenance.

    ReplyDelete
  17. oh my....what a GORGEOUS kitchen! SERIOUSLY. i LOVE all of the natural lighting. i'm in love!!!

    ReplyDelete
  18. I want to rip out my boring kitchen and install yours (thankfully I'm re- buiding) I just love it especially the fabulous storage for your crockery, the extra high cupboards makes this a very grand kitchen, I can see the inspiration well done and a huge congratualtions on getting your kitchen featured in Brisbane News xx

    ReplyDelete
  19. I got a lovely surprise to see your kitchen (and you with your gorgeous cupcakes) in Brisbane News last week! It looks amazing! Looking forward to seeing more pics! Tracey xx

    ReplyDelete
  20. Sharnel, I love these gorgeous photos of your fabulous kitchen - everything looks so beautiful. I had to giggle - it sounds like I was writing this post! I agree with you about the butlers sink - I love how it looks but it's always dirty, it has broken endless glasses and scratches every time you bump it. White kitchens look amazing but are incredibly hard to keep clean - I spend half my life cleaning fingerprints of doors. We also don't have flyscreens - very difficult in the country to keep creepy crawlies out. But would we change any of it - no, we love it just as it is! Leigh

    ReplyDelete
  21. Oh WOW! your kitchen is fabulous!!! So bright and cheerful :) Congrats on being featured in Brisbane news!

    I just stumbled into your blog...it's lovely

    Tracey
    myhouseofgiggles.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to leave a little comment on my blog. I truly appreciate it. xx