As promised, folks, here are some images of my new kitchen – the most expensive kitchen I’ve ever had installed; in fact, the ONLY kitchen I’ve ever had installed! As our place is a cottage, I’ve totally followed all the current transitional trends here: beige painted cupboards over white oak veneer (it’s paintable for future colour choices), cream stove, fluted glass on the glassware cupboards, floating oak shelves, brass door hardware, integrated appliances, artfully placed decorative items, a Falcon stove (gas but don’t hurt me as there’s an electric cooktop too on the side and the ovens are electric), a Zip tap, a pot filler tap and a shower-head sink tap. Um, what else? We installed a skylight above the sink and Zellige tiles in white up one whole wall and in the stove alcove. We installed cupboards right up to the ceiling to take advantage of the height for party supplies, as we regularly entertain. Our stone bench tops are a marble look-alike Quartzite called Domus in a satin finish (very chic!). The great thing about quartzite is that it doesn’t etch like marble, and is as durable as granite. We asked for an appliance garage to hide all the bench top stuff, which is really well designed, with cupboard doors that inset into the wall while using the appliances. We have a 2-part bin for recyclables and regular household waste, and we also had another bin installed for compost scraps. There are a billion electrical outlets that I had to insist on, including one at the end of the bench for small appliances, and another on the opposite wall. There’s also an outlet in the pantry that we don’t use, and several in the appliance garage. In truth, more than we need, but we’re not the end users, and others might want to put their appliances in different places to us. There were some minor hiccups with the floor finish – hence hidden under the cheap poly rug for now, and we had to insist on a better quality finish for the painting and small stuff, as there were some poor finishings that we did not love. Our kitchen cabinet installers, who incidentally have their worksite just 5 minutes from us, have kindly fixed some minor things as they have arisen and guarantee their workmanship for seven years, but they used top grade materials for their products so we are satisfied that we will enjoy many years in this kitchen!

Things I never expected to love so much: the pot filler tap; the Zip tap (filtered cold water, hot water, and sparkling water), the pantry, and the appliance garage. Things I expected to love: the stove, the great French door fridge, the amazing bench space. Things that bother me: not much! We had to argue for better storage options in the dead corners, and as mentioned the floor sanding was botched (we refused to pay for it in the end). It’s a small kitchen with limited storage at Jess height, and we could have used another cutlery/appliance drawer – we were given 3 but there was an option of adding a fourth, as one of the cupboards is quite deep. There were issues with the under sink option and I realise we could have just had cupboards here rather than the awkward drawer unit. We also had to buy a bunch of portable shelves from KMart as the installed cupboards flanking the stove chimney needed more shelves. Missing from the final install: a light over the sink (we lost the space for one when we installed the skylight). That’s about it. It’s a dream to cook in and perfect for the size of the house. It’s not VERY modern, and lacks the curves that are so in right now, but this kitchen is old fashioned in a way that suits the house, and should be good for 20 years.