In which we’re in Waiting Mode

How long can one sustain a fizzing mood of anticipation about building Kitchtopia?1

Joe and I are at nine years and counting.

When we first moved into The Dingle, we knew we’d be knocking down the entire back of the cottage. It’s made of a bunch of scrappy little lean-tos sellotaped onto the back of the original building and the current kitchen is big enough to contain 0.75 people (any more and there’s rage) and it’s so cold and damp the olive oil freezes in the winter.2

The design is awful. Not just the decor, but the layout and cupboards and literally everything about it.

It is… not my favourite room. Joe hates it marginally less than I do, but that’s because he’s a patient and stoic human.

Our plan is to knock all that shit down and build Kitchtopia! We’re altering the layout of the original cottage a little bit too — closing off one door and moving another door so we can make better use of the rooms we have.

Probably the easiest way to explain it is to show you the plans.

Here’s the original floorplan — you can see how it’s been added to over the years with no real coherent plan, and the layout really doesn’t work very well. Not to mention the build quality is questionable and the materials don’t suit the age of the cottage.

And here’s what we’re going to build just as soon as we can get the detailed schedule of works from the architects and start talking to builders:

Here’s what we’re doing:

• Closing up the doorway that used to lead from the “snug” to the old kitchen, so we can create a library in the Stone Room.

• Moving the doorway from the middle of the living room to the far end, so we have much more usable wall and floor space.

• Building a big utility room where the current kitchen is, for the washing machine, a big old sink for cat and chicken and outdoor stuff, and everything we don’t want in the kitchen.

• Creating a new downstairs loo with a sink that’s a little bigger than the current one, leading off the hallway/boot room.

• Building a great big kitchen-diner with room for an island and a big entertaining table.

• New stairs will go up from the kitchen to the first floor, with a pantry beneath the staircase.

• On the first floor, we’ll create a new hallway with a room containing the stairs to our second-floor bedroom, making that a self-contained area.

• There will be two new bedrooms on the first floor, one with an ensuite.

• On the second floor, we’ll create a new bedroom area plus large dressing room in our existing bedroom.

It’s going to be amazing, and a lot of our conversations at the moment start with “when we’ve got our Kitchtopia…” and I’ve got this idyllic view of myself baking bread and cakes and maybe actually cooking on occasion.3

We have remortgaged in order to pay for all this, and we suspect we’ll be able to afford the main building work — and then possibly be cooking on a camp stove while we save up for all the things we want in our new paradise.

When all the plumbing, electrics, and plastering is done, we’ll be doing everything else ourselves: building our own internal doors, making the cupboards and shelves, and sourcing all the furniture as cheaply and interestingly as we can.

We did the same in the bathroom and the bathroom is The Most Beautiful Bathroom In The WorldTM so we’re pretty excited.

In other news…

We’ve just ordered some new sleepers to build the third raised bed and we’ve more-or-less finished weed-matting the area. Next weekend, we’re building the raised bed, buying more weed mat and pegs, and finishing the last bits of that.

Then we can start edging the mat with bricks and think about ordering woodchips, top soil, and hazel for building the fence.

Exciting times!