The Beach Cottage DIY IKEA Kitchen & A Mini Makeover Special

G’day lovelies, hope your weekend was good.

Mine was busy and exhausting.

I left the beaches yet again, that’s more times in the last few weeks than the last few months and on the way home we took a wrong turn and I found myself at the back end of west Sydney, not a clue where I was.  After driving around aimlessly staring at road signs we pulled over in a side road…it was dark, a bit dicey and I truly wondered if I should get Mr BC to send a search party.

You see it really hits home when you are new to a country and you get lost, that you don’t actually know where you are at all, you are a long, long, long way from home and you don’t know any landmarks..I didn’t have a clue what I should have been heading for and the map wasn’t much clearer.  I said to Miss Beach Cottage in a very wobbly voice that we might as well be in Timbuktu and not knowing what that meant at all and thinking it was in Sydney she replied with “well where is that at least??”

After a long 12 hour emotional day it all got too much and as we sat there I stated that firstly I was going back to England, at least I know the roads there, secondly I hated road sign designers, adding for effect that they were probably made by men and thirdly said that if we ever got home I was so having a beer.  Always a really good way to behave as a role model to a 12 year old. 

I have long long resisted getting those little thingies you stick on the dashboard that speak to you in a strange accent, I have always much preferred the old fashioned way – a street map and a brain and I think it’s taught the kiddos some good skills…but, well, I think it may well be time for me to embrace technology in this department.

After a phone call to Mr Beach Cottage, it seems I had somehow got myself facing the right direction and it wasn’t long before we were headed home and it couldn’t have come quick enough…going over that bridge and getting back to the beaches I vowed not to leave again for a while ;-)

So let’s get back to today, where I found myself, after stomping along by the ocean, headphones in and music blaring and a good 250 under my belt, back home in the cottage nursing a nice big coffee and continuing with the Kitchen Clean Up that has been long overdue.

It seems that though into our fifth year of life in AUS, I still can’t quite get over the Spring Cleaning feeling of April and seeing as the weather is perfect for a breath of fresh air, albeit Autumnal air, I decided to attack the kitchen with some elbow grease.

In doing that I moved a few things around and de-cluttered much that I had in this tiny kitchen (love how the mags have called it that) and made decisions on gadgets and untensils that really are never used and are doing a very good job of making it look like one jumbly mess.

I think I’ve said on here before that when we had the quotes in from the kitchen company that were well over what we wanted to spend, I decided to go for a stand alone kitchen from no other than IKEA…I’ve always loved the more casual look of these rather than a whole vat of built-in cabinets and I love the big deep drawers and butcher’s block type wooden top…

…but I won’t tell you this was easy, IKEA, though of course you know I love it, but their stock system was a labyrinth of unavailable items and the instructions to put these things together were, well, let’s just say they are probably not written with women in mind!

This is how the corner looked before (and there are pics of how it looked a while ago here), but after we had ripped most of it out…such a shame as it had the original kitchen in it in parts, but soooo hideously filthy, the like of which you have never seen, we could do nothing to salvage any of it…but I was determined to keep this little sash window and I love pulling these up and letting the coastal air breeze through

 I envisaged more of a white feel than those delightful colours you see up there, believe it or not haha….I want stacked up china, easily grabbable by stinky teenagers, piles of napkins and the like right on hand and the things I find myself constantly using, out and ready to go.

And so as I was spritzing the cleaning fluid away merrily and boy am I glad no-one has inspected my kitchen lately ‘cos there was lots of errm how shall we say, things to wipe away…I was ruthless with parting ways with things that aren’t used here very often and it seems I had, for some reason, 3 ladles and 4 slotted plastic spoons…hmmm…

Open plan kitchens are not for everyone I must admit, but I love it much more than I thought I would, considering it was a very hasty purchase…

 

…it makes for easy living space that suits our family right now.  Don’t get me wrong, should I find myself in a dirty great kitchen and a mighty big budget to play with I may well decide to build in more units than one may think humanely possible, but these stand alones are, to me, very pleasing and for now, in this tatty old place, the bench and the open shelving are working all too well.

and of course, I couldn’t show you the kitchen without a little pot of frangipani’s from the tree right up the back of the garden…

If you have any questions on the IKEA kitchen leave them here and I’ll do my best to answer them, oh and of course, I would lurve to know what you think of my stellar efforts as domestic goddess ;-)

Now, I am off, I have some chicken stock on the stove top about to be turned into a lovely soup and still on the come-down from yesterday’s emotional wreckage that was me, I am doing what I always do when I find myself in need of soothing – heading to the tub – which may I point out is in a room which now is on it’s second coat of tile paint and the floor is grouted (I love you at the moment Mr BC) and looking good baby!

See you next time Beach Chicks