Dining room update

One of the things that makes me cross about our market driven society, is that things which are still perfectly useful, are suddenly declared 'out of fashion' and therefore we are influenced to think of throwing them away and buying new things which are pretty much identical to the old things, but perhaps a different colour. Not only is that an expensive thing to do, but so wasteful for our planet.

I have explained previously how I wanted to refresh the dining room at our place, but felt that the table and buffet were strongly made and worth keeping. In today's style guides though, they are the wrong colour.

My solution has been to replace the pine chairs with new white ones. The old chairs went to the op shop. We moved the dresser to another wall, and restyled it with my prettiest blue and white or pink and white china. I have retired the Arnotts biscuit tins which had been featured on the top. I also sent to the op shop some other pieces which were taking up space and making clutter.

DH did a lovely job this week of repainting the walls, door and door frames and the window ledge. We took down all the china plates, and that had left holes in the walls we wanted to fill. Things get tired after a while, and the door frames in particular had become chipped. 

The wooden window ledge is now shiny again, perfect for when our cat Dora wants to sit and breathe the air through the open window. 

Then I went looking for a new buffet. In the past we had a chest of drawers in this room but it was too high to be useful for an extra serving space, and was coming to the end of its life anyway.

The chest of drawers went to the op shop too. 

We are lucky to have found the perfect thing to replace them! 

The top is the same colour of wood as my ancient pine table and buffet, but it picks up the white of the chairs and the china, to make it all seem like it fits in! The doors are framed in the same way as the dresser, and the knobs are the same shape too! 

I am now in the final stages of refinishing the art for the walls. We are waiting on a tool to be delivered, which will help us fix the back of the picture frames securely.  Meanwhile these two delightful originals can sit here, leaning against the wall  -in the modern manner! 

We are all feeling happy about this makeover so far, and are inspired to keep going in refreshing more spaces in our home. There is a problematic store of stationary which is going to be culled next! 

Community building

I have been involved in community groups all my adult life. I have been the initiator of some, volunteered in others, taken roles as diverse as Chairperson or President, secretary, treasurer, and coordinator of volunteers. In some cases I was a paid employee of a not for profit association, in other cases I was a volunteer.

Now that I am retired, it is natural that being part of a community group would be included in my mix of volunteer activities. I have a long standing relationship with CARAD -the Centre for Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Detainees here in Perth, but my volunteer role there came to a natural end last weekend. There may be other opportunities for me there in the future of course.

I thought I might move in another direction for the next little while, so I went to the West Australian Quilters' Association AGM last week, and was duly appointed to the editor role of their printed quarterly magazine. I have done something like this in my professional life -although the last 20 years have been about on-line publishing rather than in hard copy. They needed someone, I thought I could do it, and so the whirlwind has begun -an edition needs to be in the hands of members by the first week in December, so I am working with the current editor on this as we effect a hand over of responsibility. It is a great way to meet people!

 I have joined the Community Quilters group which is part of this large and active association, which makes quilts for donation to a variety of organisations supporting individuals in need. They run quilting bees every two months, and in between time the Sewing Days make blocks and people donate their quilts, and fabrics, and the end result was over 1000 quilts were donated in the last financial year -an enormous effort.

I just hope that I can keep some time for the other activities I love to do, including creating my own quilts. This one below has got to the stage of putting the borders on. It is made of shirt fabric and will be given to the widow of the man whose shirts have gone into the quilt, as a memory quilt.

Not all of the shirts were cotton, and the construction of the top has caused some concern, but it has gone together well enough so I really want to move on and finish this up. Trouble is, I keep doing fun things and not staying home long enough to sew much!

For example, we have enjoyed lots of fun days with the grandchildren and their parents whilst they were in Perth recently. Precious times 

Then the sun came out and spring arrived, so of course we had to get back into our beach walks! 

Then there are the obligatory days making bread, or cakes, or gardening. The garden is amazing at the moment, so full of life. It is beginning to look 'full' -everything growing into everything else.

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The quince tree is covered in blossom, so I am hoping that this year the storms won't blow the blossom away, and that we can protect it from pests so that we can have those huge, heavy fragrant quinces to play with in autumn.

Life is good, and I am grateful. 

Planning a new kitchen

My kitchen was remodelled when we first moved in, over 20 years ago. We took out the horrible 1970s orange and brown patterned tiles, the batwing doors, the broken wall oven, the brown and orange lino. This blogger has some pictures which remind me of what was here then, but hers is much cuter! 

Our kitchen has done us pretty well for 20 years, and I have enjoyed cooking in it, but lately we have been planning a revamp. Given that I have a goal of living simply, this is a big step which required much thought.

What is wrong with the kitchen? 

• There are very few drawers. As I am now in my early 60s, I am finding it harder to reach into the back of the bottom shelf and lift out a heavy casserole dish that I have stored there. The idea of having a drawer which can hold my dishes and which I can pull out to reach them is very attractive. This feature will help us to move into our senior years with confidence we can manage things here
• I sometimes run out of bench space. I do a lot of cooking and baking, and DH loves to preserve and make jam. This kitchen is a bit cramped sometimes. Some of my appliances -like the microwave and the stand mixer -have to be stored on the bench too. 
• It doesn't have a lot of natural light. I would like bigger windows to see out of and let light in.
• I can't store my baking trays in the kitchen -they are in the linen closet.
• I can only fit in a bottom mount fridge/freezer, but I would love a side by side fridge freezer so I can keep more in the freezer. Right now we have another fridge outside -mostly because we need the extra freeer space, but it is not always so convenient to go out there. In the summer it is a hot place for a fridge to be kept, so I guess the fridge motor is working hard out there. 
• I sometimes wish I had an extra oven -I have used my barbecue as an oven when things get busy. My current freestanding stove and oven is showing signs of age and the oven in particular has a small capacity because its heating source takes up quite a bit of room. 
• We have solar panels on the roof, so using electricity rather than gas would be a good thing for the planet and cheaper for us, especially now I am retired and can do more cooking during the daytime. I could replace the gas stove with an induction cooktop and electric oven. 
• The layout of the kitchen could be improved

This week we went out to check out some options for appliances, and DH made a preliminary sketch of the new layout using the IKEA software, so we have now got some idea of what we want to achieve. Presently my stove is in a funny spot between two windows. It only has bench space on one side. We want to move it to the other side of the room. We want a much bigger window and a bench running the whole length of the room.

Something like this plan above. The pantry is in the left hand bottom corner (not shown) and the fridge is the big grey rectangle in the middle. 

Underbench oven with induction cooktop because a small person like me needs to be able to reach over the door . 

I liked the handles and interior of this fridge freezer 

Two bowl sink -in white? not sure. 

The spiders now invading my kitchen are NOT a problem. I hope they visit my new kitchen too. 

This project is both exciting and daunting -there will be a lot of mess before it is done, and some disruption, but if we can get through it, we will have a kitchen to last us another 20 years.

e