Our Home - Kitchen Teaser

I am painfully aware that I need to get my act together and get on with the posts about the kitchen. I'm such a slacker!!

In my defence, there is a LOT going on here right now!!

As a little teaser, here's a pic of the kitchen (I'm sorry its such a rubbish photo as it was taken at night - I've been waiting for a sunny day to get a better one, but its been miserable here lately):

When we were having it designed, the company kept referring to each wall where there would be units as a "run" and this became known as the hob run (the others being the sink run, the larder run and the oven run).

One of my main design aesthetic requirements (woo hoo get me with the fancy words!) for the kitchen was that it was to resemble a kitchen as little as possible - I'm sure the designer thought I was slightly insane!! I just meant that I wanted as much of the kitcheny paraphernalia stored away in cupboards/drawers where possible, leaving more space for decor items. I wanted it to feel more like a living room that happened to have some kitchen equipment than a full on clutterville kitchen gadget gone mad dust magnet (not that I'm OCD about this or anything, no no no).

Right from the start even before I knew what kind of kitchen I wanted, I knew what kind of accessories I wanted - matt silver, matt white and deep aubergine purple. I also carried that through as much as possible into the kitchen equipment itself, but that's another post waiting to happen!

I think the hob run best demonstrates my design thinking (except for the ugly microwave in the corner!) - no kitchen clutter, just lovely (well I think they are) accessories. Another thing you'll probably notice is that we've no wall cabinets - I was adamant about that! I can't reach 'em so I ain't having 'em!! Picture lots of  metaphorical foot stamping and you get the drift.

I think this is my favourite of the 4 "runs".

• I love the flowers, they look black in the pic above, but they're actually a lovely inky purple (and I know I'm biased but I think its quite unexpected for a kitchen - and I like that!): 

• I love the simplicity of the white vases.
• I love the artwork, which was a lucky find at the framers who we'd gone to to get a COMPLETELY different print framed up (Hubs chose the one on the left, I chose the one on the right). They're originals, not prints and were super expensive, but to us worth every penny! 
• I love that the lack of wall cabinets makes it so much open and airy.
• I love that the induction hob blends seemlessly into the worktop so its almost invisible - I also love that the hob is only 1 pan deep, so no stretching to get the to rings at the back!
• I don't so much love the extractor - I wish we'd chosen a less obtrusive one or more design conscious one - this one's too functional looking.
• I don't so much love the wall colour - I'm not sure we've got it right. The worktops are weird, we thought they were grey, till we tried to put a grey colour with them and it so didn't work. Neither did  cream or any brown-toned neutrals, so that's how we ended up with this colour. It was the only one from hundreds (no exaggeration!) that didn't make the worktop look weird.

Just in case you were beginning to think the kitchen I keep banging on about it was a figment of my imagination!!