Kitchen happy!

It's not 100% finished yet...ran out of time on Saturday, and no drilling allowed on Sundays here, so the fantastic M is coming back during the week to put the cabinets up.

It looks very bare, obviously, cos nothing in it yet... (and washing machine and fridge not coming til later) that will soon change when I move in, but as I've been doing an annoying countdown on the blog, I thought I should share a picture of it (very nearly) finished.

I was very unsure if the 'island' thing would work in reality, though I knew I wanted it and hoped it would look and feel okay once it was actually in, and I thought it was a clever use of space. And I really like it. The kitchen, as you can see, is tiny (yet enormously tall... should have turned it on its side, perhaps?), but I am really happy with it.

Yippee... almost finished, just the wall cabinets to go, and then all my 'stuff' to be added to make it look lived in

Whaddya think?

Oh and here's before:

Before

Just a few dozen more things to do, but now, finally, feeling positive that I can move in and be happy here.

Wallpaper up....sneak kitchen preview

Yay...things could only get better! Went over on Friday night to see if the kitchen really would be ready for installation on Saturday at 8am! And, woo-hoo! The wallpaper is up, and it looks fantastic (I think so anyway).

Wallpaper by Catalina Estrada

I love it. It's called Daisy Red, by Catalina Estrada, a Colombian artist, and I got it for half the price by getting it imported from Spain rather than buying it in Germany. Just one little roll! Check out Bloom Papers. It's so hard to imagine what things will really look like when they happen, but this is one decision I'm really happy with.

The kitchen is very nearly finished....just a few things for M to do today, and then he's coming back later in the week to hang the last cabinets on the wall (it's not allowed to drill here on a Sunday, and as he said, I don't want to irk or upset my neighbours any more before I even move in!).

More photos to follow.

So once again....YAY!!

Movement in the kitchen

Kitchen is being installed tomorrow! M, my lovely rockabilly kitchen man, came round this afternoon with all his tools, and it's NEARLY ready for him to get started, but not quite.

I hadn't been round for a few days, and now the kitchen has tiles for the splashback. I toyed with the idea of glass, Moroccan-style tiles - all sorts of things, but in the end, the budget, and not being able to source / find what I wanted (and wasn't even sure what that was, exactly), means that I went for...yes, yawn, white tiles! But big ones. And once the wallpaper is up on that back wall, and my vintage-y cabinets are up, I'm hoping it will look a whole lot better. Now, it certainly looks bigger....but also slightly (or maybe more than slightly) like a public lav. Don't you think?

Getting there.... I've just noticed how amazing tall this room is,seeing G standing there like a lego piece

I think it will look much smaller (realistically so) again once the cabinets and dishwasher etc have been crammed in, but wait and see. More news soon.

Have a good weekend, one and all.

Sweet shelves and round tables

I love these shelves, and I'd like something a bit like this in my new kitchen, I think. I don't like it all too fitted; I need a bit of life and mess around me...not too sterile. I fear that I may have a lot more stuff to put on my shelves than here though, as I won't be living in a photo-shoot, but I like this idea, in principle. 

However, thinking about it, maybe this speaks against having it open plan as it might look just a tad too messy if my shelves are full of stuff, nice as it may be. What do you think? 

(I still like the idea of old-fashioned Victorian-style folding doors between the kitchen and living room spaces, so I can remain firmly on the fence for a little longer with rather a lot of splinters up my a*s*!).

From Living etc magazine (not sure of issue date!)

The layout designs of both these kitchens could work in my place, and in the picture below, I like the idea of the kitchen with the workplace and the round table and stylish chairs. I don't want everything to be white though, which might be surprising given the two images I've chosen here. However, I definitely like the idea of the white table and wooden (possibly mismatched) chairs.

From Living etc magazine (not sure of issue date!)

I've also been advised that pretty as they might be, round tables are really rather impractical, but hopefully just going through these thought processes will help me reach some decisions when the time comes. Not to mention that I don't really NEED to buy very much, but I might just treat myself to the odd new item in good time.

I won't have a double height ceiling like the one above... but it is 3.2m high, I think. Fairly standard for Berlin, but I think in England, we might put another flat in between. A lot of people I know had to buy new ladders when they moved to Berlin (even from other parts of Germany) because of the ceiling heights. I don't own a ladder at all yet....but I'll be borrowing one from from one of those friends, I hope (D&F for example!).

So, that's today's little outburst.... I know that when I read blogs, I don't always want to comment and I'm not even sure what an RSS feed is (can anyone tell me in simple terms how it works?), so I'm not really a nerd with much knowledge of the blogosphere, but I would really LOVE to get some comments and feedback....anything at all, but even if I am writing into a void, I think the process is still helpful for me!

Kitchen questions - open plan or separate room?

Open plan, separate room, sliding doors.... questions, questions. What should it be? Sociable chatting while casually knocking up a delightful dinner or does that mean stinky smells in the living room? What are the pros and cons, and how do I choose?

My new flat has the possibility to be either open to the living room, partially or completely separate. Hmmmpphhhh. What to do? I've always had a separate kitchen, but now's the chance to change that....but do I want to?

Here's the plan of the flat... the red line shows the wall that currently separates the kitchen (Küche) - tiny as it is, from the the living room (Zimmer 1). My friend Johann (who's a structural engineer) says I could remove it if I want to. The cooker etc. are not really in the places shown on the plan.  There's a window on the outside wall.

So, my question of the day is: Are you an open plan type, or separate room? What are the pros and cons? Tips for me to think about?

I'm thinking about a compromise - with old fashioned Victorian folding doors that are commonly used in the UK between a dining room and living room, but not so common here in Berlin....The only thing I've found is these double doors which are the right period (Jugendstil) for the flat, but they'd take up most of the whole space, so would probably look a bit odd.... a small kitchen hidden behind these rather grand doors. I think that writing these ideas down is definitely helpful....but I'd really like to hear about other people's experiences.

Promise there'll be some pretty photos soon!