A little more than five years ago we bought a house. In all honesty and between you and I: it was a problem property that had been sitting on the market for forever, looking sadder and emptier and more unloved, with each passing week. There’s no real way of sugar-coating it: no one else wanted to buy that house; but when I saw it, I fell in love. Technically I fell in love with what I believed the house could be, the home it could become, rather than with the building itself, but still: tomato, tomahto. Because of its very problem-property-ness, we could (just about) afford it, and somehow I knew in my bones that with work and time, some love and care, this could be the home of our dreams. All houses have an aura, an energy, you see; and this house had good energy. Plus I love a project.
There is no doubt that this was a big project: the plan was to take our time and do it slowly, in stages. That made things feel manageable, exciting even. But then I found out I was pregnant, and the timeline shifted. Having acquired our problem-property-that-could-would-should-one-day-become-a-dream-house, we now had a worryingly tight deadline to work to. These are good problems to have, of course; but at the time it all felt rather overwhelming, so I was especially glad when our friend, Ben (of Ben Pentreath fame), agreed to help. Ben is a dear and wonderful friend who we love very much; but beyond that - and crucially in this particular story - he is also an architect and designer. A truly brilliant one at that. And I should say now that I will forever be grateful to Ben because without him we would have been lost: not only did he help us create our dream home, but he made the process of doing so fun and utterly stress free, in spite of the fact we were working with a very short time frame (three months from the moment we began works to the day we moved in, straight out of hospital and with new baby). He is the dreamiest; and he was a dream to work with - in every way.
The works on the house went by in a haze of morning sickness, manic to-do lists and general nesting/moving chaos; and then I sort of forgot about the house as it was before. Life moved on, we moved in. New chapter, new story, new baby. Life; lockdown; pondering paint swatches suddenly didn’t loom quite so large in our day-to-day. Then, a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon some old photos of the building as it was when we first got the keys. You know, that thing your phone does when it sort of prompts you with memories from the past: the pictures popped up, and I remembered. I remembered how completely, utterly, unimaginably different it used to be.
I wanted to share a little of the story of the house here, because I thought it might be of interest to those of you who are planning (or embarking upon) a renovation project of your own, or even just if, like me, you’re the kind of person who is generally interested in these sorts of things (I do always love a before and after). This is the first instalment, the first chapter as it were, in what we might call An Ugly Duckling of a House: Where We Began and Where We Are Now. It makes sense, I think, to begin on the ground floor and then to work our way up, through each room of the house. So, here goes: this is the story of a kitchen. And once upon a time this is what it looked like…
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