Vegan Mofo Day 13 - It's Kitchen Tour Time


Yay, I love a kitchen tour! I first blogged one back during Mofo 2011 when I was still living in my flat with the tiniest kitchen in the world. It was so small that I had to keep my dried goods in a cupboard in the hallway!  I also recently did a mini-tour of the food related artwork in our kitchen where we live now.


Since that post I've made another purchase. Just need to get a frame for this now!


Our house just has two rooms downstairs, a lounge and a kitchen so the dinning table is in the kitchen next to the orange wall. We have two chairs and two benches which had long been covered in denim and were starting to look a bit tatty. When we moved I decided I wanted to recover them in Mexican oilcloth but I couldn't find any I liked that wasn't incredibly expensive because of shipping costs. I knew I'd 'psychic shop' some eventually and sure enough a huge table cloth came up on eBay with free postage for the grand cost of £12. The print was exactly what I'd envisaged and with the use of a staple gun it was big enough to cover the kitchen seating, a bench for the yard and to make some bunting!


I have to say though that we don't eat at the table that often and are usually found in the lounge eating our meals off these vintage Marks and Spencer melamine trays from the 1970's. We have the matching place mats too. Matt has a love of 70's stuff as you will see in the rest of these pics.


I think these guys are from that era. We call the onion pot 'Scratey Onion Boy' (scratey means crying where Matt's from) and we keep garlic in him. His mate is 'Startled Celery Boy' who also doubles up as a vase.


We've got a few inherited pieces too in the kitchen from Matt's Nana Ivy who was a famously good cook. These were her scales.


And her jam pan which we've only recently aquired and are yet to use but I'm excited about trying my hand at some preserves this autumn.


This is no framed print, it's a sheet of Nana Ivy's stickers for tupperwares which seemed to fit so well with our kitchen art collection that we got them framed.


I thought I'd include a few of my favourite useful kitchen objects in the tour. This ceramic strawberry pot is our compost pot.


These Orla Kiely pasta tins were a present when we moved. They sit on my Ikea mini filing cabinet which houses our herb, spice and seed collection. The cross shaped object on the right is a 1970's melamine cookery book holder. The enamel bread bin is acutually where I keep my flour collection for baking.


The mortgage company made several errors which caused a big delay when we were moving. We did get some compensation from them and we put it towards a Vitamix. Yes, they are expensive but I don't regret this purchase at all!


Living with one of the world's biggest Elvis fans means that he creeps in everywhere, even the kitchen. We got not one but two of these vegetable Elvis boards for house warming presents. One is near the toaster and the other near the kettle.


Whilst your deep in thought doing the washing up you can look up and ponder on these words.


And finally my absolute favourite part of my new kitchen (apart from the oven) is the pantry. These sort of Derbyshire terraced houses were built with pantries under the stairs. In lots people have removed them to open out the stairs and kitchen but we were so pleased to find a house where it still has one. My little old nephew loves it and calls it 'The Shop'!


Comments

  1. I love the Mexican oil cloth - it's always so pretty and colorful. <3 I loved seeing all your favorite kitchen goodies. Those old scales are so beautiful. I love my digital scale... I can't imagine having to work with those old fashioned ones! :)

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  2. Love your kitchen, my dream kitchen will definitely have a pantry. Just so I can by those 5kg bags of rice you find in Asian shops!

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    1. They are great for bulk storage. We've not done the 5kg rice thing yet but we have got rather large bags of lentils and cashews in there from ASM in Ashton!

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  4. I love your pantry! I'm still in the "cupboard outside the kitchen" stage, jealous that my house doesn't have a Derbyshire pantry :P

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  5. I love your kitchen! It is so cheerful and fun! I love 70's things too. I always look at thrift shops for fun stuff like that! I love the Elvis question!

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  6. My first kitchen was so tiny like your old one. I had to keep most of the appliances in the hallway/computer room and sometimes I would place things in the living room while dough would rise, or just to make room. I think people were impressed by how much I would cook in there, including complicated things like bagels, lasagna, pies, etc. But I think having a small kitchen really makes you organized, clean, and thoughtful while being in the kitchen. Sadly I still have too much stuff to fit into my kitchen (mostly just stem and bar ware) I love all the bright little accents and accessories to your kitchen. I love retro kitchen supplies- it is called a KITCHen.

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    1. We have a lot of bar stuff too. In fact we have an actual bar. In my flat it was in my bedroom but there's room for it in the living room in this new place :) There's a great shop in Amsterdam called Kitsch Kitchen.

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  7. I love vintage kitchenware, you have a great collection! Moving away from the UK and leaving all my crockery behind was a real wrench. And I'm extremely jealous of the Vitamix, it's my dream to own one.

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  8. I think this has been one of my favourite MoFo days, having a look around everyone's kitchens! I'm basically picking up ideas from everyone - note to self, get an oil covered bench for own kitchen. And more Elvis.

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  9. Scratey Onion and Startled Celery Boy...I love it! Everything has so much character and taste...I wish you could come advise me on decor and interior design.

    Great find on the oil cloth, and those scales are a treasure.

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  10. Your kitchen is adorable, so many amazing little bits and piece in there! I love your vintage trays for eating in the lounge room.

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  11. Nice tour, nice kitchen!

    I wish I had a strawberry pot for my compost. Right now, I use a large dairy ice cream tupperware (that my mom bought)


    Hehehe, the Cake Liberation Front!

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  12. ha! I love the vegetable elvis board! Brilliant.

    I love seeing other peoples' kitchens, I'm nosy! :)

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  13. I love -everything in your kitchen!- the shape of that jam pot! My little hometown hosts an Elvis festival every year in June. A whole weekend of impersonators from all eras competing against each other. The town is packed with Elvis's getting gas, coffee, eating brunch. It's surreal, especially that we are a long, long way from Graceland!

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    1. Brilliant! That sounds like fun. We only have one professional Elvis in our tour as far as I know. I would love to see loads! We do have a man called Sundance who goes round dressed as a cowboy who's quite a famous local character .

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  14. Awesome kitchen! I love all the bright colour and funky patterned things. My boyfriend would love the Elvis things - reminds me of this sign we saw of Elvis Parsley in Grapetown, hehe http://littleveganbear.com/2013/08/21/woodford-to-caboolture/

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  15. Just checked your link. Love it! That is ace.

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  16. this is a Nice Place
    http://mofolounge.com.au/birthday-parties/

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