My Dream Kitchen

I probably spend half of my time (if not more) at home, in the kitchen. My folks could not believe that as I did not really want to, or like to cook when I was still living with them when I was single. I proved them wrong after I got married. Anyone will tell you that it makes a lot of difference when you have you own kitchen. You will tend to enjoy cooking a lot more. I am one example ;)

Let me mention what I am very thankful with my current kitchen. It is good-enough size (a townhouse's kitchen is a rather standard anyway), enough bench top space, storage is not too bad (not enough for me but good compared with other townhouses' kitchen I have seen), has a stainless steel stove top, oven (replaced by previous owner) and rangehood (we replaced it 2 years ago). My biggest gripe is probably the green colour. I know it is a superficial concern but green is one of the colours I dislike.

Kitchen in the foreground and dining area in the background

From watching Better Homes and Gardens tv show, I learnt that I could change the colour from green to white by just painting it and easily replace the cabinet and drawer handles to stainless steel. I might be able to paint over the green splash back too. I reckon it will cost us about A$300-400 and one weekend to do that ourselves. However the green laminate benchtop will have to stay. Replacing that will set us back another few hundred dollars. Oh and to complete the stainless steel appliances, the dishwasher should be replaced too (it is rather old already but functionable) and a larger stainless steel fridge/freezer :p Hmm.., but I cannot justify spending the money just to change the look of my kitchen so that I will be happier working there.

Allow me to indulge in my dream kitchen (it is, at least for now)... I gathered some photos from magazines and I want to keep them so that I might be able to fulfil this, SHOULD one day we might move to a house and I get to design my kitchen.

I like white kitchens. White reads simple, pure, clean to me. It will require maintenance and cleaning though, otherwise it might turn to 'cream colour' years down the track.

In the photo above, I love how there is a lot of storage on the right and it is glossy red which contrasts the white kitchen! I like how the oven and griller are my height and of course, the stainless steel appliances. Basically, I will be one happy woman if I could have this exact kitchen!

I have a soft spot for kitchen islands as well. An island gives me extra benchtop space and I love how this island is big enough and great for the family to sit around to have a light meal. I feel that an island makes it comfortable for guests to stand around for conversations and drinks.

There is also a big gas stovetop with a big rangehood in the background. The rangehood is ideally placed on a wall of the house in which is easy to duct out the cooking oily smells out of the house when I cook stir-fry dishes.

Lastly, this kitchen above is 'ok' for me. I don't prefer timber benchtop. I like solid stone ones. I like the many drawers on the island which is great to fish out utensils that I need as I prepare food. The greatest thing that caught my attention is the little desk / workstation on the left. It is just a narrow table with some drawers, a large screen for me to watch tv while cooking, or follow a recipe off the internet (which I often do). I can picture my collection of recipe books on that table too... or who knows, I might be able to go paperless on my recipe book and have them all on the computer screen with enlarged fonts for me to read.

And while I am recording my kitchen preferences, I stress again that I'd like the electrical appliances to be either stainless steel or red :) I'd like to have a separate big freezer and big fridge placed side by side, a canopy rangehood, a double deep sink of equal size and a pantry in a little room or many cabinets for storage.

Sounds like I am demanding a great deal? But I think I managed to combine practicality and the aesthetics that I like. As for now, I am quite happy putting my preferences down. Hopefully one day, I will get the chance to paint my green kitchen to white :)