Kitchen

Much to our builder's consternation, we've decided to postpone our permanent kitchen until after we have moved in. I finally broke the news to him this week. I'd flagged the concept previously, but had never been definite about it so I think he always thought he'd talk me around.

I know it must seem a little ridiculous to completely gut a house and rebuild it only to put in a makeshift kitchen for six or so months, but bear with me. We've always maintained that this rebuilding process was just to get the perfect 'shell' for our new home. A blank canvas if you will. From there we will turn it into a comfortable and fun home for the three of us (well, six if you count the dogs).

One of the primary reasons for this is because we haven't ever lived there and believe we need to get to 'know' the house before we start doing anything that might be considered more decorative than functional. Obviously a kitchen is functional, but it's also decorative - in fact, it's quite a big design statement, especially in an open plan living space like ours will be. It will be highly visible from our main indoor and outdoor living area and will quite possibly dominate. For this reason we had initially planned just a very simple white kitchen.

However, while I don't doubt that would suit the blank canvas brief and wouldn't dominate in a bad way, I'd really like to get a feel for the type of kitchen the house tells me it wants and needs. That might be open shelves like the one in my picture (my current favourite) or it might be traditional cupboards above the bench, or it might be floor to ceiling cupboards with hidden workspaces. We just don't know yet.