Once Was Kitchen

Our kitchen is gone and the sky wept.  Auckland's drought is over!

Meanwhile, in our cool temporary pop-up kitchen, tonight's dinner was Maggi devilled sausages.  A little fact for you:  this recipe mix was developed circa 1980 by a man I worked with at Nestle.  And over 30 years later here I am cooking it - epic huh.  I did it in the slow cooker and there are three main ingredients:  onion, apple and sausages.  Because of that, I felt I couldn't go too far wrong with my first ever slow cooker meal.  I also did green beans and cauliflower with them but next time I won't bother with silly old nutritious vegetables because that equals way too many dishes. It took me a very long time to wash the dishes in our laundry tonight.  Not having running water nearby is very weird and it will take me a while to get used to that.  Steve just asked me whether I'd checked that the dishwasher was actually disconnected.  I don't want to know.

Anyway, devilled sausages is easy and I did it because I had leftover sausages from the roof shout, however next time I fancy some lovely lamb or pork.  And no vegies (we shall have scurvy or some other vitamin deficiency before long).  Reservations are recommended if you want to dine with us for some slow cooked magic. 

Today was a crazy day, one on which fortunately the twins were at kindy.  The builders knocked out most of the kitchen cabinetry and put in the new door cavity in for the old lounge/new bedroom.  There were power tools buzzing and lots of noise.  Max and I hung out in the pop-up kitchen, me on the phone organising things, Max stealing raisins from our new open-sided pantry and the builder and electrician popping heads in wanting to know things like:  do you have a detailed kitchen plan? (yes) and does your new fridge have a filter or do you need one installed? (the fridge has one).  Max was put to sleep for his nap with sawing and drilling directly outside his bedroom door.  He didn't seem to notice.

The old kitchen

Interestingly, the car picked this time to break down so fixing this was in today's mix as well.  The alternator was gone so we got a brand new one fitted for a bargain price of $660.  Steve and I both thought about what that could buy, renovation-wise.........bar stools.........paint.  But with my happy hat on, the main thing is we won't break down on the motorway any time soon.

The other happy hat thing to document is that I absolutely love the big stacker doors and how they are shaping up.

 Close up

 

from the new hallway

 

from outside

 

the kitchen stacker door.

Here is the latest on the perceived-lack-of-light-in-the-living-area conundrum.  After much weekend rumination and talking and back-and-forthing, Steve and I are going to install (well, not us but the builders will) two skylights into the living area.  We were worried two high windows on either side of the fireplace would leave little space to hang a painting or two on, that it would look like an afterthought or that they wouldn't do as much of a job as we hoped they would.  Steve spent a great deal of time talking to his sister, Karen, and that night we researched our little butts off.  We've come up with something like this, not identical but similar, a bit like our twins:

In the next post, my pictures will document the stacker doors installed (I hope!).  I can't wait!!

Until then,

Anna x