An old school table

So the new house has a HUGE kitchen which is great, we love entertaining and cooking for our guests and the house is perfect for this.

The kitchen is not exactly how we want it - I hope to modernise it in the long-term and spruce it up in the near future but in the mean time we wanted to make it useable.

The kitchen table form our previous house looked like it had been taken out of dolls house and made the room seem unbalanced. Looking at the table made me realise what a leap we have made house wise!

So the search for a kitchen table fit for such a large kitchen began. Not a fan of brand new furniture we started our search in local charity shops and second-hand furniture stores, but nothing was big or rustic enough.

We stepped up the search and started looking online and scoured eBay. After a week or so my wonderful other half came across an old school table and 6 chairs (Ercol no less) it looked perfect - but was the price? Well yes we paid £185 for the lot! A steal!

Vintage Chewing gum?!

I was very excited about the arrival of the table and chairs and when we unloaded it we were not disappointed - it was the perfect size.

Keep cleaning

The only thing that we hadn't bargained for was 20 year old chewing gum under the table! Operation clean table began and 3 hours later it looked fab!

Ercol Chair

The 6 Ercol chairs were an added bonus and were in great condition. All they needed was a polish.

The final picture below shows how well the table fits in the kitchen, all we need to do no is have a party!
Now where did I put those invites?

The final product

Dream kitchen ...the research starts!

Okay, it's a bit premature but I am indulging myself by researching ideas for our kitchen.
As real foodies my other half and I get so much joy out of cooking and we would love a space that we could while away the hours in. The thought of having a space that would be exactly what we want is very exciting indeed.

Research time!

First port of call was Pinterest where there is an incredible amount of inspiration,  check out my Pinterest 'kitchen' page for idea of what I am thinking (hopefully you will find it inspiring too) in the meantime here's a screen shot of the page.

Inspiring or what?

Then I sat back and enjoyed an old fashioned method of research - magazines! I love, love, love Living Etc. Its a fabulous magazine packed full of wonderful houses and fab ideas. And ok I admit I am over organised and I used colour coded post-it notes for ideas!! My magazines are well thumbed with sticky notes all over!

After seeing an advert in a magazine I sent of for the Fired Earth Kitchen catalogue...yummy! Fired Earth was founded in 1983 in an Oxfordshire barn and began as a specialist Terracotta supplier. Over the last few years they have added a stunning collection of bathrooms, beautifully crafted kitchens and a carefully researched paint palette. Fab!  Click Here for their website. They also have some lovely paints .....hopefully something we will get to use in our new house!

Lovely kitchen catalogue!