I started to question my mental state this week when I couldn’t wait to get home to move my wooden spoons into my new utensil pot. The girls were hungry, I had to get changed to go to the gym and I had the usual five hundred or so items dumped by the front door waiting to be put back in their original place. But no! They had to wait! I needed to take the bubble wrap off the pot and put those wooden spoons in their new home immediately.

Ta Dah! Large Utensil Pot from Le Creuset Bicester Outlet Village

So I did that, and all was well with the world…for about 30 seconds until getting pasta and cheese on the table became a matter of life or death.

I know I have a very real obsession with interiors. Some find it exciting to receive a much coveted pair of shoes, to try out a new gadget, or to research the latest cars on Autotrader. I, on the other hand, take great pleasure in arranging whisky bottles into height order, and moving every piece of furniture in a room just to hide one cable. But when it comes to our homes most of us would agree that the kitchen is the most important room to get right. We spend hours in it cooking, eating, cleaning and entertaining. That’s certainly true for me-though usually I am just entertaining my daughters who would rather watch a fully grown adult opening Kinder eggs on the i-pad than engage in conversation with me. Anyway, with the image of familial harmony in mind, when doing the building work we knocked through a small galley kitchen into the main lounge to create a kitchen/dining/family space.

Charlotte checking up on the builders

The view to the hallway

New french doors

This would become the desk area

The kitchen mid-build

From the kitchen to the dining area

The ‘blue’ kitchen

Pine table can be extended

Red Moroccan Rug

The kitchen today

The U-shaped kitchen area itself isn’t huge but I really enjoy using it, as everything is within easy reach. I really don’t want to have to walk 20 steps just to make a cup of tea! My friends can sit on the sofa and chat while I cook, and it’s easy to serve people at the table.

I hunted for weeks to find the right blue tiles, and finally found them at Miles of Tiles in Leamington Spa. They were really affordable (if you don’t count the cost of fuel for my two return trips to buy top-up tiles due to a miscalculation in quantity). I love the blue, and with the LED under-counter lights they really stand out.

Our kitchen is from Magnet and we were really pleased with the value for money. We chose units from the Simply range which is the lowest priced, but the Haptic handles were among the most expensive and they transformed the look of it. We also found a pull-out larder unit from ebay for a fraction of the price.

We tried to use as many items of furniture, appliances and accessories that we already had as we could. It’s easy to replace things later, but building work and renovations are so costly that we wanted to minimise the unnecessary spending in the early stages. In all, I’m pleased with what we have achieved. This is a space that we really enjoy spending time in, and thanks to my new utensil pot I’m pretty sure I won’t be making any changes for at least a month!