A Dream Kitchen
People say that the kitchen is the heart of the home and we couldn't agree more. Brandon loves to cook (and makes a big mess) and we do enjoy our food and our wine. We probably spend most of our time in the kitchen and it's the one room of the house that gets used the most.
My ideas of a dream kitchen were quite simple - a dishwasher and a waste disposal system (because Brandon loves to leave a mess in the sink when he cooks). I wouldn't have been averse to having a french-styled kitchen neither, I suppose. But Brandon had lofty plans and ideas. He fell in love with this island table he found on the internet. After that, every kitchen display we saw just could not compare to that. That is until we saw the french provincial kitchen at Alby Turner & Sons. Alby Turner & Sons have been in the kitchen business for over 40 years and are very well respected in Adelaide. With a reputation like that, their kitchens don't come cheap, but they are probably the only kitchen company in Adelaide who could design and pull off hubby's dream island bench.
We met with Len, our designer, over a week ago. He came to the house to have a look at our existing kitchen and to show us possible ideas for our new kitchen. We had pretty clear ideas on what we wanted - something similar to the french provincial kitchen in their display showroom, but with hubby's dream island bench. We showed him the picture and he was very excited to see what he could come up with that was in line with our vision. We met him today to see the drawings and plans that he had come up with. We also wanted to see if he could get his hands on some galaxy cream and gold granite slabs. We had fallen in love with this granite, which was used on the display kitchen at Alby's, but it is out of stock everywhere. The owner of the quarry where this granite comes from in India has been in prison and all quarry work has been stopped. We even searched as far as Melbourne and Sydney but no one had any stock left. We could not imagine the kitchen with a different granite. There was something about the tones and colours in that granite which fits in so well with a provincial styled kitchen.
Len had good news for us. The stonemason who supplies the stone tops for their kitchen had two slabs left and Alby's was happy to pay for the stone to put them on hold for us. The bargaining between Len and hubby was fast furious, the price was heart-attack inducing. Hubby managed to get it down to a figure that we could live with (for the next 20 years at least), on the condition that they be allowed to photograph the kitchen when it's finished. With any luck, maybe it will feature in their next campaign or award entry.
Hubby is over the moon and I already have plans for the cabinetry hardware and pendant lights above the island bench. Problem is, we haven't even received our approved plans yet. Surely this is a classic case of cart before the horse, but we are quite content. Hopefully the room that we love most in the house will turn out to be everything we dream it will be.
