Happy New Year - pantry refurbishment

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and that your new year has got off to a good start. As ever we had a fairly quiet one (as quiet as it can be with three kids haha) but life is so hectic in general it’s quite nice to catch up with ourselves and spend some time together without the pull of work, school and other activities that happen each week.

I’ve been reading some blogs and watching a few YouTube videos over the last few days and thinking about New Years resolutions and whether or not to make some. I tend to find that they get pushed to the wayside by the end of February (if I’m lucky enough to last that long) and then when I look back I get a bit disheartened that I haven’t achieved them. So I’ve decided to look at setting myself some goals to work towards this year in the hope that I make some progress towards them as they'll be a little more specific.

The first of these is something I have wanted to get done for twelve and a half years. When we bought this house in 2006 it was structurally sound but the decor left something to be desired - think vomit yellow walls and diarrhoea coloured carpet in the dining room! 🤢 There were pelmets at the windows and a very sizeable construction in the garden for the rabbits that the previous house owners bred. In short, it was far from the family home that we envisioned and slowly but surely we have worked our way round the house to put our stamp on it. Everywhere but the kitchen...

Dumping ground to blank canvas (complete
with still drying plaster!)

The kitchen is not the biggest room in the house and by any standards it’s fairly small. It’s poorly laid out and there is a distinct lack of storage. I have hated it since we moved in but struggled along with it as there has always been something else more pressing to deal with. This year that is going to change and we will finally have a kitchen that I am happy with and feel more like cooking in. How does this fit in with Makepeace Made? Well, barring the removal of a concrete shelf and some plastering (and the plumbing in of the gas cooker) which will be done by professional tradesmen, Mr Makepeace and I will be doing the work. I’m hopeful that this won’t mean it goes on for months, but it will mean that the costs are kept lower... and we’ve already started. On the 2nd January I had a fab local builder in who has converted my pantry from this dumping ground where we quite literally shoved stuff in and hoped for the best to this blank canvas.

The plan is that my fridge freezer will go in the cubby hole along with some shelving for the tins, fruit, veg, cereals and other dried goods. When we get to that point I’ll add another photo. Needless to say my house is a bit upside down at the moment but I'm still managing to
get in some stitchy time and I feel like I'm made some good progress on the Lake Baikal cross stitch. There's still a fair way to go though. It's been an interesting stitch with blending different colours as well as stitching with one, two and three strands of wool/cotton. Given that it's just whole stitches, French knots and backstitch there is a fair bit of depth to the overall finish.

Other goals for the year are to see more of family (I've actually been planning ahead and pencilling in some dates to aim for) and to get in some more crafting with a view to finishing a project each month. I’m planning to knit a new jumper for myself as I seem to be struggling with being cold at the moment but I’ll be designing it myself and knitting it in the round as I absolutely detest sewing up knitted items. I don't know why as I enjoy sewing with other fabrics, I think I just find it a bit tedious and want whatever it is I'm making to be finished. I did film a 'stitch with me' video for YouTube but haven't got round to the whole editing thing and to be honest, I'm not sure I'm overly happy with it anyway 😞 so there may or may not be some more filming going on in the future.

I'll leave it there this week. The boys are back to school next week (hurrah!!) so we'll be back into our routine.

Until next time,

M x