Life on the path

Once again it is time for the 4 moms, 35 kids link up and this week we are showing each other are kitchens and dining rooms. As mine aren’t much to look at I’m throwing in a true story too.

First of all the first glance at my kitchen will tell you that we have problems with clutter in our house. We are working on this but you will have to excuse us, as things like life keep getting in the way. I also have just changed my medication to try to reduce the side effcets and have started on a lower dose – consequently there is now way I am able to bend down and pick things up today, especially after my husband was a darling and cooked dinner for us last night – it’s a blessing to know that I have a husband who will happily leap in and take over – and I really don’t expect him to master clearing up afterwards too. (note to self… did that sound sincere?)

So this is what you will first see – if you click on these thumbnails they will expand… as will the mess and you don’t want that do you?

you see what I mean – if you look closely you will notice that on the draining board there’s a car tyre pump… but never mind that if you look below you will see a big capacity washing machine – it wasn’t working when I took the picture but it is now… it will wash 9kg of clothes and the quickest wash is 14 minutes!!!! I sing it’s praises but thanks go to God who picked it out for me and provided a very special offer to allow me to pay for it.

as you can see we have 3 doors plus a back door in our kitchen – it makes for a large area that one can’t do a lot in but we are getting used to it

now this is our new fridge freezer – and the subject of my little story. You see we had a mess of old fridges and freezers that really weren’t working for us, and they were mostly living in our dinig room or garage as there wasn’t room in the kitchen. I spent 6 months praying about what I should do. We have to be thrifty but I was worried that a full freezer breaking down would cost us greatly. So I prayed. And one day I got a message out of the blue, a friend of a friend was having a kitchen fitted and needed to get rid of this newish expensive fridge freezer. This American style is expensive in my country but the size was perfect for us – I have secretly wished for one of these for a long time. We had to take out some cabinets, remodel the cabinet that is left and put in a new utility sink in order to plumb it in but we did it and without it costing too much (Ikea rocks) and so here we have my latest Gift from God. Cool huh?

Ok so my dining room isn’t much to look at but we are working on it. If you look closely you will see that I have made a start on the Maxwell home organising chart – we also have some family guidelines and consequences to put up there and eventually our chores will be found there too. I will be hanging it on the wall and I hope it will be used!
The table is where we eat, where we craft and where we do any writing work so the wipeable cover is essential.

Unfortunately if we turn around, you’ll see that we also have a dumping area here too.

The sideboard should just hold the serving dishes and the cutlery canteen but as is enevitable the rush to clear the table for dinner results in various craft and school work bits being dumped. Again it is an area we have identified we need to get on top of – hence the chore organisation and household organisation.

You may have notice there are no windows – you’re right. we have too doorways instead – one leading from the living room and one leading to our library/office/music room. My husband has just started to work from home one day a week and so we have had to create an area for him to work in – all worth it as it is so nice to have him around.

So that’s mine, here’s where you can pop back to the headmistress, Kimberly or KimC to check their’s out or add your own…

4 Mom’s is back and has invited us to join in with them is sharing where we live, this week starting with the outside and entrance way. So who would like to see how we live on this side of the pond…

Well before I show you I need to tell you a few things that you might not know. Houses are smaller than yours, and as land is expensive, they are squashed together. I wish it wasn’t so but is it. In fact a detached house by law has to 1 metre or more away from the neighbours house. And so that’s what the developers do, make them 1 metre away. We also have lots of brick built houses – nearly all. Some are rendered and some not, but we have very few wood framed houses.

Are you ready? This is my house.

Yes it’s hidden behind a tree – in fact I can’t take a picture of my house in summer without the tree taking over, however I love my tree so I’m happy. You’ll see my neighbours houses in the shot too. Yes that silver car is on their drive way and the house on the other side is almost identical to my house. Almost because before we bought the house the owners had extended it to make a 4th bedroom.

So there you have a typical urban 4 bedroom detached house – and i’ll bet you can’t believe it. Other things that are different is that in the UK most houses have gardens, not yards. No it doesn’t mean that we all grow things but that’s just what we call our outside space. Only country houses have yards and they are concrete/paved areas typically between the house and barns.

This is our front garden…

Yes I know it’s tiny… the rest of it got used so that we could have a driveway big enough for 2 cars. But it gave one of my cats the chance to be included – Tigger followed me out and mewed all the time that I was taking pictures. He has been known to follow us to the kiddy playground before now he is so sociable. But if you look up at the picture again you can see our gate leading to the back of the house (and in fact our neighbours gate too – told you they are close together)

So now to our hall way, and you will no doubt have some ide of what to expect by now. In fact ours is smaller than many other homes but the designer of the house decided to use any spare space to make our living room bigger. The hallway boasts the stairs, a very plain decor (and battered since my inelegant exit from the house after the birth of no.2 – a story for another time – the stretcher could barely fit in the house and the woodwork got pretty bashed up. There is also a door through to the living room and a door to out tiny but useful downstairs toilet (half bath you may call it). At least you get to be welcomed by my springer spaniel, Scraps. The way we look at it, we spend more time inside than outside and we would prefer for any extra space, light and homeliness to be in the places we use the most. We struggle to afford this house (40% of my husbands take home wage goes on the mortgage, 10% in gas and electricity and about the same in council tax) but for us it is where we spend almost all of our family time and I do hope to become more hospitable – perhaps even using it for a bible study one day.

right – I’m off to start tidying and cleaning in preparation for next weeks pictures…

back to the 4 mom’s here for Kimberly at Raising Olives,
here for the Deputy Headmistress at The Common Room,
here for Connie at Smockity Frocks, and
here for KimC at Life in a shoe