French kitchen

I did mention before we went to France that I had plans for the kitchen. First I need to explain a little about French Country cottages in our area - The walls are prob. 50cm thick, the windows are small, so it keeps the heat out in the summer and the heat in in the winter. However, that means that the downstairs rooms can be quite dark ( not gloomy dark, more cosy dark ), but still, I really wanted it a little bit brighter. A typical small fermette like ours will most likely have a corner kitchen, which means it is part of the main living room, but sort of partitioned of. It is a really sociable setup actually.

Anyway, the kitchen area was quite dark, the ceiling had horrid modern wood stuff on it, the cabinets were a mixture of different styles of doors but all in cheap dark wood, and it was just so dark in there. Remember the oven gloves and bag I bought at a bootfair not long ago, which had the exact same background colour I had planned for the kitchen? And I think I mentioned at the time that I had found the perfect colour for the kitchen in B&Q?


Yep, I took the paint with me to France. My darling husband sanded down the ceiling, sanded down the cabinet doors ( in the cold barn, bless him ), and I got painting. Errmm, well, I was a little too short and too unsteady on the little footstool thingy, so DH did the ceiling, but I got to paint all the kitchen cabinet doors, woohoo! Inside and out, of course. Which involved spreading the whole painting spree over a few days.

I couldn't get the colour to show up properly on the photos I took of the kitchen, dang. Either they were too orangy because of the artificial light, or they were too washed out and the cupboards looked almost white with the flash. Grrr. But believe me when I say that it matches the colour of the stuff above really well, and its quite astonishing how much lighter the kitchen area is now. What a difference. Definitely worth the effort.


No styling, no special settings, lol, just our cluttered, lived in, and now much brighter kitchen area.

Oh, and I promised Annie from Birdcages and Butterflies to post pics of the gorgeous blocks I bought from her. They approved of the cottage in France and settled in very nicely after trying out a few different places. They finally decided that the little table was their perfect spot.

The tried the mantelpiece first -

Then demanded to be moved to the little table-

They felt a little isolated though, and wanted some company, so the butterflies cosied up to them-

The butterflies, however, fluttered off after a short visit, but this cute little tin was feeling neighbourly and agreed to keep the blocks company. And there they live happily ever after -

Tomorrow I'll tease you with some button finds..........