believe it or not...

this is going to be my new kitchen.  husband began digging it out and tearing down the old in earnest mid-February. in order to have a proper height to the ceiling, we have to dig down more than a half a meter. and by we, i mean husband.

sabin was allowed to spray paint a bit of graffiti on one wall. it doesn't matter much, as everything has to go. the graffiti says "far is cool, and mom is too." she's not a teenager quite yet.

this was part of the barn and we've heard tales from the neighbors that those who lived here before kept a boar in here. when we moved in, we could see that they'd had chickens inside. we've just had things stored here. with some straw bales and a smoke machine, its natural cobwebs made for a wonderfully spooky room for a halloween party.

the bearing beams in the room are metal and were salvaged from a little old railway track that once ran down to our lake, from back when they were digging out peat for fuel. it's really the only nice historical detail in the room. otherwise, husband is running into a wide variety of materials - apparently whatever they could scrounge to cobble things together over the years.

he found a lot of perfect round paving stones when he dug down about 40cm, so it once had a nice cobble floor (you can see a few of those in the foreground on this shot). he's saved them, so we can reuse them somewhere - perhaps in the patio area that will be outside this room when it's finished.

husband's working on the foundation for a new pantry - that's what all this nice brickwork is for. he's never really bricked before, but this is good practice and since he's such a perfectionist, it looks pretty awesome.

he wants to see the new pantry go in, because he says he needs to see some progress. i have to admit that i will be happy to see some as well.

the plan is for this to be a rather industrial kitchen - i've called it the curry kitchen in my head all the way along - as in the kitchen where you make your curries, to keep the rest of the house from smelling like curry all the time. but ultimately, it will be for canning and processing juice and even butchering the odd hog or perhaps even sheep. we'll tile with white subway tiles, have a stainless steel sink and countertop and everything will be easily hosed down and rinsed. i'd like it to be ready to have approved as a restaurant kitchen if we decide to go the bed & breakfast/café route someday.

it is going to be our real kitchen for some years - and as soon as it's in, i can get rid of the horrible pink one and we can tear down that part of the house. eventually, we will build an addition that will have a big new kitchen, heated by and built around an Aga. but this will be pretty good in the meantime. there will be room for a big island and for our kitchen table, so i'm certain it will become our favorite room in the house.

husband wanted me to include a closeup shot of his pretty brickwork. so please praise him! i will keep you posted on how it's going. as you can see, it's a rather big undertaking. and we've only found a few pig bones (at least i hope that's what they were) along the way.