Kinfolk & Soul

It’s hard to believe that there was a time when cooking was quite the chore. It was once dirty and sooty business; getting wood, stoking the fire, literally preparing your food from the farm to the table. How spoilt are we with the advancement of technology today? Supermarkets provide us with all the food goods we could ever possibly want, and today we have the best kitchens to prepare and cook our food in. As a matter of fact, the trend over the years has seen the kitchen advance in the ranks of household importance. Today, it’s the one room that the house revolves around. Food nurtures the mind, body and soul and without it we wouldn’t survive. It truly is the heart of the home. You might have noticed that over the last few years the kitchen has undergone a dynamic change. the meals area is the new dining room and the dining room has been mostly phased out in a lot of the newer the Australian homes. The open plan home designs have kitchens that invite family to create meals together and with the kitchen, meals and living areas incorporated it makes for a closer family environment and has been great for entertaining, and so many of the designs look fantastic. It also means that you can use that dining space for a bedroom or media room, or anything else that your heart desires. Here are some of the gorgeous kitchens I found on the internet. And that’s pretty much it in a nutshell; the evolution of the kitchen and how we’ve built our home around it.     Advertisements

I remember years ago going to woman’s house with a group of friends after a book launch party (I was a +1). Lynda’s  home was eclectic and every corner told a story. I was particularly drawn to the home office which was adjacent to the living room. There, two thirds along a wall sat an old waterfall dresser that had been returned to its former glory. On top of the dresser sat an old war era framed photograph, a carved marble table lamp and a Fada radio, amongst other memorabilia. I do remember feeling a bit warm and fuzzy but also a little sad. I was dying to ask Lynda what it all meant. The rest of the house was a mixture of themes but this office was distinctly styled in a 1940’s “art deco” theme. Even the desk looked like it was an original Johan Tapp. Eventually, after spending time chatting with the others, Lynda and I introduced ourselves properly and got to talking and a little bit in I asked about the office, I mean, after all we were there for a post book launch party drink and chat, not lessons in one’s taste in décor. Either way, her eyes lit up and she practically dragged me back into the office explaining that the photo was of her grandparents who were so much in love with each other their whole lives and died only months apart. The lamp had been one of her grandmother’s favorite possessions and she would often sit beneath it reading Lynda stories in the armchair that was now angled in the corner. Her grandfather would often listen to news of the war on the radio in the kitchen, or at his desk that was now in this office. Lynda explained that she had a very close relationship with her grandparents, and putting their items around her workspace helped fill her with calm and inspiration. If she felt stressed she simply looked around her and the peace and confidence her grandparents instilled in her would fill her again. Now I know why I felt so warm and fuzzy. That night years ago was the first time I learned about what a vignette was and “the rule of 3” or “the rule of odds”. Turns out Lynda was an interior designer turned author. She explained to me that what probably caught my interest was the layout…