It's a wrap

I was shocked (and annoyed) a few weeks back to discover that my vinyl wrapped kitchen doors have started to "lift".

I know it hasn't been caused by heat because a couple of doors are nowhere near the oven or dishwasher... so it's probably just a case of inferior glue being used when constructing the doors....or maybe the glue has a limited life and this is what happens to most vinyl wrapped doors.. I don't know

Admittedly they're over ten years old but the darn glue should hold the vinyl to the door base a bit longer than that, surely.

Whatever...I'm not happy.

So it's got me thinking about a little kitchen re-vamp because I don't want vinyl wrapped doors again and I need more bench space!

At the moment I have very little bench space and it's getting annoying and very crowded.

When I first purchased Number 10 and started renovating I was doing it just for me...and I was really happy with it. Then MONT came along and things changed a bit and got a bit squeezy.

Then his girls all got married and have since had little ones and when they're all over here for dinner, like at Christmas, and there are 16 of us for dinner...well  "squeezy" doesn't even start to describe it adequately...

Not to mention that the main bit of bench I do have to work at is right over the oven...so it can get pretty warm there. Not nice

So...what to do?

MONT's talking about a big re-vamp. He's thinking high gloss doors and a glass splash back with some sort of stone bench top, which is all well and good, but the problem is bench space and how to create more of it?

One option we've talked about is moving the sink over to the bench on the left, where my "old girl" is perched...then knocking out the raised wall area above the dishwasher (and existing sink space) to make it sort of like a breakfast bar into the dining room, which would give us a wider bench area.

That means this little bench on the left (where my cat is) and my smallish pantry would have to go to make way for a wider bench to take the depth of the sink....and that leads to another problem.

This area fills in a little void created by a built in robe in the second bedroom.. so I'd be left with the bench and cupboards underneath it, sticking out

You can see the area on the right in the photo above

So what to do? Have some open shelving to take up the extra 23cm  (9 inches) that would be created with the wider bench? But then, what to do with the floor to ceiling cupboards that surround the fridge?

Move the sink somewhere else? But where?  This is all the bench space I have.

At one stage I considered trying to close in that area where the fridge is and making it a walk in pantry, but it's just not big enough, so that's out.

I need fresh eyes on this...so we're getting a couple of kitchen guys that MONT knows to come in and, hopefully,  give us some new ideas.

I've been trawling through magazines and Pinterest looking at kitchen designs...but unfortunately, if you don't have a large space with a nice big open floor plan, then all you get is kitchen envy and I don't want to have to start knocking down walls into the study for instance (which is behind the cook top area) to get more floor and bench space space in the kitchen

Old houses huh? They're always a challenge!