The kitchen isn't a large space. It took us several years to get around to fitting it and replacing the hotchpotch of free standing and fitted units we inherited from the previous owner. Having said that, we are glad we lived with it for a while because it gave us a feel for what we wanted and what didn't work. Its often a bad idea to just go in and gut a room at once, however tempting it may seem. We felt we needed to get close to the house and feel at home in it before we made that kind of planning decision, otherwise we risked losing a lot of character and not really gaining anything.We decided to have fitted cupboard and work-surfaces along two walls. Replacing the badly positioned old oven and its gas hob was a priority. The hob needed a calor gas bottle under the sink, which took up valuable space and was a hazard. Besides, somewhere behind it all was a mousehole!

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The 'Everhot'. 

The kitchen needed a 'soul' but had no fireplace. We researched and found the perfect solution: an Everhot Electric Range.  As the name implies, it is always on and so provides background warmth to that end of the house.  Its chunky and heavy and enamelled, just like an Aga or Raeburn, but  it is just one unit wide instead of two or more.  Even so, it has the same amount of oven space as much bigger ranges because the simple controls are in a small box in an adjoining cupboard. It uses a simple 13amp socket, so doesn't need expensive installation or a flue, and its very cheap to run. It has two ovens, plus a grill, a hot plate and simmer plate. New Everhots are £4000 plus, so we got a reconditioned one for just over half that price, in a lovely Burgundy enamel to complement the red brick floor.

 But how to get it transported to Normandy from England? In the end it was amazingly simple. A firm called 'Lift and Shift' specialises in transporting cast iron ranges. So,  one misty November morning a van with only a driver as manpower, arrived fresh off the overnight Ferry, with our Everhot. Within ten minutes he'd manoevered the hugely heavy range over the gravel path, through two doors, down two steps, and slid it into place. No, he wasn't the World's Strongest Man.....he had a wonderful hydraulic robot which tilted and lifted the heavy mass of cast iron with delicate precision and did the job effortlessly.  It was as if it had magically made the Everhot weightless.

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With the main focus of the kitchen in place we turned our attention to cupboards. We couldn't afford to splash out, as the range had taken a big chunk of our budget, but we didn't want flatpacks. We had stripped everything out...which wasn't a big job because so little of the old kitchen was fitted. Lo and behold there was the offending Mouse hole behind the old built in cooker. Ghastly! So we took a lot of care filling and mouse-proofing before we started work re-fitting. The floor is lovely old brick, worn to a polish, but uneven.....so we needed something stable. In the end we got a set of rigid units made up and reinforced....everything was pre-drilled and sized ready for us to slot it all together and it went in like a dream.

We didn't want to end up with a standard and uniform fitted kitchen so we decided against any wall cupboards and instead opted to collect some more eclectic items for storage and display.

The little coffee mugs hanging from the cup-hooks are great favorites. They were found  in a dusty Orbec junk shop  and we had to hunt all over the shop to find the set. They are crafty and hand-made but have a delicacy about them...the birds on each one are individual. They cost 1 Euro each.

                                                                                                                                 

Enamelled ware is so quintessentially French and we were on the look out for some ladles that could be useful and be decorative kichenallia too.

One Sunday we stopped at a little 'Foire a Tout'.....a French car-boot sale....run in a rearby village. It was approaching lunchtime so it was winding down and it had been awful weather, wet and windy, and it was a desolate scene. Still, other people's junk is fascinating, and French junk is doubly so. (To us, anyway.)

This set was for sale and we bought it for the asking price of 10 euros. (We didn't have the heart to haggle as the family behind the table looked so wet!) It was white and blue and at first I was tempted to keep them authentic.. However, they were rusty and badly chipped and I wanted to be able to use them. Sometimes 'shabby chic' is too shabby.....so we gave them several coats of enamel paint.