Tuesday, January 23, 2018

A room with a view

After the infamous Work Triangle, one of the basics of kitchen design is to have a window over the sink.  Who doesn't want something to look at while washing dishes.  It's logical as far as it goes, but the view isn't always going to be of lush expansive gardens, or even a forest and a bright blue shed as at our little summer cottage.


This is the view I picked when we were deciding where to put and how to lay out our new kitchen, not including the vintage linen drape that masks the frosted glass of our neighbours' bathroom a few feet away.  It was that or the unobstructed view of another neighbours' trampoline... and I quite like the texture of a shingled roof, don't you?

Also, there was the tree to consider.  Lovely stark branches in winter, vibrant yellow-green blossoms in spring, softly waving leaves in summer and a riot of colour in the fall.  But about four weeks after we moved home I heard a funny sort of engine outside.  Oh dear.

It was the city's tree-trimming truck and I soon discovered they were removing THE WHOLE THING.

Bye-bye tree...


Hello sky...


And there we are.


Now, what I get to look at is telephone wires and snow on an asphalt roof.
 
Unless I can figure out how to wash dishes on an angle?  In which case I still get a big chunk of tree.


(either way: still prettier than a trampoline.)

Honestly though, who am I to complain?  When we move back to our condo some day, I will be looking at the wall dividing our kitchen from the that of the people on the other side.  Then it'll be either a mirror or a painting that imitates depth or some very nice wall tile.  I vote for a painting, but I guess it'll have to have glass over it for the splashes.  That's a nice new project isn't it, learning how to paint such a thing myself or finding somebody who can.

If you could paint your own view from the kitchen sink, what would you choose?



4 comments:

Kathy said...

Perhaps I'm the only person in the world who chooses NOT to have the kitchen sink in front of a window. I prefer to have worktop in front.
I do very little washing up - I have a dishwasher - and use the sink mostly for filling the kettle. (Which, admittedly, I do rather frequently being a tea addict.)

However, I do like a room with a view.

Mary Keenan said...

This is an excellent point you make - surely we spent more time prepping food than washing up after it? And now that more people are accepting of shelves in place of cupboards, it's easier to think of working without storage over the prep area (though I do appreciate the generous windowsill over my baking counter!)

Kathy said...

I should also have said that I love trees and if I had to have a picture instead of a window it would be a landscape with trees. How sad that yours were cut down.

Mary Keenan said...

It is so sad Kathy and it's coming to all the trees probably within the next ten years :^( Every house in the neighbourhood got a big tree out front, usually a maple, as it was built... back in the 1920s and 30s. They have all done well in spite of their urban environment and the constraints that sewers etc. put on root development but they are getting elderly now and every time there is a big windy storm we lose a few more. I am hoping the lovely big tree in front of our place can hang on the longest!