A gorgeous upcycled kitchen

We had a lovely Sunday morning scone session with friends who have recently put a new 'old' kitchen into their house. It's gorgeous! They bought the kitchen on TradeMe and drove up to Remuera, Auckland to remove it from the house themselves.

Not only do I think it looks fab - I can't get enough of light blue, which was the original colour, and that oven is an artwork! - but it is so nice not to be using nasty MDF coated with plastic (which is what our kitchen cabinetry is .... I have really changed my ideas in the last few years). Most new kitchens gobble resources, and there's the transport and the packaging. Plus the coated MDF doors are hardly built to last for decades.

Occasionally I see articles about local man Scott Woolston's Remnant cabinetry and I have been in one of the solid wood kitchens he's made. I reckon Kevin McLoud from Grand Designs would thoroughly approve of him. Anyone who's spent any time with me recently is certainly sick of me going on about 'Kevin'!  I am very taken by the ideas in his book, Principles of Home. Suddenly it made me realise that buying the kind of stuff I love and doing the kind of thing I do seem totally right from an environmental perspective.

He recommends buying second hand, or local, high quality and built to last a long time. NOT shopping for made-in-China, out-of-fashion-next-year and probably polluting cheap stuff.

But the best bit about visiting our friends with the new old kitchen was the catching up. Sitting with a cuppa, admiring growing children, talking about old times and new plans. Lovely.