Happily Ever After

Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running

Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.

In Search Of The Perfect Kitchen

by Russell Turner - 17:09 on 29 September 2017

Tradesman trauma, following our boiler installation and associated leaks, had faded away by yesterday, or at least enough for Matchgirl and me to make a first foray into the wonderful world of kitchen showrooms, eager to take The Rural Retreat’s upgrade a step further.

We made a basic mistake straight away. When shopping for a new family runaround you don’t begin the search at the local Lamborghini dealer, so we should never have stepped inside Ashley Ann – purveyors of beautiful, bespoke, high-end kitchens to the monied middle classes.

Magnet and Wickes, our next two calls, sell perfectly adequate kitchens, at much lower prices, but after Ashley Ann their wares appeared gimcrack and thrown together. It didn’t help that our next stop was at Just Kitchens, another outlet for the Aga set, then Homebase, which was rubbish.

Now Matchgirl can’t decide if she wants posh country-style fitted or ramshackle rustic. The discovery of a possibly perfect Ashley Ann ex-showroom kitchen reduced by two-thirds from £15,000 didn’t help. It’s in the firm’s Staffordshire showroom.

Much pondering and indecision will now take place until she decides what ambience I really need to complement my cookery duties. An inevitable rewiring, new lights and floorings will only complicate matters. Life is hard.

What Matchgirl would really like.

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