Roast beef, Yorkshire puddings, slow-cooked casseroles, stews and fluffy dumplings, baked apple pies, crispy rhubarb crumbles, prize-winning scones, crusty bread and fattening cakes - plus vats of warming winter soup... My wonderful Rayburn has cooked them all, and this is where they were prepared.
As requested, some photographs of the kitchen. Twelve years ago it was a rat-infested cart shed, with a much higher floor level. The previous owner, who had moved to France, had left it filled with the detritus of their time here, along with their Grandpa's ashes, which we found hidden away in the corner - I drove the urn of ashes to their solicitor's office and left them with him, to forward them to France, or not. All the glazed windows and doors are the original door spaces.
The kitchen table, obviously!
I am not a messy worker, but I am not the neatest, either. We used to be badly bothered by flies, but since we started using the heavy chain door screen the numbers have reduced considerably.
I still can't get out of the habit of covering all food with the rather tatty food domes, just in case.
This chap is oversees everything and makes me smile.
There are great changes about to take place in the heart of my home, the Rayburn must go. Sob! It has been a real workhorse, heated endless gallons of water, as well as heating the radiators throughout the house and then there are all the meals it has cooked.
Trouble is, it is a solid fuel Rayburn. It burns wood and coal, which means that we have to deal with lots of ash, clean flues, sweep the chimney, put up with lots of dust, ash and soot. That was fine for our first 10 years here, but over the last couple of years we have begun to find it hard work, and it is only going to get worse the older we get.
The Rayburn will come out, the flues, etc, the hot water tank will be taken from the long cupboard in the corner. At the moment we have hidden works taking place.
I keep having to defend my territory, 'No' to having pipes run through my pantry (next door in the boot room), 'No' to having one of my quince trees removed because it was a few centimetres too close to where the outdoor gas tank is going, 'No' I don't want to have the boiler where it can be seen, etc.
Through to the boot room, all the white goods are in there, so is my pantry, which needs another good tidy, so I won't show you that.
The cupboards and surrounds won't be changed. They work for me, I may give them a couple of coats of paint, when I can decide what colour I would like them to be, but that is all.
Two radiators must be fitted in the kitchen; the Rayburn used to fill the whole room with a comforting warmth, a range cooker won't do that. The heart of my home is going to feel very different, not sure that I will love it as much, but I am getting too old for heavy lifting and constant cleaning and dusting.
This old building is witnessing yet more changes.
Losing your Rayburn will be a real wrench but it is, as you say, the sensible thing to do. We had a Rayburn in my early childhood home and if mum could have had one in the new house we then moved to, you would have.
ReplyDeleteThey do weave a warm and wonderfully cosy spell. I think the cats and Toby will be a little miffed, they all vie for the armchair in the corner, always the cosiest place in the winter!
DeleteSTOP! Elaine, explore the possibility of having your new central heating boiler in the loft. That is what we are planning courtesy of our builder’s suggestion. We didn’t even know you could? Let’s face it, after your Rayburn, the other one even in a cupboard won’t be at all the same. I miss my stove, along with lots of other treasures left behind. My solid fuel rayburn in the Highlands was a joy fuelled in the main with peat. Getting older and ought I to say more sensible is a bind! Enjoy the bargaining... exciting times
ReplyDeleteLXX
That's certainly worth some thought, Linda. Fuelled by peat! Now that brings back memories of our Hebridean days, when I was a teenager. We had one in the kitchen there - long hours spent cutting, drying and stacking peats, then all the villagers helping one another with carting them back to the cottages and having a wee bit of supper, etc afterwards. Happy times!
DeleteBack in the day, nobody helped with our peat digging, just me and the man of the moment. I needless to say was in the bottom throwing out the peats. Then when dry, wheelbarrowing them along a quarter of a mile rough track, not to mention carrying them off the peat bank in sacks, which was conveniently situated on the top of the hill! As ‘he’ couldn’t drive, I drove them the seven or so miles along hairpin bends from Drumbeg home. Is it any wonder the ‘romance’ of the man and self sufficiency lasted just five years? In a ghastly way they were exciting times... I wouldn’t have swopped it for the world. So many memories of a life well lived...
DeleteLX
You did well to stick it out for five years!
DeleteRoast beef, yorkshire pudding, you drew me right into your post! It's just about lunch time here. Too hot for a roast dinner but I bet I could eat one just the same. Spicy meatballs and rice on the menu here.
ReplyDeleteSounds like this change will be a good change...as long as the workmen follow your strict instructions. I can imagine how easy cooking will be on a gas range after the Rayburn. You'll have to give us a run down on your first roast!
Love Mr Hare
Another Linda....
We are still enjoying our mini-heatwave, Linda. Today's lunch was a sandwich, followed by fruit - my kind of cooking!! I may have to rattle a few saucepans around tonight, but I will deal with that later. You are right, it will be much easier, I will adapt, people will still expect to be fed. At least I will have a handy excuse for any culinary disasters. ;)
DeleteA small electric Aga perhaps? Or oil-fired? (Our Spanish Hergom is oil-fired now - used to be solid fuel/wood - and provides our hot water plus heating the room. Not gutsy enough to cook in the oven though.)
ReplyDeleteRayburns and Agas are the heart of the home, but I agree, solid fuel does make a lot of mess.
It will be very different, that is for sure, but definitely a relief not to have to watch out for chimney fires, or the need to keep on sweeping out the flue, with all the soot and mess that entails. It will be easier once it has been changed, no more dithering, no regrets (I hope). Make the most of it and move on!
DeleteI am impressed that you have been carting in wood and coal to cook and heat your home. When we planned and built the house we last lived in we were going to have a wood burning fireplace since we had enjoyed a wood burning stove (heat only) in our previous home. Then we thought where is the wood pile going to be? Where will we put the wood when we bring it in? We revised our thinking and went with a gas fireplace instead. We didn't need it for heat because we had radiant floor heating installed throughout that house which was wonderful. So if you'll miss the wood burning Rayburn, why not a wood burning stove for heat somewhere else in the house?
ReplyDeleteWe have spent a lot of time felling trees, cutting, sawing and stacking the logs, hauling them from the woodland and into the log stores - then into the house. There will be a lot more free time - in theory! We also have a double-sided log burning stove at the far end of the kitchen, so my pyromaniac husband will be able to burn logs there, we also have a small open fire in our bedroom - a wonderful treat on the very coldest of winter nights, or when the grandchildren have a sleepover in cold weather. I will no longer be a beast of burden, hauling logs here and there - hurrah!
DeleteDon't give an inch. With considerable direction, (work)men can do it right!
ReplyDeleteSage advice, Joanne. I shall follow it to the letter!
DeleteI certainly don't miss the dust from a multi fuel Rayburn which we had at the smallholding but miss knowing there was always a way to heat and cook in an emergency. My LPG range looks wonderful and at least it doesn't need electric for the hobs so a bit of independence. The woodburner in the living room isn't quite as dusty.
ReplyDeleteHello Sue, That is good to know! It will be fine; I'm sure I will soon adapt to the cooker and I will dance with joy at less cleaning, which is definitely not a favourite occupation of mine. :D I like a clean house, but I am definitely not a domestic goddess, I don't cook like one, wither!!
DeleteI hope little Florence is back home and feeling a whole lot better.
Sorry for the discombobulation to your world. Hopefully, when all is said and done, the benefits of the change outweigh the loss. :: hugs ::
ReplyDeleteHello Silver Willow, All will be well, it is just that there are some very messy jobs to come, I would go away for a day or two, but then I would be too scared to come back home to look...! A huge concrete plinth has to be removed from under the Rayburn, the sooty flue taken down... eek! I have just scared myself again.
DeleteMarvelous that you bought the place, with a rat-infested cart shed. To be a kitchen. You have vision! I fail, in that department. Can't "see" ahead of time, what something could look like.
ReplyDeleteOf course you are wise to deal with this now. Believe me, nothing gets easier, as we really age. Everything gets harder. So we really have to prepare, ahead of time. It's only wise, to do so. Common sense.
Sounds crazy, doesn't it! But that is exactly what it was like. What makes it even crazier is that I was already living in my dream cottage - unfortunately it wasn't my husband's dream one... It was a difficult decision for me.
DeleteI hope you are managing to keep cool during your heatwave.
Checking to see, I am 'seeing' properly... :-)
ReplyDelete* Your sink is in the island.
* What I thought was a fireplace, is a stove, open to both kitchen and room beyond.
* TV on wall of kitchen.
* Back up to island pic, what is the room, whose door is visible there?
* Pantry is just beyond hutch, on another wall.
* What is the room, which uses the stove, along with the kitchen using it?
You do have flies in England! I have wondered, at pics of homes, with doors wide open. Here, we could not, not, not do that.
I hate flies so I would do the same....Cover all food! Those mesh food covers are wonderful.
Guess I have asked enough questions. :-)
Thank you for the photo tour!
Oh, let me see:
DeleteYes, the sink is in the island (peninsula, really) another, in the boot room.
The far end of the room has been knocked through to the conservatory, allowing a much larger double-sided log burner to be installed, only necessary on the coldest days, or dull and miserable ones!
Husband likes his TV's - that one is linked to the security system so we can see who is in the car park or at the gates.
The main hallway.
Pantry - yes.
x
Elaine,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the insight into your present life. I am sorry there is a need to graduate from the Rayburn. We love our wood burning appliances, and it would be difficult for us, too, to part with them.
I hope the transition goes well. Or, as well as those things can go. Too, I hope you find you like the new arrangement better than you seem to anticipate.
Thank you, again, for your wonderful blog.
Hello Brett, I have had so much pleasure from using my Rayburn - have even enjoyed all the exercise which went into cutting and storing and hauling our own wood supplies; my sensible head says it is now becoming more of a struggle, do something about it. I shall miss pitting my wits against the mischievous Rayburn on those days when there was scarcely a breath of wind and it just refused to reach a high temperature, or alternatively those days when it went like a little rocket, when all I wanted was a slow and steady temperature! Every meal was an adventure.
DeleteAll will be well, just different.
Have a good week.