A new 'tougher' thread... and so it continues

katieowl_2

My kitchen is 1/3 the size of my old kitchen too...AND it's a corridor, with the door from the hall one end and the doorway to the living room the other.

I have banished all non essential kitchen equipment from there, and have two small dry goods cupboards, and all unopened jars, bottles etc and the cans are outside (basically) in the armageddon cupboard. I've got a lot of the bigger bits and pieces secreted away in the dining room (things like the juicer for the magimix, and the meat slicer). The dog food lives in a specially bought blue dustbin in the conservatory, and I keep about half of the cleaning stuff (the dry stuff KWIM) in the cupboard under the stairs (if open - otherwise it's outside in the Armageddon cupboard too) and the wet cleaning stuff is under the sink. So basically it's all been distributed around the house for lack of kitchen space. I'm forever telling OH to go somewhere else as he loiters to listen to the radio, and always manages to lean against the place I want to be next :mad:

Thought long and hard about loosing worktop space to the bread machine - but it had to be done, I put the Kenwood away as I use that less these days than the magimix. I managed to get that at the back of one of the 'dry goods' cupboards.

Sometimes I just have to decamp to the dining room...I made our Xmas puddings in there, as there was just not enough space in the kitchen!

Kate

scrabbles_2

The pharmacist agreed with me that the hives are probably from the co-amoxiclav I've been taking. I'm at the doc's tomorrow anyway, so I'll mention it then. I've got some anti-histamines to take in the mean time.

Can I join the tiny kitchen club please? Mine is miniscule. No room for the fridge or freezer at all and we turned the meter cupboard into a pantry! Anything we don't use two or three times a week doesn't live in the kitchen, and only the kettle has a permanent place on the worktop. The breadmaker, food processor and slow cooker live in the pantry when not in use. We have cheapo Ikea magnetic knife blocks and hanging rails and absolutely everything that can be hung off them, is. And most importantly, I stopped my Lakeland mailouts! Because I just don't have enough room for anything that can't earn its keep on a regular basis. If I need it, I'll seek it out. If I look in a catalogue I'll convince myself that I need it when I don't :rotfl: I've actually held onto a £50 Lakeland credit note for six months as I've developed a will of steel!

katieowl_2

scrabbles wrote: »

Agreed. My parents would have given a simple 'no' without explanation (followed up with 'tough' if I moaned) but that doesn't seem to be the done thing anymore. At fifteen she is old enough to be shown the household budget and how tight things are, and shown exactly how tight things are and what would have to be forfeited to pay for what she wants. Not everyone's opinion, I know, but it is mine. I think half the problem these days is that people's perception of what they deserve and what they are somehow entitled to is based on TV programmes that are set on cloud cuckoo land. And I'm not just talking about 15-year-old girls either! You are not depriving her of anything. You are giving her a valuable gift - the lesson that money doesn't grow on trees and that most people can't afford everything they want in life.

My thoughts:
Dresses can be bought from charity shops, borrowed from friends who have evening gowns, even adapted from 2nd-hand bridesmaid dresses and the like.

Limos can be shared with lots of friends paying a smaller share - and limos with mates are far more fun! Or think outside the box. Do you know anyone with an interesting or vintage car who might be happy to act chauffeur (a friend has a really old cheap-but-posh-looking Jag and she has even driven another friend to her wedding)?

Flowers can be from the garden. Or you can make a corsage from fabric, old jewellery or even buttons. They can actually look better than real flowers and can be kept forever.

Hair and make-up doesn't have to be professionally done. Even most brides I know have done their own these days! Ask anyone you know who is 'well put together' if you can beg a favour. Or see if you can wangle a 'demonstration' or even phone the local Virgin Vie / Body Shop party reps and see if you can work something out (again, I know a VV rep who is always amenable to helping people, even strangers, out for a few quid or even the promise of holding a party for her at a later date. Worth a try)

At the end of the day, if you daughter wants it she is old enough to earn it. If paper rounds and Saturday till jobs are scarce where you are, get her out there with a sponge and bucket offering to wash cars for a few quid each. And if there are favours to be pulled in, don't be at all afraid of offering your daughter's labour as payment. Lawn-mowing, car-washing and even housework are all jobs that many will happily swap for!

My first thought when I read the original post was that there was no way I'd even contemplate the expense of a 'prom'

I know how hard teenagers whinge and moan, so I might try either setting her a budget, and saying I can afford X - that's it - get out of that what you think is most important, and the rest, sorry love...I simply can't afford it.

Or plan B would be to say well you know how tight things are for me at the moment, lets see if we can do this on the cheap? I think there are some excellent suggestions from Scrabbles. Suggest to her that if you can do it on the cheap and she will accept compromises that later on you will be able to afford something else she really wants (that you'd rather pay for? Like a school trip) I think bribery is a very underrated method

I remember my daughter telling me that I'd ruined her life, when I wouldn't let her go to a night club in Brixton. She was 15. She's 25 now and she still speaks to me

Kate

Byatt

I have a "galley" kitchen but think short and fat! Low ceiling. It's a corridor from living room to bathroom. Small utility area. (no room to swing a cat). Only one person can walk through at any one time. The cupboards are probably 70's. I have tried to make it look like a 60's kitchen and have one of those freestanding cupboards. No room for a big cooker, so use a table top one and a single hob. Small larder fridge and table top freezer. Microwave. All piled on top of one another as just no work top space.

[Deleted User]

Is it still possible to hire ball gowns/prom dresses from anywhere, that might give you a more classy option at an affordable price. Do you know anyone who is studying to be a beautician at your local college who might do a super make up for your 15 year old. When my youngest daughter had her prom we found a local hairdresser who did home visits at a very reasonable price and she put up long hair with fresh flowers in to match the dress. Looked super. Also my daughter got some pretty floaty material to match dress and made herself a stole and little clutch bag for next to nothing. Hope this might give you some ideas . Lyn.

Mrs_Chip

:rotfl:@ Kate - the world seems to be full of women trying to find space for their kitchen vitals!

Here we have a tiny galley kitchen - doors each end to the outside and a door in from the living room. A goodly quantity of cupboards, but stuff in them get damp (anyone detecting a trend ), and I cant reach the top shelves without a little step. Since we moved here permenantly I have had to rejig what I keep where and now have stuff in other rooms - Kenwood in a cupboard in the dining room, overflow china upstairs in spare bedroom - we are luck in that we have a big room that I have taken the beds out of and now put shelving into, so all our 'stuff' organised.

And we have little cottage next door where the kitchen is being done for catering - a lovely nice sized kitchen eventually, and I expect a lot of home cooking will get done there as well. One bedroom there also converted to store room, with all my tins,bottles and packets. i am thankful that I don't have to worry about storage from that point of view.

Mrs OG has even tinier cottage, and caught her rootling through welsh dresser in living room the other day - to find some basmati rice! She has periodic chuck-outs of excess stuff and we get first dibs, which in some ways is not helpful:rotfl:.

She gave me a good tip - we both have little outside yards, and she has got herself a metal dustbin for storing veg. We had an unused black plastic one, so now keep a couple of bags with all our fruit and veg in there - dark and cold, so they last much much longer than inside.

Still taking mat pics, stain is there,but hard to show on camera - once I get a good before and after I'll post them!

scrabbles_2

Scotmumof3, I have done a little searching on the forum and there is plenty of good advice about. If you just search 'prom' in the search bar you will find all of the threads. Also plenty of horror stories of rampant consumerism and competitive spending. Nasty business!

Lots of people say that you can get made-to-measure prom dresses from China for about £30, and sure enough a quick look on Ebay shows oodles of dresses to die for that don't cost the earth! If she bought one she might be able to recoup some of the price by selling it on after?

LOL yes Katieowl, my parents 'ruined my life' a few thousand times I think! And I was a fairly easy going kid, even compared to my siblings :rotfl:

Changing the subject completely - I don't suppose anyone has ever come across skimmed evaporated milk have they? Would people mind looking out at their supermarket of choice?

Mrs_Chip

Meant to add - only room for undercounter fridge in galley kitchen, so fridge/freezer and washing machine in small utility room off bathroom along with breadmaker and SC. In London, we had no room for washing machine once the Service twintub died - that went against the wall and was used as a work surface when not being a washer!

I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a house where there is room for everything - must be very boring :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Byatt

Mrs_Chip wrote: »

:rotfl:@ Kate - the world seems to be full of women trying to find space for their kitchen vitals!

Here we have a tiny galley kitchen - doors each end to the outside and a door in from the living room. A goodly quantity of cupboards, but stuff in them get damp (anyone detecting a trend ), and I cant reach the top shelves without a little step. Since we moved here permenantly I have had to rejig what I keep where and now have stuff in other rooms - Kenwood in a cupboard in the dining room, overflow china upstairs in spare bedroom - we are luck in that we have a big room that I have taken the beds out of and now put shelving into, so all our 'stuff' organised.

And we have little cottage next door where the kitchen is being done for catering - a lovely nice sized kitchen eventually, and I expect a lot of home cooking will get done there as well. One bedroom there also converted to store room, with all my tins,bottles and packets. i am thankful that I don't have to worry about storage from that point of view.

Mrs OG has even tinier cottage, and caught her rootling through welsh dresser in living room the other day - to find some basmati rice! She has periodic chuck-outs of excess stuff and we get first dibs, which in some ways is not helpful:rotfl:.

She gave me a good tip - we both have little outside yards, and she has got herself a metal dustbin for storing veg. We had an unused black plastic one, so now keep a couple of bags with all our fruit and veg in there - dark and cold, so they last much much longer than inside.

Still taking mat pics, stain is there,but hard to show on camera - once I get a good before and after I'll post them!

What a wonderful idea! Please thank Mrs OG on my behalf. I was trying to think of ways to keep things cool, but living in the country and having a pooch who roots around didn't dare risk just putting out in box which could be broken...a metal bin is ideal. :T edit to add, just remembered I gave my DD a small trolley bin (forgotten their name for the moment!), and as she has one from the council and never used it I can have it back, clean thoroughly and use for storage, sounds like a plan!

Really want the mat stain to be something ghostly!

So glad they didn't have proms in my day; I would never have been able to go as so poor. I would have just pretended I didn't want to go, which would have been half true.

When I was selling on e£ay, lots of prom dress buyers were for my dresses which weren't strictly prom, just more dressy. Sold a few at a car boot too; one young girl was very excited to get a £95 dress for a few pounds. I think I sold it for about £15.

edited to add: I didn't pay £95 originally, they were wholesale dresses!

GFN123

A quick afternoon hello from me. Have skimmed through trying to catch up, but lo, the kitchen topic caught my eye!

Mrs_Chip wrote: »

Meant to add - only room for undercounter fridge in galley kitchen, so fridge/freezer and washing machine in small utility room off bathroom along with breadmaker and SC. In London, we had no room for washing machine once the Service twintub died - that went against the wall and was used as a work surface when not being a washer!

I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a house where there is room for everything - must be very boring :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Having moved from a big house to the flat I now have, I can guarantee you it's much more fun squeezing in

My kitchen is long and thin. Happily there's acres of worktop which I love, but the biggest cupboard is only 40cm wide not the standard 60cm so I've become very adept at 'piling up and squishing'

BUT! The sideboard is almost finished now & it will act as a large overflow space, giving us more room to stock up on good deals/keep empty tubs etc which is very pleasing.

Task for tonight is to gloss said sideboard and we can reassemble it tomorrow (Friday night glamour eh?!). I'm trying to think of something exciting to cook with salmon as it's random shaped Basics fillets which aren't inspiring me right now.

I think I'm going senile as well, is it just me? I read through various posts and retain in my mind who said what and what I wanted to say in return, and by the time I write a reply it all vanishes

Ho hum!

I did want to extend general ((hugs)) and sympathies to those who are struggling, ill or with ill relatives and loved ones. Weather is still gloomy and turning colder again here. It's a real struggle to haul myself out of bed in the mornings but I have no woes that match the scale of other posters and for that I am grateful. I hope things improve for all of you - if nothing else, I'm certain spring and lighter days are round the corner.

Must text OH to remind him to grab the paper with the Aldi voucher in! Thanks very much to the original poster of that!

I hope everyone manages to have a good evening