Clearing Out The Clutter

while still holding on to the memories

An illustration from Alfie’s Feet by the incomparable Shirley Hughes, which was brought to my mind by a wonderful Substack post by my ex pupil Lauren Bravo.

This week I've been clearing out my kitchen, ready for refurbishment. Making the heart of my home into a place where people can sit and chat to me as I cook has been an aim of mine since we moved into our current house, ooh - over 20 years ago. The kitchen we moved into was functional, and had the benefit of gas hob and a fan oven, but was narrow, so no hope of a kitchen table or island, and built for a significantly taller person than myself (ie very high wall units) and has a sink that looks directly over the kitchen window of the next door property (I have the daily experience of slightly awkwardly waving to acknowledge my neighbour as we’re both washing up in the evening - oh, hi, Terry!). Until 2019, when my father died, we didn't have the money to even think about a refurb.

And then, just after COVID, we noticed cracks appearing in the walls of the house. This was just around the time the film Encanto came out, but rather than dancing around singing Lin Manuel Miranda songs while the walls crumbled, we had to engage a surveyor, who told us that the previous occupants had converted the loft without adhering to planning regulations, and had taken away supporting beams, such that our bay windows at the front of the house had become load-bearing. Which, obviously, is not good for windows. Or, indeed, for a house.

So the priority needed to be reconverting the loft according to planning regs, replacing the windows, and at the same time updating the dodgy electrical wiring…all of which meant that the kitchen had to be put on hold.

But now, at last, it's happening. Which means we need to completely clear the kitchen and breakfast room, sort it, and store stuff we want to keep in our back room (which used to be a dining room but will eventually be a music room). I have a “camp kitchen” planned for when the work starts, with kettle, toaster, chopping board, air fryer/pressure cooker and crockery on a camping table in our spare bedroom, and will be utilizing my Catherine Phipps Everyday Pressure Cooking book to its fullest. And washing up in the bath. As you do.

Clearing out cupboards has been a strangely meditative process. I do sort through my food cupboards semi-regularly, so didn't have any weevilly flour or surprise wizened chickpeas dating back to pre-Covid times etc. That made the sorting process much easier.

But when it comes to crockery, it's much harder. How many mugs do you keep, simply because the design makes you smile and reminds you of the person who gave it to you? How many baby plates and bowls does one retain, when one’s children are all adults and grandchildren are not yet on the horizon? (My rule for this one became: anything Bunnikins or Brambly Hedge - keep, because they remind me of my own childhood as well as my daughter’s; anything else - chuck).

I really hesitated over a few items. A black and gold-painted coffee set that we brought back from a childhood skiing holiday to Bulgaria - so many memories attached to it, but we never use it, and several of the pieces are chipped. An amazingly tactile set of weights for balancing scales, which my mother bought me, but which I never use now, because I always use my electronic scales (must remember to put electronic scales in the camp kitchen):

Decision: bin the coffee set, and just hold onto the unforgettably weird experience of shopping for souvenirs in Soviet-era Bulgaria; keep the weights, because I could use them to teach measure in school and because they just feel so perfect in my hand.

Some of the items we’ve had to clear from the kitchen might seem unexpected, like this:

My husband is a massive Playmobil fan and cannot pass by any charity shop, European supermarket or airport concession (the departure lounge at the airport in Malta used to be right next to the Playmobil stand, utter catnip) without coming away with at least one new diorama. And these have invariably found themselves stickily immured on the topmost high shelf in the kitchen, the one that I can't reach even on a stepladder.

Actually, anyone who knows my husband will know that he doesn't just collect Playmobil. He loves collecting, full stop. Hence the interaction we had this morning in Starbucks:

The trouble is, I’m very much maximalist too. It was great last year when “cluttercore” was briefly an aspirational interior choice - my house became incredibly fashionable without me having to lift a finger. My husband and I are, regrettably, both cluttercore maestros. If we had the time (and I am hopeful retirement will facilitate this) we’d both want our house filled with objects that bring us joy AND with every surface as a canvas, a la Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s Charleston House in Firle, or the French gite where Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst lived before war separated them.

(Leonora Carrington’s bookshelf in France).

I have a feeling that the kitchen fitter and I don't exactly see eye to eye on this one. He is very much about clear surfaces and hidden objects (there's even a foldaway door to hide away the “clutter” of the kettle and toaster) whereas I love to have the majority of my electrical kitchen items - stand mixer, pressure cooker, food processor - out where I can see them and use them easily, otherwise it becomes a chore and I’m less likely to bother.

I have managed to put in some touches which are purely mine - a pull out larder; floor to ceiling bookshelves for my cookery book collection. The rest has been planned out by the kitchen company who have much more experience of these things (and then adapted and wrangled to match our budget).

We shall see how it goes once the kitchen is done, and then I shall go about making it my own. Somewhere that I can potter and dream and play music and decompress after a day at work, but also have a friend or two sit at a table and chat to me while I cook. Somewhere that feels like my kitchen, purposefully cluttered, while still restful to the eye. I think the Playmobil will have to find another home. At least until the grandchildren arrive.

(We've had some fun here, old kitchen. But now it's time for a change. This was my inspired “Cocktails and Onesies” 42nd birthday party in 2014 - everyone came in a onesie, I made cocktails to order, and we had a Chinese takeaway. Easiest birthday party prep ever. We should do that again some time. But keep your cocktail glasses off my new oak work surfaces…!)