The Stone House: summer kitchen progress

Let's take a peek into the summer kitchen.

See that plastic section of wall? Hopefully by the end of September it will be a large picture window. We are working yet again with the amazing Studio Junction. They will be crafting our kitchen, the large window, and our main entrance. The spaces where the window and entrance are located were typically used as a "drive through" door to drive horse and buggy through to unload goods. Wild.

Just off the living room is a door. Why is this not our front door you ask? Good question, sometimes I wonder that myself. But then I think about muddy boots and snowsuits being flomped down in the middle of the kitchen and dining area, and I am reminded why we are building yet another entrance (which will be to the left of this one, accompanied by a big storage unit to hide all the stuff).

Another view of this side of the room. You can see where the new entrance will go, where the bright light is coming from on the left of the photo. We decided since it's visible from the driveway that we would make it all wood for privacy.

In this corner, where the big picture window is going to be, will be our creative space/ a space to contemplate. So excited about having a spot where I don't have to be so neurotic about our children's art making. Pictured is Mike, amazing guy all around (currently taking care of our lawn) probably showing John a video of all the snakes in our basement. Haha. Snakes are good luck right?

Continuing the tour around the summer kitchen, lo and behold, the cooker has been installed. We deliberated forever on where to locate this. Originally a cabinet was supposed to go here but the location we wanted for the cooker didn't really work for the installation.

In order to fulfill our little house on the prairie dreams, only a wood cooker would do. We found the answer in this Esse 990 Wood-Fired Cooker. Some people may scoff at us for going this route (these city folk don't know what they are getting into, there's a reason for modern conveniences!), but it's all about slow living baby.

The firebox is in the top left corner. It's an interesting system, whereby, should one read the manual, one would discover that if you flip a switch, the smoke redirects through the system to heat the ovens. Reading the manual is essential or you will be waiting several hours to heat up a pizza. Just saying. Read the manual.  The cooktop on the left side gets going way faster, within 30 minutes. The oven I think takes a little over an hour if done correctly. It is also helpful to have woodworker friends who can offload their excess wood to your cooker needs.

Guess what? We are one post away from our first sleepover visit. Exciting stuff, thanks for hanging in for the ride!