During the summer of 1985 we converted the road-end cottage, which is now an integral part of our home (in fact our bedroom) into a 'granny-flat' for my mother.

There is a back-story to this.

My mother had decided that she would come to live with us on foot of a long proffered promise and, whilst we owned the road-end cottage it had been agreed with John Gaffney, from whom we bought the property that, as a condition of the transaction, he could have the use of it for his lifetime.

As with most matters concerning people and property, it was a complex story but not one I will tell now - maybe another time.

But, in a nutshell, in 1985, and for the one and the same reason - age - John Gaffney no longer had need of it whilst my mother did.

So, as I say, the summer was spent in its conversion and preparation and, in the nature of such undertakings, we were up against time as the deadline of my mother's arrival approached.
It wasn't quite ready and for a few days she stayed as a guest of Barbie Thomas, Brede's mother-in-law, in Ballyduff House years and years before Brede started her now legendary bed and breakfast business there.

And, if we were not quite ready with the 'granny-flat', we were, certainly, in a state of complete chaos in our own quarters, the more so because our kitchen had had to be substantially compromised to create the said 'granny-flat'.

If the truth be told we no longer had a kitchen and, since a part of the deal was that mother would be fed by us as well, it left a considerable gap in the extended family's requirements.

So, just days prior to her arrival, I put my eye on two old school-lockers in the mill (residues of the pine-stripping days), painted them blue and brought them to the house. Being too low for kitchen use, their height was increased by an unfinished length of 3" x 2" which was also hurriedly painted blue.
A gas hob was set into a length of, similarly 'found-on', Kilkenny limestone which was plonked upon the blue cupboards.

At least we could now cook!

Our kitchen as we have known it over recent years...........

It was at around this time that I was starting to make furniture (and kitchens) and, whilst I never kept a count, it is likely that in the intervening twenty seven years I have built between fifty and one hundred of them.
But not ours!
I have no doubt but that back in 1985 I will have promised a proper, new kitchen within months but, although it would be untrue to say that there have not been some improvements over the years, substantially, our new kitchen never arrived!

In truth we have had an agreed plan - even drawings - for the past few years but 'something' constantly intervened to cause a postponement of a start date - not least this bloody recession.
But recently we agreed that the time had come and that we would do it, or rather that I should get on with it.
Now, Sue seldom does 'ultimatums' but it was put to me that the timetable I was proposing still did not satisfy!
So I did a quick recalibration and, to ensure that there would be no further slippage, I removed key elements of the old, ad hoc kitchen to enable me to start relocating electrical sockets etc., etc...

So it is underway!
It should be said though, that ad hoc, bockety and scruffy as it is / was, we, and many others, loved the old kitchen - probably for those very reasons: that it was ad hoc, bockety and scruffy!

And it surely puts it up to me to do a fine job now.

I hope you will see steady progress here and, if you don't, you can rest assured that this will not be a happy home!.................