Outfitting the Kitchen

I have always wanted to outfit a kitchen from scratch. The thought of creating a fully equipped kitchen with complete new sets of matching plates, pots, pans, glasses, flatware and cooking utensils fills me with great joy.

I thought I might do this when we moved into our new flat in London a couple of years ago, but truth be told, most of our existing kitchen stuff was still very good, plus we liked it, so I settled for augmentation rather than complete replacement. So, I have been looking forward to setting up the villa's kitchen for months.

The big day finally arrived last Saturday. We had previously scouted out a couple of stores for this purpose, and ultimately decided that Ikea in Florence was the best place to make the purchases. Not being a regular shopper in Ikea (we had only been to the London store once, and even that was a reconnaissance mission in anticipation of a visit to the Florence store), the selection, utility, quality and overall attractiveness of the kitchenware at Ikea impressed me.

The shopping experience turned out to be everything I expected and more! In the end, we filled up two full giant shopping carts of stuff (I wish I had taken pictures) and spent far more than I thought we would. It was great fun.

Sunday morning we took a trip to another store to pick up a few odds and ends we didn't get at Ikea. Instead, we ended up filling another giant shopping cart with more stuff, and dropping another few hundred euros.

We spent Sunday afternoon unpacking, unwrapping and putting everything away in the new kitchen. Luckily, not only did we not completely fill it up, we have room left over for more stuff should we desire (I'm hoping not!).