Summer kitchen..pantry..laundry and such...

I have vivid memories from my childhood of accompanying my mother to visit her friends for afternoon coffee or tea...my Mom always worked, so to spend time with her at home was a treat...I rembember an "annex" at the back of the house where she came to gather, exchange stories and spend precious time with her friends. This space was always entered through the back of the house and usually had a table, covered in a bright vinyl tablecloth and a farm house sink, which depending on the time of year, held garden produce and local fruit...as a young child I loved the atmosphere that was created!

I wanted to duplicate that atmosphere somewhere in my house....the laundry room was a possibility. The true definition of a summer kitchen is a place away from the main house, where cooking took place to keep the house cool. Large farms in the South had summer kitchens for extra activities, such as canning or even washing up, extra food was stored here as well.

My Mom always cooked in her basement kitchen in the summer, it was cooler and more conducive to handling larger amounts of food preparation...making strawberry jam in the early summer and then putting up produce from her bountiful garden, and then tomatoes in early fall.

My laundry room, in the above photos, is my variation of the summer kitchen of my childhood...a place where the laundry is done, my extra dishes are stored, and messy pots and pans can be stowed away, till they are ready to wash up, when entertaining in my open concept kitchen upstairs...

The chicken wire inserts were the alternative to closed cabinet fronts...and the porcelain clock face knobs, a nod to time ticking away!

....and a floor to ceiling open plate rack for extra platters and trays...

I love the look of bead board, and added it here, and as a backsplash behind the counters...

A large stainless sink was a must.....

....as well as large, deep drawers for extra dishes.

....and let's not forget the laundry....a gentle out of sight, out of mind reminder!!

There is ample counter space for folding laundry, which was created by hiding the washer and dryer behind bi-fold doors...

This is far from the summer kitchen of my childhood...but the similarities are still there...it is located down the stairs from my back door, it will be used for extra food prep and cleaning up, preserving our bountiful Niagara fruit into jams, and holding surplus kitchen tools and dishes...and of course doing the laundry....while I recall the memories from my Mother's summer kitchen....N.xo