Mayfield House - The Kitchen

Hello everyone.

After a very long time (almost 18 months), we are finally returning to visit Mayfield House, the large doll's house that D and I are very slowly building and furnishing. It has taken a long time to finish this next room, as there was so much I wanted to include. As well as that, there has been a wedding, a retirement and a trip around the world to enjoy. 

The Kitchen

Leaving Jones and his cold cup of tea and sandwich in the butler's scullery, we retrace our steps back through the butler's office and the entrance hall and behind the back hallway to the busiest room in the house, the Kitchen. 

Here we find Mrs Wilson, the cook, hard at work preparing meals for the family. Both stoves are in full use with delicious smells bubbling away. She is preparing some meat pies and a casserole for dinner this evening, while on the other table, she has a batch of scones ready to go into one of the ovens when it becomes empty.

As you can see, it is a busy place. Underneath both tables are baskets of vegetables and other kitchen equipment, and all the dressers are filled to bursting with jars, bowls, crockery, and equipment.

There is one solitary chair, but this isn't used often as Mrs Wilson claims she doesn't have time to sit down, or so she would have you believe. I think she might have the occasional cuppa and a slice of homemade cake.

At the moment, she is calling over to Madeline, one of the maids who is just taking a tray of used kitchen items through to the scullery for washing up. There is always a lot of washing to be done, but more of that next time.

Perhaps we could sneak a quick sweet treat on the way out, but look out that Mrs W doesn't catch you!

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The kitchen has been the largest room we have worked on so far, and we wanted to include many things. As with the other rooms, the walls were painted and the floor laid with small quarry tiles, and we installed two working lights in the ceiling. 

Originally, I had intended to hang a pots-and-pans rack from the ceiling, but it just got in the way and obscured other views of the kitchen—a shame, but it just didn't work.

To give some interest to the back of the room, hubby very kindly made a chimney inglenook for the two ovens we were going to use. Awkward work, but the result gave the space much-needed character depth. Then it was a matter of choosing the main furniture items and decorating them with as much kitchen paraphernalia as possible. D and I had lots of fun collecting all the things together, playing with them and arranging them to tell a story. 

I used a variety of copper pots and pans in both ovens, adding details such as the oven cloth and filling the pot with beads and a fast-drying clear liquid to represent a casserole. On one oven, I have added a saucer and spoon for tasting - cook's privilege.

The smaller of these two dressers I bought already filled and the larger one I dressed in a similar style.

Here we have another dresser, filled with a mix of plates, jugs and bowls. On the worktop, the jam pot, butter and slices of cut bread create another little story, or it may be bread and cheese. The other small shows more veg preparation. I used some small orange beads for cut carrots. The partly open drawer contains some cutlery.

I enjoyed collecting all the little bits and pieces together and making up the stories. Here, you can see the mincemeat grinder has been well used, with another batch of meat ready to use. 

This table showcases Mrs W's baking skills. She does sometimes use the recipe book, but not often. I have a full-size copy of that particular Bee-Ro book.

D and I do hope that you have enjoyed seeing this very busy room. Next time we will see where all the cleaning up gets done, but unless you are willing to roll up your sleeves and help out, we had best say goodbye for now.

Have a lovely week, everyone.

B and D xx

Previous house posts  

Mayfield house - The Build

Butler's office

 

Butler's scullery