Psychogeography of the Great Indoors

A blog post destined for dullness, if it weren't for the ways in which psychogeography finds interest, even joy, in the mundane. A field of exploration usually focused on urban landscapes, I enjoy much of the same within the minutiae of the home. Well, it has been raining recently, and before that we were 'locked down' by a pandemic.

There is something elementally comforting in making small adjustments to an old kitchen, for me today through dismantling a hideous built in chipboard monolith. I practice removing the vinyl wrapping from a door, uncovering pristine MDF which cries out for a specialist paint finish in next year's colour, thus avoiding the waste and expense of buying what would be, lurking within, another identical MDF door. If I ever get around to it, it will by then be this year's colour.

On the other hand, it's illuminating to see the kitchens of those grand houses belonging to the bourgeoisie. Property search websites are a good source for comparison, as I don't frequent such places. They are often opulent or ostentatious at front but possess very basic kitchens behind. A throwback to the days when kitchens were the territory of the "servants", and some probably still are. Before the days when kitchens became public spaces for entertaining, they were private domains hidden from sight along with the plumbing. They didn't need the latest on-trend for-show kitchen as long as dinner was on time, and that the staff knew their place. I'm with the staff. Now that the owners inhabit their kitchens through choice or necessity, they too feel the imperative to upgrade.

The lure of rampant consumerism is such that those who can afford an even larger EV for the road in order to proclaim their green credentials more loudly than their neighbours, may also buy a new kitchen every few years, while the old one goes in landfill. Looking at 'before and after' photos of kitchen renovations, am I the only one who generally prefers the 'before'? There are exceptions: even more so with bathrooms, as I've had my fill of avocado over the years. During the process of working with what's there, I find delight in the informal thrown-together look of temporary shelves, that for now inhabit a space open to the imagination. Soon a bespoke cupboard from sustainable forestry will be there. Likewise, in discovering half of the architrave missing from the kitchen door frame, thanks to the behemoth of a cupboard that had been wedged in place previously, I revel in its informality and asymmetry, and will make it a feature. It curiously reminds me of band St Etienne (musical psychogeographers), relishing the imperfections of a London on the edge; the city referred to metaphorically as Finisterre [end of the land], a song from their eponymous 2003 album/film. I suppose music help me make sense of the experience. 

Consumerism/growth and environmentalism/degrowth are unhappy bedfellows. A trawl through the ether identifies only very few who are perfectly happy to keep their old kitchens as they are. Instead the internet directs me to innumerable advertisements for re-covering, painting, changing the doors, or maybe a new worktop and side panels. While you're there, they say, they might as well supply a completely new kitchen, from lighting to tiles to flooring, so why not just buy in to the whole hog-roast? A metaphor for how restricted and restricting the internet has become, focused primarily on what 'they' are trying to sell you instead of what you want to find out. However I was reassured to read about someone who was proud to keep their pristine 75 year old example, including appliances.

I partly lay the blame at Barry Bucknell's door, for the tyranny of blandness and conformity. Literally at his door, as in the 1960s he modernised tasteful old panelled-doors with hygienically flush hardboard. On television, he introduced post-war Britain to DIY. Under his influence, my father hid old feature fireplaces behind reeded hardboard in the then popular 'driftwood' colour. Reading more about Bucknell, I learn that he also created the blueprint for the affordable, DIY, Mirror sailing dinghy [for the Daily Mirror newspaper], one of which I helped a friend's father to build and later sail. For some reason we towed the boat from Portsmouth for its maiden-voyage off Bournemouth Beach.  It was 1970 and was my only experience of sailing, before succumbing to mal-de-mer for ever after.

The rain will stop soon. I will get out more.

LINKS

Stop The Wasteful Cycle Of Kitchen Remodeling (forbes.com)

Twelve billionaires’ climate emissions outpollute 2.1m homes, analysis finds | Greenhouse gas emissions | The Guardian

Finisterre – YouTube

To ask how old is too old when it comes to kitchens? | Mumsnet

Barry Bucknell - Wikipedia

UKMirrorsailing.com - Mirror Statistics (archive.org)

Dull Men's Club - Where we "Celebrate the Ordinary" (dullmensclub.com)