This is Miriam.
My name is Miriam Cooper. I’m a mum of two and I run an online community for parents called Mimi’s Bowl. I blog about what I'm cooking up in my kitchen and the food we eat at home, whilst juggling my two kids. I live in London’s Notting Hill in a listed building which we converted from a dentist surgery and a block of flats into a beautiful family home.
See inside the Mimi’s Bowl Kitchen
My Home
We bought this house when I was pregnant with my little girl in 2014. It’s a really beautiful old house but it wasn’t in great condition; there was a dentist’s surgery on the first floor and the rest of it was divided into flats. So it was very disjointed and we spent about a year planning then a year renovating it. We had to take the roof off completely and put all of the bones back in, but slowly we’ve built it into our family home.
For me the kitchen is really at the heart of our home. It’s one of the most important rooms in the house. It’s where I spend so much of my time with my family but also for work. We therefore thought really hard about how to design the kitchen, whilst making sure it was in-keeping with the age of the house. We wanted to suggest that a chimney was there originally, so we put a little overmantel above the oven which is where the extractor fan is hidden. We also put in lots of little side cupboards for chopping boards and tea towels, and designed it so that everything for cooking is on the oven side of the kitchen, and everything for dining is on the other side. We also put in two dishwashers which sounds really extravagant, but without them the kitchen would be a complete apocalypse. It makes the kitchen work so well and keeps it feel very clean.
My Kalinko
I think homes should be built over time, layering in different things which have meaning to you. For example, I collect lots of different platters and bowls because of the nature of the work that I do. This is also the reason I like Kalinko products. They have a real artisan element and are exactly the sort of thing I want in my home. I hate homes which feel like they’ve been pulled out of a catalogue, or where people feel pressured to copy a specific look. I think it’s nice to take influences from lots of different places and bring them together in your own way.
I have Kalinko table mats in white, and one of their ice buckets in pink.
Shop Miriam’s Home
Ice Bucket
Rattan Table Mats
Rattan Placemats
See more of Miriam’s home and, most importantly, her cooking, at her instagram account @mimisbowl
