Kitchen is a coming

The kitchen fitter started yesterday.

He lost his phone, thought it was stolen by the bin men. Phoned his mother in law, the only number he knew. She would ring the granddaughter who in turn would ring his wife. He was not expecting a response as his mother in law wouldn't be clever enough to pass on my number.

She was. I got a call from an 0300 number, it was the fitters wife. Everything cancelled. Walked up the road to tell him. He was relieved.

Went up later to see them at then end of the day. He'd found his phone in his van. Made me laugh.

 Looking a little skeletal yesterday.

Beginning to take shape. The Corian work tops will be measured for next week. Only two required, one in front of the window. And the other for the island, which will extend out this end, for a breakfast bar. Corian has to be very carefully measured as it can't be altered.

A wall of all the appliances a cook could want. Ovens, microwave and warming drawers.

And a rack for the red wine.

Not to be outdone a wine fridge, built into the island.

The ends will not be open, they're going to have curved doors. Shelves tend to be dust gatherers and not suitable for storage.

Side by side large cutlery drawers, every utensil you could possible need all to hand.

2 Pan drawers below each.

Ovens, fridge and larder behind and hob to the right, everything you need is easy to access. Probably get Jay a spinny chair and she can do everything without standing up.





And the chippies handed back their key, after fitting the bannister. Just after we gave our last key to the kitchen fitter.

Fire! Fire!

Roll on winter.

We now have a fully fitted log burner with traditional oak beam. Feature wall and white internal to be painted.

Supposed to be have several small burns, about 20 minutes each, just to settle it in.

Apparently cleaning and painting comes first. Boo. I like fire.

Sometimes it's crap - a post by Al Mac

Today we virtually finished the doors. We virtually finished the architrave.

No we didn't. We've worked our socks off for several days. But to be brutally frank, the place looks shit. Sorry Jay, I know your laptop doesn't like naughty words.

It seems like however hard we try it doesn't move on very much. The builder has gone on his holiday. Fair enough. But there is so much "rubbish" left. Is it really rubbish or needed moving on, or should it have been binned already?

I feel tomorrow is another day and if I don't remember paying for it, it may be binned. But the bin is already full!

It is now wine o'clock. Cheers x

Storage

Most homes homes don't have enough storage.

This is the cupboard off the front room. Currently housing carpenters stuff.

It's for CDs and DVDs. We currently have 11m of them. The new storage is about 20m. It's also going to store all the games console extras. Not forgetting the laptops. And of course the messless charger.

Basically the front room is going to be tidy. Very tidy.

Hi ho hi ho

It's off to varnish we go.

This is one of our new doors. There are 13 of them. Each door has two sides. Each side needs three coats of varnish. That works out at 78 sides.

That's Easter sorted.

You can't beat a good strip.

The house had a painted house number on the front, as many houses of that era did. It also had part of the original kitchen wall painted red. We have no idea why. Another case of it had to go.

So toddled off to B&Q, other DIY stores are available, and purchased paint stripper.

This morning the stripper was applied, left for the relevant 2+ hours. Then we attacked it with scrapers. Funnily enough, it did what it said on the tin. But was going to need a another coat. We also realised scraping wasn't going to do it. Because bricks have gaps.

So off to B&Q again for wire wool. Instead a metal brush was spotted and subsequently purchased.

Second coat attacked with scraper and wire brush. The painted number has gone totally. And the painted wall is liveable with. Bit of effort, but well worth it.

This weekend, we hope, to start tidying with a vengeance. So many little things to do. And so much plumbing left to do. Come on Del!

But having watched hundreds of hours of house doing up problems, we still didn't realise it wouldn't go as well as we wished.

Getting there.

Meanwhile at the other house

Although not so full on, we have to live there after all, work is ongoing on at our current home. With every intention of renting it out, we're looking at low maintenance.

So six months ago, the left hand side was a bed of conifers, dark and full of rubbish. Then John a neighbour from the other house went mad with a chainsaw and down they come. Then he built the fence. He's a useful chappy.

Over the past few months we've dug out the roots, removed copious amounts of soil, dumped up the road, cause we'll need it.

Today a final roller and turf laying. We reckon the garden has grown by almost a third in useable, low maintenance, space.

Cheekily I did it pretending to be part of Lee Hudson Builders, with my blagged hoddie.

In other news, la-z-boy have been ordered for the kitchen. Electric recliners. So four seats of luxury.

AII I want to do is join the happy crowd

Behind the green door. Yes we have a new front door. Top panel has Rose Villas etched into it. That's the original name of the house.

Cornice renewed where the wall was insulated. Cost more for the mould than the actual cornice.

And the big fan has moved house. That's 2 things moved now. At this rate we'll have fully moved in about 5 years.

There's a man on the roof! Oh it's Simon the fireman's son.That's the end of the liner sticking out. Apparently when they built the house, they didn't do a nice straight chimney. Took a bit of work to get it down.

Is that a fire?

Is that a hole in the wall?

No it's a fireplace. 5 kilowatt fire. Almost had an 8, due to a mistake in the shop. Fortunately Simon decided that was wrong. We'd have need air bricks! Don't really want holes being knocked in the new plaster.

Looking forward to some cold nights.

Ben's moved on from plastering to painting. The whole ground floor is starting off white, so easy enough to do.

He's 3 peaking this weekend. Hopefully he'll be fit for work on Monday.















Nearly done is the electrics. We have lights and sockets. Just at the time it's less necessary,

What's coming up. This month, the kitchen and the family bathroom are being fitted. R&P tiling going to hit the house with a vengeance. Bathroom fully tiled, kitchen floor and hall to be tiled.

And we are starting a mass tidy up. A lot of rubbish to be removed. We may need a skip, or at least a number of trips to the tip. Not been there for a while.