Ta-da!

I spent quite a bit of time last night on my knees, doing something truly filthy. Yes, that’s right, I was cleaning the kitchen floor of wood dust.  RtJ has finished!

There are still some bits for us to finish off (cornice/pelmet), but he’s done everything we wanted him to, and he was very reasonably priced with it.

When I got home last night, we first of all had to drive to the “special” eBay woman (more on this tomorrow), which took a couple of hours out of our evening. Then, when we returned again just after 8pm, Barry spent the next two hours fitting the tap and doing the pipework under the sink.  I swept the floor and inhaled probably lethal amounts of wood dust.

Photos of the progress below…

Double whammy

Two good things happened yesterday, kitchen-wise: the joiner made a start and a man with a van came to pick up the old kitchen!  Hurray!

I’ve included four photos from yesterday morning, before I went to work, and then five from when I got home and the man had taken all the bits away.  The worktop has all been cut (including a hole for the sink), it just needs fixing.  Richard the Joiner (RtJ, as he shall henceforth be known), broke several jigsaw blades on the solid wood and had to get some more!  There’s enough of the worktop left for us to have a little bit of surface coming out of the wall by the door – we’ll just need to get a brushed stainless steel post.

RtJ has also cut some plinth for underneath the oven so you can’t see the bodge job of making it higher, but it means we’re going to run out of plinth, so may need to have some further bodging of using end panel for some of the plinth area.  Barry and I nipped to Wickes last night to get some glue and silicone so he can continue today.  Barry also spent a lot of last night preparing the pipework for under the sink so he can do that quickly once RtJ’s finished today.

The man who collected the old kitchen couldn’t believe how many parts there were to it.  He was glad he’s not the one putting it back together!  I’ll be very surprised if I don’t get at least one call from the eBay woman with questions about it.

The joiner cometh

I have absolutely no news today, but I’m hoping to have updated photos tomorrow.  For today, the joiner cometh!

I’m so happy at the thought of having a functioning sink (never mind somewhere to chop those pesky veggies) that I’m hoping it will put me in a good mood all day.  It is still, however, a working day, so we shall see.

Jobs for the joiner

  • Cut worktop (four bits)
  • Cut out hole for sink (hopefully leaving us with a chopping board from the negative space)
  • Cut the upstand to match the worktop
  • Make a cupboard from the boiler from the random bits the B&Q designer cleverly ordered (note: adverb used with irony)
  • Cut the plinth for all of the kitchen.

While he’s cracking on, Barry can sort out the waterworks underneath the sink so we can use it straight away.  I daren’t ask him to take photos of the process, so I’ll just have to see the transformation when I get home!

Get a handle on it

Not much to report from yesterday – Barry sanded some stuff around the radiator. The most obvious change is that there are now handles on all of the unit doors.

The joiner came round – he’s going to come on Wednesday and Thursday to do the worktop, upstand and sort the boiler cupboard. Can’t wait to have a sink in! The kitchen will be almost complete this week, very exciting. Then we can focus on the floor!

Saturday: progress made

I was banished from the kitchen yesterday so Barry could do some work with his earphones in and I wouldn’t get in the way.  I felt like a bit of a spare part, but I sneaked in every now and again to take some photos and then run away.

The oven is steadily making its way to the middle of the space.  Barry’s also put it up on blocks so that it’ll be the same height as the work surface will be when that goes on.

We’re hoping to affix the plinth in some way along the bottom of the oven – we don’t want to be able to see this!

In other news, Barry’s swapped the broken radiator for the new one,

which hopefully won’t leak, and gone over the black paint that was already on that wall, as well as painting behind the radiator.

Hopefully, today we’ll get some more handles on the bottom units, although I’ve woken up early and it’s a lovely day, so we might actually need to go and get some Vitamin D.

The joiner also comes today, so we should finally have a date and proper price for sorting the worktop out.  Sink, ahoy!

Ready for the weekend

I’m so ready for this weekend. We’re not doing anything special, it’s just two days of being at home.

The plan for this weekend’s DIY is for Barry to sort out the gas and electricity points for the oven, and build up the legs of the oven so it meets the same point as the worktop. The joiner is coming on Sunday to tell us how much he thinks cutting the worktop will be, and Barry might ask about a couple of other things, like making the boiler cupboard.

On the eBay front, our kitchen hasn’t been collected yet. Despite the listing clearly stating collection only, she asked if we could deliver. No. There’s a 3m worktop in there! She got a bit huffy and said she’d have to book a man with a van. Go do that then. I contacted the woman again to see when this may be (a, we need the space, and b, we need the money); it will be either this weekend or next Wednesday. Helpful.

Drumroll please

The auctions have ended; the bids have been counted and verified (drumroll please)… we have a dazzling £343 from our old kitchen to spend on the new!  Note to self: never bin anything again ever.

It’s so much more than we were expecting that we don’t know what to do with it (don’t worry, it will be spent!).  The joiner is the first item on the list, and then I suppose the rest may go to flooring (or lights/tumble dryer/coffee machine/mixer/photo frames for the living room/yesterday’s hair cut/anniversary meal).

The lady wanted us to deliver, but we don’t have the facilities to transport 3m long worktops, etc., so she’s going to have to book a man with a van.  Hopefully she’ll sort it this week so we can carry on painting.

As I already mentioned, yesterday was our fifth wedding anniversary, and so we had to get wooden gifts.

Panicking in Boots, I originally bought Barry a wooden Botanics nailbrush, but then had a proper think about it and bought him some of his favourite aftershave ever – Marc Jacobs Men.  He hasn’t had any in ages and it has (wait for it) top notes of cypress and base notes of cedarwood.  I am the master.

Although Royal Mail are currently holding Barry’s gift to me hostage, he’s shown me a photo of what I can expect – it’s this lovely wooden jewellery box.  I’m looking forward to receiving it!

Bane of my life

I don’t know what I’d do without lists – they add order to a project and allow me to better organise my actions and finances, but God, they are annoying. Sometimes, do you think it’s better to just not know everything you have to do and pay for?

Take the oven, for example. I know I’m being awkward. Barry, quite clearly, also knows I’m being awkward. It sounds simple, but I just want it in the middle of the space that’s left. I’ve included a photo, but you can’t really see, but at the moment, there’s a 9cm gap on one side, and a 5cm gap on the other. My symmetrical brain finds this aesthetically unacceptable. Because of this, Barry is going to have to replace the gas pipe (about £50 of copper piping), move the electricity switch, and all because I need it to look right. When I was about to cave, Barry refused, and said he didn’t want to hear about it for the next 20 years. The man’s right, I have the memory of an elephant.

This then has the knock-on effect of delaying when we can call the joiner to cut the worktop. We’re reaching a critical point, and I feel like I might actually scream if I go to our kitchen sink one more time before remembering that we have to wash up in the bath. Barry also needs to build the unit on the other side, sort all of the end panels and fill the (equal) gaps by the oven before we give the joiner a ring, and we expect it will be around £100-£150 for him to make the cuts and fit the worktop.

I’m sure we did have a life before the kitchen, but I can’t quite remember what we did with our time.