Tag: kitchen

Kitchen table, ahoy!

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Sorry, sorry, I’ve been a dreadful blogger.  The sun comes out and I just abandon it.  I’m a bad, bad person.

It doesn’t help that I’ve just started a thing with work called GCC, where people from companies all over the world take part in a walking challenge.  The idea is that it makes you walk further than you normally would (healthy employees = happy employees), and you’re aiming for at least 10,000 steps a day (about 5 miles).





We’re all getting quite competitive (which is the idea), and to give you some perspective, I did over 26,000 on Sunday, along with Barry, Charlie and Jaime (and Fin was in the buggy, but he technically didn’t do the steps.  He did about 5 when we got back).

Anyway, on Saturday morning, before the walking madness, our kitchen table arrived.  I’m really pleased with it, and it fits neatly into the little bay window we have in the kitchen, although Barry apparently needs a bit more convincing.



We had lunch there on Saturday, and it was almost like eating outside!  I love it!  As a side note, Barry also does not like eating outside, which may be where the problem’s coming in.

Wardrobes

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After all I said I was going to get from my mum’s, we’ve decided not to have the wardrobes in the end.  I think it’s overfacing Barry, who seems to have reached his limit on DIY for the year and is staging some kind of protest.

We really need to get cracking again – at least to finish off the last bits of the kitchen and living room, but going on holiday and eating out (almost) every night isn’t really conducive to pockets full of money to spend on picture frames.

Of our kitchen jobs still to do, we have the following left…

1. Sand and repaint the ceiling

2. Cut skirting boards to size and repaint

3. Fit skirting boards

4. Finish painting the kitchen walls

5. Finish sanding and fit the peninsula

6. Tile the kitchen walls

7. Paint the stairs wall, handrail and ceiling

8. Replace all of the switches with brushed silver ones

9. Get a condenser tumble dryer

The living room list’s not much better…

1. Sand and repaint wall and paint skirting boards

2. Paint the skirting boards and cut and fit the beading

3. Paint the kitchen/living room door (both sides) and the doorframe on the other side

4. Paint a radiator

5. And another one

6. Fit the strip thing between the kitchen and living room

7. Create the photo wall – finalise photos and buy frames and prints

8. Buy white drawers and baskets for the units

 

I need a lie down.

Bedside tables, curtains, and a food processor

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A random list, I know, but that’s what we’ve come back with from my mum’s.  We went to measure the wardrobes she’s offered us to see if they’ll fit in Barry’s car (he thinks they will), rather than hiring a van.

In the meantime, we fit everything we could into the car to save us going back more times than necessary, so on Saturday, we drove back with two bedside tables, two purple lamps to go on them, a long pair of purple curtains and tie-backs, and a food processor which has more parts to it than anything else in our house combined.  I can’t find the instructions online anywhere, so we’ll see how that goes!

We still need to go back for a chest of drawers, the curtain pole (which we forgot), and a double and triple wardrobe.  Not sure where we’re putting everything yet, but the bedside tables and curtains will probably be going in our second spare room.

A special congratulations to my fellow blogger, Karen, who got engaged this weekend!

Going on a mini-holiday until Friday now, so see you all when we get back!

Skirting boards fitted

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Barry’s done a bit more in the kitchen – only took a couple of hours but it makes a real difference.  He’s fitted the skirting boards back and they look really great!  They still need repainting.  He’s also run silicone around the bottom of the units and added the strip that joins the living room floor to the kitchen floor.  That’s 2.5/8 of the kitchen tasks done and 3.5/8 of the living room ones!

Peninsula

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Barry’s started the peninsula. He had to carve a hole in one of the walls he’s carefully built up with plaster, and put a pole into the spare bit of worktop (actually, he accidentally attached the pole to the top side, but never mind!).

At the moment, it’s balanced in the hole, but he needs to attach it and cut a bit of upstand, then stain it all so it matches the rest of the worktops.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on my boot tops for my Supergirl outfit. More on that tomorrow!

Photos of the balanced peninsula below.

Depressing visual representation of all the jobs left to do: the living room

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In the second of this two-part mini-series, I take a closer look at the living room, and all the things we still need to do.  Click here for yesterday’s gripping instalment.

1. Sand and repaint wall and paint skirting boards

2. Paint these skirting boards and cut and fit the beading

3. Paint this door (both sides) and the doorframe on the other side

4. Paint this radiator

5. And this one

6. Fit the strip thing between the kitchen and living room

7. Create the photo wall – finalise photos and buy frames and prints

8. Buy white drawers and baskets for the units

Depressing visual representation of all the jobs left to do: the kitchen

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This is part one of a two-part mini-series whereby I put all the work we’ve already done into perspective and think about just how much more time and money we still need to dedicate to these two rooms of the house that are taking over all of our free time and finances. This is part one: the kitchen. Tune in tomorrow for an exciting look at the long list of tasks still to do in the living room.

1. Sand and repaint the ceiling

2. Cut skirting boards to size and repaint

3. Fit skirting boards

4. Finish painting the kitchen walls

5. Finish sanding and fit the peninsula

6. Tile the kitchen walls

7. Paint the stairs wall, handrail and ceiling

8. Replace all of the switches with brushed silver ones

9. Get a condenser tumble dryer

Kitchen floor announcement

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Ahem. Ladies and gentlemen. I have an announcement to make. The kitchen floor is in. No more concrete crap on everything!

I’ve included photos from before (we had bits of living room carpet down to stop us walking the dust about) as well as after, and we obviously have several bits still to do (like beading), but the bulk of it is done! I came home from work and think I caught Barry seriously considering another way out, but he got there in the end.

In the meantime, I’ve continued the thankless task of painting white gloss over white gloss. No photos there then.

After this, I’m going back to trying to find superhero-themed songs for our superhero-themed night out next week.  We all know we’ll end up at karaoke.

 

Fear

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I had an email from the eBay lady last week.  Its very presence in my inbox struck fear into my heart.  With a shaking hand, I clicked on the email and braced myself for its contents.

What could it be?  Did she need training in selling items on eBay?   Did she require our aid in transporting the old kitchen to its new home?  Was everyone else she knew in hospital? Was there a drawer still in Barry’s car boot?  Did we forget to tell her what this piece of wood was for?

She was writing to thank me for sending the pictures.  I breathed again.

Shotgun approach

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In response to Wednesday’s post, someone commented to ask if we’re working on our entire house at once.  Of course not! was my first reaction.  Then, as I started writing out the reply, it really did begin to look like we are, in fact, trying to take on the entire house at the same time.

This was my reply:

We started with the living room in January, which quickly spread to the kitchen, so we’re working on all of the ground floor at the same time. We’ve got a big splodge of tester paint in our bedroom, and we know what we want to do with that. We need to finish painting black up the stairs, and then do it on the top floor too, but we also want to put decking in the garden soon…

Damn.  Barry’s forever telling me that we can’t do everything at once, much as I’d like to.  Financially, we definitely can’t do everything at once (unless the lottery plan comes together), and it will probably go very quiet for the rest of this month once we have the flooring in.  I am, however, gearing up for some excellent before and after shots.

It’s easy to get carried away.  I know I’ve talked (or typed) before about DIY and decorating influencing your friends, but it also has a snowball effect on yourselves.  The more we do, the more we want to do, and now that a certain part of the house is almost done and looks great (well, we think so!), it makes you want to keep going.  Just need to rein it in a little bit!  We haven’t even got to photo wall month yet, and we’re already thinking about decking.  In the meantime, our bedroom still looks like a crime scene.  What will we tackle next?