Tag: progress

Ta-da!

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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

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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.

Weekend

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Phew, we have had a busy weekend of running around! I would say it’s nice to get back to work, but I would really rather be at home, plus Barry’s away in London working all this week. Sad face.

On Saturday, I received a call from my brother, who wanted to talk about work for an hour. Grabbing breakfast in between, we then drove to Next in Bradford to pick up the new living room curtains (very exciting, they look great!), and then on to Wakefield to pick up a coffee machine Barry had proudly won on eBay. It turned out to be an espresso machine and the pot was meant for four cups of espresso, not coffee. Cute, but not what we’re looking for. That will need to be relisted.

We then got home to start listing the old kitchen units, oven and hob on eBay, zapped some leftovers in the microwave for lunch, and got a call from my best friend Charlie, almost on the verge of tears. To set the scene, she, her boyfriend, and baby, were moving on Saturday, and would not accept any offers of help (the baby may have but he can’t talk yet). Anyway, they were moving back to their old house, which they’d been renting out, and it appears the tenants changed the locks. We drove to Otley to pick up the keys from the agency and took them over so they could actually get into the house. Not before a friendly locksmith had charged them £60 callout! We were supposed to go back later for a celebratory curry, but that, unsurprisingly, didn’t happen.

Got back home, I finished listing the stuff on eBay (there’s a big gap between the finishing times!) while Barry got cracking with the kitchen. As he’s away this week, he didn’t want to leave me with a completely non-functioning kitchen, so he was trying to get all the wall units up.

We were supposed to be having takeaway at Charlie’s, and I sadly can’t deal with the unfulfilled promise of curry, so we had takeaway for tea anyway. Couldn’t have cooked, the kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it.

There was less running around on Sunday. Barry got cracking putting up doors on all units, putting the drawers together, the handles on the top units, and the cooker hood. It’s made a huge difference – it almost looks finished now! He only had until 4pm yesterday as he had to set off for London, and there’ll be no progress until next weekend now. I’ll get some photos up tomorrow.

Progress

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Barry started building cabinets yesterday, it’s very exciting because there’s visible evidence that we’re making progress (unlike painting the ceiling white).  We did come across some problems though – the B&Q designer seems to have taken a little liberty with the measurements Barry provided so we’re having to “make do” with some elements, which isn’t ideal.  We also put the double cabinet together for the sink to go in, only to find the sink won’t fit!

Anyway, for those of you who watch Project Runway, we’ll “make it work”.  Photos of the progress below!