Tag: sander

Black as night

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I’m off work today to wait in for a B&Q delivery (allegedly this should be the last).

This weekend, we took a deep breath and did it – we’ve painted most of the west wall in the kitchen black!  We decided against painting it with chalkboard paint, although looking at it, it’s probably the same stuff anyway.  Still need to do the edges but the majority’s done.

Barry’s also put the splashback under the cooker hood and built the unit that goes on the other side.

We also visited my ex-uncle this weekend with his broken and new sanders.  He was lovely about it and said we shouldn’t have, and there was much merriment about lending us tools that were on their way out!

Barry’s got lots of fiddly things to do now in the kitchen, like fixing the electric plug and gas hose behind the oven, starting to build a cupboard for the boiler, and then putting handles on all of the purple doors and drawers.  He’s going to ring the joiner this week as well; I cannot wait for the sink to be sorted!

Neither a borrower nor a lender be

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My ex-uncle (he used to be married to my dad’s sister) lives about five minutes from our house and loves DIY.  He has any possible conceivable tool, power or standard.  He can advise on plastering, putting up kitchen cupboards, decking, etc., etc.  This gentleman kindly lent his ex-nephew-in-law (can you be an ex-nephew-in-law if we were married after they divorced?) and I his (used) Bosch power sander and a set of stepladders for the various jobs we need to do.

Complicated family politics aside, the sander broke after we’d had it a few hours and so we faced the dilemma: to buy or not to buy the replacement?  Of course, we did, but I really begrudged shelling out £33 on a sander we won’t get to keep and barely got use from.  I’m hoping the stepladders don’t jump out of the car when we’re returning them!

You live and you learn; we will probably just buy a tool next time we need it – at least we’ll get to keep it!  On the plus side, my ex-uncle will be happy and if we do need to borrow something again, he will hopefully be obliging because we’ve been honest.  I say hopefully, because I’m actually telling you before I’m telling him…

On an unrelated note, I thought I’d put up a couple of photos of the kitchen before we do anything to it for posterity’s sake.  Excuse the mess, we’re decorating!

This is the wall (both sides) that will soon be no more.  It holds two radiators, a thermostat, and three light switches that need moving.

There’s a little bay window which would be nice for a table once we’ve got some more space.  The blinds are down because we don’t want people to think we’re complete layabouts without knowing why the kitchen’s in a state!  Not sure where we’re going to put the oven when the wall’s come down, think we can just shuffle it about.

We’re keeping the fridge…

Yes, we had pizza for tea that night…

We’re also keeping the dishwasher and washing machine…

The kitchen is perfectly serviceable and we would probably have kept it for years if we hadn’t have been extending it, but it’s not what we would have chosen ourselves.