Tag: worktop

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.

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.

The joiner cometh

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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

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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

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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!

Ode to a kitchen (oven remix)

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I have been informed by a friend (hello, Jaye!) that it is completely couth to love inanimate objects (see: Ode to an oven), so let me say it now: I love our new kitchen units. They’re not even fully unpacked yet and I love them! It’s like Christmas (well, a sight better than this Christmas actually).

The purple is richer than I remembered, and the white looks sharp and clean (it was displayed with cream in the showroom, so we hadn’t actually seen it with white).  It will be great when we get the doors on.

I think getting the worktop cut will be an extra for which we may actually have to pay, but it’ll be worth it to get it right. It would be very expensive to get wrong!  I can’t wait to get the guy round to do this so that we can start using our sink.  We do have a functioning dishwasher, but larger items are currently being washed in the bath!

The tile of my life

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Many of my posts include the words I can’t decide, or something to that effect.  I hadn’t realised I was so indecisive!  Because we’re spending a lot of money on the kitchen especially (and will continue to do so for, oh, the next three years), we want it to be perfect.

I’m going to continue with affirmative phrases.  I like kitchen tiles.  We’re having an upstand made of the same wood as the worktop (walnut), but I believe that we need something above that to protect the walls.  We will be getting tiles of some description.  I like the tiles that are rectangular, like bricks.  I like these ones from Wickes (pictured).

But!  Is it boring to have white tiles, or is it chic?  Do we have enough colour with the purple units on the bottom?  What shall we have for tea?

Decisions, decisions…

Barry and I made a little trip to a friend’s this weekend so Barry could put a coat hook in their solid wall because he’s got a fancy drill.  We were talking about how nice it was to do a job and it having a definite ending!  We were also instructed to take a photo for the blog.

He’s spent the weekend here plastering and sanding – I can’t even help at this stage, which is frustrating for me, but probably more so for him.

We’ve had our first visits from friends to see the new space (and have a cup of tea, of course!), and the items we were selling on eBay have all sold, which is good.  Money is now being automatically translated into its equivalent value in DIY or household materials.  But would you pay £26 for a used loo (= a tin of paint)?