Phew!

Here we are, at the end of 2 weeks of disruption, mess, dust, noise and lots of cups of tea. Finally, the new kitchen is in and complete. I keep walking into the room and being a little amazed at how different two kitchens can look!

The second week was much better than the first. Not only were there no new surprises, but progress could be seen on a daily basis. After all, the cabinet fitting bit is easy when there are non-crumbling walls to fit them to. Laying the flooring did apparently give a bit of trouble. Anyone who lives in a century-old house will, I’m sure, have experienced wonkiness in almost every surface, door frame and fitting. Our kitchen floor is no exception. In fact, it posed something of an issue when choosing what to put down. We had thought about wood or wood laminate, but it has a rather high risk of water damage. Stone tiles were out unless we wanted to spend an absolute fortune having the joists strengthened and plywood and packing laid to ensure a completely level surface. Vinyl was a possibility, but it wouldn’t necessarily have lasted as long as the kitchen and, as it’s better to have the flooring go under the cabinets, wouldn’t be easy to replace. In the end, our fitters recommended a laminate product that comes in tiles or planks and has a hard core that makes provides good water resistance, and which can be fitted on an uneven surface with underlay. Apparently, though, one corner was so uneven, fixing it provoked the utterance of choice swearwords. Luckily, I wasn’t present, because they would never have sworn in front of me, and I gather the fitter really needed to let of steam.

In fact, I can’t praise my fitters highly enough. They really were great. Not only were they polite, friendly and very funny, but they really seemed to know what they were doing, didn’t overcharge me for anything, left everything tidy every night, and managed to avoid getting a single mark on the new carpet! They drank plenty of tea – obligatory – but they also worked from 8am to 6pm every day without stopping for lunch.

Another major difference between week 1 and week 2 was the purchase of a combination microwave, grill and oven. We were both sick of takeaway food after 6 days, and the prospect having no means to eat anything but that for another week was a bit much. That said, we’ve never owned any form of microwave while cohabiting, and our collective experience before that stretched to heating tinned vegetables or cooking baking potatoes or scrambled eggs. The prospect of using it was, therefore, a bit scary, but we went for it, and I feel rather proud of that we managed to make two pasta dishes and a chicken Thai green curry with basmati rice.  We also were able to defrost and heat a lovely beef stew I’d made a while ago and have that with baked potatoes. I am, however, looking forward to having my pans and oven back this week!

More news from the new kitchen soon, but now I’m off to fill the cupboards and get on with some cooking. Day-by-day pictures of progress are below. 

Day 6, the flooring is down and the first cabinets are up on the walls.

Day 7, more cabinets are in and it’s really starting to look like a kitchen.

Day 8, handles, worktops, sink and an extractor make it look even more shiny and new.

Day 9, it doesn’t look like that much has happened, but there are around 250 tiles on those walls and the other invisible bits and bobs have been done

Day 10, the grouting is done, the appliances are in, the electrics have been connected and certified, and it’s mine, all mine! 

Can’t cook, won’t cook

So, you might have noticed that it’s been quite quiet on the blog front. But what could have happened in the meantime to warrant such a title for this post? Let me reassure you, I am not suffering from recipe amnesia. The title relates not to ability, but rather lack of facility.

Finally, after 5 years in the house we are replacing the kitchen. Now, as kitchens go, what we had could have been much worse and did serve enough of purpose to ignore it for a while. However, over the past 2 years, things have started to fray at the edges. As you can see from the before photo below, someone didn’t believe in cupboards. All our crockery, glasses and mugs etc have been living on a huge shelf. This isn’t so bad for anything used frequently, but for everything else the battle against grease deposits has been constant. The shelf in one of the cupboards collapsed a while ago, heat was available from only 60% of the hob, the ceiling was cracked and wobbly and, all in all, the bits we inherited with the house that hadn’t already been replaced had become a bit rickety. So, disruptive as it is, a replacement was called for.

 

The job hasn’t, however, been quite as straightforward as hoped. On day 1 the fitters ripped out the old units and with them fell substantial areas of the wall plaster, right back to the brick. In one area, although the brick wasn’t exposed, there were at least three distinct layers of plaster built out to a couple of inches in thickness, the reasoning behind and the solidity of which were in question. We had planned to have the ceiling replaced and the walls skimmed anyway, but this was a bit more than we bargained for. Nevertheless, we couldn’t continue without getting it fixed, so I threw caution to the wind and said “Do what you need to do”. Having been hiding back upstairs with my cup of tea, I was called back to the kitchen by the plea “Could you just come and have a look at this” – not the most welcome of phrases. This was followed by a conversation involving electrical jargon, such as ring mains, spurs and junctions, but which culminated in the word “bad”, so I threw caution to the wind and said “Do what you need to do”.

Thus, my 1-week kitchen fit (which I always thought was ambitious but about which I was pleased) has extended in duration and cost. On the plus side, I will know that we’re not going to burn to death or get a shock every time I switch on the hob or hand blender, and that the cabinets won’t fall off the walls. Plus, there’s something so pleasing about seeing a wreck become a newly plastered room!

Here are some pictures of the progress so far.

Day 1, the bricks are showing and the ceiling has been pulled down.

 

Day 2, the basis of a new ceiling is in place, but the electrics have been condemned.

 

Day 3, the holes are repaired, the walls are UniBond-a-go-go and the first layers of plaster have gone on the ceiling and one wall.

Day 4, plastering completed.

Day 5, new cabling is in, sockets and switches are fitted and the ceiling lights are in place.

In the meantime, I'll keep managing in the makeshift mini-kitchen and remembering that things could be one hell of a lot worse! Roll on Friday...