The almighty job of renovating our kitchen has begun. This is the room we have wanted to do the most, but it’s the most expensive so far so we have had to wait. Here’s how the kitchen was before we started work. This picture makes it look a lot wider then it is! And cleaner! And less shabby!!
The cupboard under the sink housed dog paraphernalia (it’s amazing how much stuff two dogs can collect) and various house cleaning products. Oh and some salad and mixing bowls, and some vases! The corner cupboard to the left was where all our crockery was stored. It was treacherous opening it as most stuff was precariously balanced. If you ever felt like baking all crockery needed to be removed first before you could get anywhere need the baking trays!! It was usually enough to put you off any spontaneous baking. We also kept our pots and pans in here too. The wall cupboard to the right housed our boiler. The wall cupboard on the left housed glasses and food. It was a tight squeeze so we also ended up with a shelving unit from the shed in there too for more food and drink storage.
On the floor there were the original tiles however as the kitchen is in the old extension on the back of the house, it doesn’t have proper foundations and the tiles are pretty much straight on top of the ground. It got very cold in there in the winter, you could feel the cold creeping up your shins. The fact there was no heating didn’t help either! Jus and I would take it in turns to run in there to make a cuppa when we first moved in! We did have lino down when when we rented the house, until my Dad’s dog Mimi came for a holiday. She took it upon herself to remove the lino one day and tear it up into little pieces in her bed. We aren’t sure if Bramble and Holly were also involved but the fact that Mimi collected all the little pieces in her bed didn’t help her defence! We had to buy the house after that!
The original layout of doors and windows in the kitchen meant it was difficult to make good use of the already small space. It measures 2m 90cm by about 2m 20, and has two doors and window. To make better use of the space Jus and I had the doorway into the room moved to the centre of the wall, when we had work done on the dining room. Click here to see that post.
We have now gone from the picture above to this…
and then from that to this…
We removed the kitchen and the plumber has replaced and moved the boiler. Our original plan had been to simply move the original boiler as it worked fine, however finding a new flue for our cheap boiler was proving expensive. The boiler was about 5-6 years old already so would possibly have needed replacing in the next couple of years. It worked OK, but at the moment we have an electric shower, which will be going. Running a bath off it had never been great so running a shower off it as we plan to would have been difficult. So we reluctantly had to pay out for a new boiler much sooner then expected, and this added a significant amount to our kitchen budget. However it is done now, and there was always the potential that moving the old boiler may have damaged it anyway. The pipes running to and from the boiler have also been moved to allow for the building work we are currently having done.
Today the builders and Tom have raised the floor so it is suspended and insulated and therefore hopefully much warmer. They have also bricked up the old back door and put a window in, and removed all the old plaster off the walls. Tomorrow they will be knocking the wall out under the old window, and turning it into a door. The brickwork is also being changed so the back door is opposite the entrance into the ktiichen to allow 60cm of kitchen cabinets either side. Hopefully turning our postage stamp kitchen into a much more user friendly galley kitchen! Hooray!
Meanwhile the rest of our house looks like this…
We didn’t dare start the work without knowing we were able to buy the kitchen on interest free finance first from Ikea, and then it was delivered far quicker then we imagined. So that is in the dining room, along with all our food, crockery and other kitchen things, plus the builder’s tools and materials, and all the stuff that was already in the dining room. Lets hope we aren’t living like this for too long. And yes that last picture is the silhouette of Toms keys marked out by the dust that escaped through the dust sheets and into our living room. It is everywhere!!
