Day 250: A top counter

Now that the countertop finally arrived, it was time to get started mounting it. Luckily the counter was 665mm deep and not the standard 600mm - good thing as my dishwasher-pipe issues forced me to move all the cabinets out an extra 30mm. The other concern was the length - 3m. This causes 2 issues - it's both very long and yet not long enough. 3m is a right PITA to move around .. the fact that it's 45kg also doesn't help. But importantly, it's just long enough to use for other side of the corner unit .. and I mean just - we're talking mm's to spare.

 

So first, I needed to build a frame to support the countertop. As there is only a 500mm base unit - it doesn't provide much support. I built a frame into the wall on both sides of the space. The pipes were a bit tricky to work around and it took a few pieces of 25x50 softwood to get it right. The wood was drilled into the brick, so it's plenty secure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, I enlisted the help of Carolyn "Pipes" Braendli to help me lift the countertop onto the saw horses. She did most of the lifting, I did most of the moaning. In order to get a reasonable cut (no second chances here), I used a new 60 tooth fine blade in my circular saw and used some extra 25x50 wood as a guide to get a straight cut. First cutting the end off and then paring the down the back of the counter to give a nice 40mm overhang from the front of the carcass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And with a little more huffing and puffing, "Pipes" and I fit the counter into place. And it fit! and it was level! I would normally say "of course it did" but given the wall has more twists and turns than British politics, I was a bit happily surprised. I'll chalk it down to careful measurements and plenty of luck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the counter in place, I was able to mark out the sink location and the high points to ensure a snug fit. More huffing and puffing and the counter was back on the saw horses for a little skilled cutting - this time using a jigsaw and a special laminate downward cutting blade.

 

A helpful hint that I learned on YouTube was to not fully cut out the sink hole (just realised the double meaning) as the counter could snap on it's way back in. No thanks! I cut out the difficult bits and left the rest for cutting out in-situ. And back the countertop went for hopefully the last time. Frankly, "Pipes" was starting to show off by this point, doing the whole thing in sandals and carrying the countertop with one hand.

With the counter back in place, I needed to cut back the carcass to allow me to fasten the retaining clips and ensure enough clearance. Finally, it was time to mount the sink. A little silicon on the underside and clips fastened in place and it was ready to go.

























The last photo shows the finished product (well finished for today) with the new taps mounted. Plumbing, we'll that still needs to be hooked up. But Rome (or its kitchens) was not built in a day (or on a single blog post) so plumbing will need to wait.

Day 221: The long road to cabinets

CAUTION .. THIS POST CONTAINS LANGUAGE NOT SUITABLE FOR YOUNGER AUDIENCES

 

How long is the road you may ask .... long enough to warrant multiple (expletive) posts. This is one of many.

 

So, on the Sunday before Care and kiddies arrived back from Canada, I find myself once again without a floor. Seemed like familiar ground after the ordeal with the bathroom.

 

This time, I was replacing some old (probably older than me) chipboard under the kitchen cabinets. Chipboard is great because it's cheap. It's also not so great because it's cheap. Do not under any circumstances use it where it would ever come into contact with water. So you can imagine what it was like in the kitchen...

 

So after lifting the chipboard, I was less than pleased to find one of the joists performing some kind of balancing act upon 3 bricks. Slightly less than the stable floor that I was looking for. This was quickly remedied by making a new joist across the sleeper walls (top one in the picture) and adding an additional noggin for lateral support. After this was remedied, it was time for the new floor - 18mm ply. Sturdy and much better around wetter areas.

 

Finally, came the cabinets. As you can see from the photo, our office is a warehouse of flat pack craziness. First, always good to start with the corner units. Particularly this one as I had to notch it to fit around the support post. Notching is not the easiest task for cabinets, and took a bit of trial and error but I finally got it to fit where I wanted it. Then came the washer - which was (expletive) heavy. And then the sink cabinet, which was a breeze to fit after the corner cabinet ordeal.

 

Finally, I fit the dishwasher. And (BIG EXPLETIVE), it didn't clear the pipework at the back. Why on earth, do they design a d/w that doesn't have clearance at the back. Not like you need to run it close to pipework or anything (sarcastic expletive).

 

So, everything needed to come out from the wall by 3cm. Fine for the sink cabinet. Not so fine for the (expletive) corner cabinet. This needed to be cut back yet again. I'm unfortunately becoming an expert at notching cabinets.

 

That all finished, I was ready to start on the countertop .. except there was no (expletive) countertop. The one item that didn't ship. Not a bad thing as the original one would have been too shallow after everything was shifted 3cm. A call over to B&Q and the countertop is on order - why the call was necessary in the first place, who knows.

 

So there you go, the first entry in the long road to cabinets .. and apologies for the strong language. I've started to adopt builder lingo ...

 



 

Day 234: Skip be gone

Skips look really large when they're empty and really small when they're full ..

 

2 weeks worth of demo and my 8 yarder had little room to spare. Bye-bye old kitchen.

 

Stay tuned ... I'm sure the skip will make an appearance sometime soon when I start my next "project"

 

 

Scott starts the kitchen renovation so Carolyn goes on holiday!

Over the May half term, our kitchen was being gutted, every window replaced and the radiators relocated.  Best not to have the kids in the house.  The solution?  Carolyn to take them on holiday to Canada!

So...while Scott was slaving away ripping out ceilings and walls and floors we were lounging poolside, hiking, dining and having a great time with family and friends. 

Seem a bit unfair?  Well, as you can see from all his posts, Scott loves the challenge of this project and I don't think he would have wanted it any other way.  Plus, I'm confident he was happy to work on this stage without the distractions from us, and I had our neighbours keeping their eye out to make sure he didn't impale himself with some random tool. 

We returned to a kitchen in progress (as was fully expected) but I can honestly say Scott's done an incredible job in a short amount of time.  As always, his work is of the highest standard and we're really proud of all he's achieved so far!

Day 218: Open and shut

We brought in Falcon Windows to replace all the windows in the house. They already did the bathroom but this was the remainder now. They came highly recommended by Stuart and Michelle next door.

The first day, they dropped off the windows but couldn't start as they were having resource issues (injuries etc.) No worries though as it poured buckets all day long/ Payback for the nice sunny long weekend. Not a good day to be creating large openings in the house

But when they came back the next day, they worked at a frantic pace, installing all 4 upstairs windows in a day (some still needed to be finished). By Friday, they were all done. The windows looked great and really block out the noise from the outside ... making this house seem much more lonely.

The plaster around the windows however just crumbled away. More opportunity for Scott to become a master plasterer. 120 years does not do wonders for old plaster. I wonder if someone will be complaining about my plastering work in 2136? But I'm sure by then, robots will do all the work using lazers and carbon nano tubes and could re-plaster the house in 30 min anyway.

The only thing that I didn't realise is that the drapes were attached to the old frames and had to come down. That and the old windows didn't really have high visibility inside and out. That's no longer the case and I feel pretty exposed. Hello neighbours!

3rd bedroom from the outside and old kitchen window

3rd bedroom from the inside. Window feels bigger than the rest of the room

A hole in the wall

Hole filled

The final result .. just need curtains

Day 219: Starting to look better

Truthfully, this update is spanning a couple of days. It's been a busy week.

 

So, as much of the walls were completely shot. I took most of the plasterwork back to brick and dry-lined the masonry using a technique called dot and dab which basically involves splattering some drywall adhesive to the bricks and pushing the board into place. However, in other places the plaster was fighting back. A brick bolster and lots of smashing could not persuade it to leave the wall. In those places, I will need to make the plaster good again. Personally, would have preferred that it all just fell off,

 

Tom mounted the new vertical (designer?) rad in the kitchen. Even after moving everything around with the new kitchen, the only spot where the rad could realistically go was next to the boiler. And even then, it wasn't a very wide spot, so we went up. Overally, I think it looks pretty good and should keep the room warm. But with the new floors, new double glased windows and added insulation, maybe an overkill. It has a thermostatic valve so we can knock it down if need be.

 

I boarded up one of the windows as we're going to be putting a cabinet in that place. This will be plastered over and will not be noticeable from the inside. Not sure yet what we're going to be doing on the outside. Subject of another post I'm sure

 

 

 

Before



During (check out the nifty new stainless steel 3 way dimmer

Perfectly level .... of course

 

After .. no more brick

Around where the range is going

Check out that sexy rad on the newly plastered wall

Making the wall look better.





Window boarded up



New windows and new plaster around them to make good

Day 217: Bringing down da house

Been a busy couple of days at the house, so just starting to get caught up on my blog updates.

The only thing more damaging than a man with a saw and a hammer is 4 men with 4 saws and 4 hammers. Today the calvalry arrived, Falcon Windows and Tom to move things along. The house was a complete construction site.

The last thing to take out of the kitchen was the countertop. The boiler piping was nicely weaved in and out of the countertop and well beyond my tool and skill capacity. Tom helped out with his Dewalt oscillating multi-tool - an amazing piece of kit that made short work of the counter

And that was it. The kitchen was no longer a kitchen. Not really sure what it was really. Just a mess I think.

We also started taking up the floor and found some nice disco tiling. It wasn't going to be Staying Alive for very long however. Problem was that it was nailed and glued down and didn't want to give up without a fight. We got there in the end and finally found the floorboards.

The piping underneath was a rats nest. Tom fixed it up with some lay flat plastic pipe. Also really cool stuff. Getting lengths of copper under the floor would have been next to impossible. Which is why the original was so crooked.

We (Tom) also drilled a new hole for the kitchen waste pipe to make it easier to connect the sink in the new location.

This will the worst the kitchen will look hopefully .. now the rebuild begins. As a taste, I've shown the wall that I've re-plastered which is where the new rad will be going. Overall, happy with the result.

Stay tuned. Lots of more updates to come .....