Day 361: When a kitchen looks like a kitchen ..

Now that the kitchen floor is down, we can really focus on getting the rest of the kitchen in place. I'm looking forward to getting my office back. It's pretty much been a box room for the last couple of months.

This weekend the target was getting a wall cabinet up and putting in the breakfast bar "island". Update: Joan has since correctly pointed out that it's really more of a peninsula as it's connected on one side.

First the cabinet. Not many pictures of this getting built as it was pretty easy to assemble on the ground. As you can tell from the snugness and the sloping ceiling - it was less easy to manipulate into place. Hence difficult to capture the moment. Believe me, lots of grunting and grown up words. But we got there eventually ..

Next came the island/breakfast bar/cabinet/peninsula thing. First thing to do was assemble the cabinets. We've got a 600mm 3 drawer unit tied to a 300mm simple cabinet. This gives the right length to get 2 stools on the other side and lots of storage space. I've done enough of these to be able to quickly bang them together. The most time consuming part was trying to balance all 8 legs.

 

After that, it was time for the countertop. I really don't enjoy countertops to be honest. You basically get one shot and if you measure/cut wrong .. that's it. Fist part was getting the supports onto the wall to hold the back side. This will provide strength and since it's the only part fixed to anything, it needed to be sturdy. No worries about this thing moving anywhere.

 

Then the cutting started. Basically a combination of circular saw with a fine blade to get the straight lines with a jigsaw to cover the fancy cuts. The garden ended up looking like a sawmill with all the random cuts I was making.

 

The challenge here was the irregular shape of the cut and the need to join the main section with the little sliver of cabinet going down the left of the range. I ended up doing a bit of an offset cut which should make the joint less obvious. Let's see. The other challenge was getting the right size of overhang. The internet is full of opinions, some I'm sure are right. Apparently the recommendation for breakfast bars goes from 6" min to 18" max. 6 is too small to get even little legs under. 18 wouldn't haver let us get by the bar, and would have looked a bit silly, and was wider than countertop allowed, and probably would have snapped anyway.

 

Needless to say, we went with a compromise .. 9". It felt about right and didn't take up too much real estate in the kitchen. And my apologies if you bang your knees or spill food on your trousers when you visit.

 

Anyway, I think we've hit the magical day when the kitchen is starts to look like ... a kitchen. I think I may just hang out in this room and forget about the rest of the house.

 

 

Day 348: Getting to the bottom of things Part II

With the floors in somewhat decent condition, I turned to making them look a bit better. Dreaming of a day when shoes won't have to be worn in the kitchen.

First came the underlay. I picked up a special kind designed for wooden subfloors with plenty of cushioning, some thermal insulation and most important, an integrated moisture barrier. Laying the stuff was a piece of cake. It comes in accordion form and can easily be spread out and cut to length with a Stanley knife. If your knife doesn't have Stanley written on it - I'm sure it will work too (however not confirmed). I did the floor in sections so that I didn't have to walk all over the underlay with my big size 10 boots.

Next came the laminate flooring. We elected to get a 12mm thick version to provide a much sturdier floor. I have seen way too many springy installations in my lifetime. The flooring was a breeze to put down. Had it not rained, I could have finished the entire job in a day. Cutting laminate flooring in the rain using power tools is not recommended.

The tricky parts were the bits around the corner, around the radiator and under the counters. But after making some skill cuts, everything was fit and click. I left a min 10 mm gap around all the edges to allow for expansion. For the radiator pipes, the secret is to cut the hole and then cut the back on an angle (like a keyhole) to slide it on. The back of the keyhole can then be glued back using a strong wood adhesive and and the holes covered using specialised, well, hole covers. I actually sound like I know what I'm doing. In fact, best place to look is on YouTube - there are tonnes of useful videos from independents and chains like B&Q.

On the annoying side, I had to disconnect the dishwasher and washing machine to run the flooring underneath. This was done to allow easy sliding in and out of the appliances (no ridge) but also to ensure the gap wouldn't be seen. Mostly for the washer as it doesn't have a kicker board (or plinth as the posh Brits would say). 

After a rain and pub delay, the work was soon complete. As you can see from the results, it has made a drastic improvement. No more shoes needed in the kitchen. 

On to the appliances and cabinets!!!

BTW .. if you like the colour, I won the "discussion". However, if you don't like the colour, then it was a completely mutual, collaborative decision.

Day 347: Getting to the bottom of things - Part I

Almost ready to put down the new laminate flooring. But first, I needed to get the sub-floor straight (quite literally), Some spots were good, some were OK and some were not very good. As the floor would be covered with plaster, dust, paint and who knows what else, we decided to do this part last. But hey, after it goes down, the rest of the kitchen can go back in.

When we removed the previous flooring, we noticed that the cross joist had moved off the sleeper wall. I pushed this back on and added some additional bracing to make sure it stayed put. With this all in place, on went the new floorboard. I picked up some square edge boards from B&Q. These were great - most of all the other ones that I've seen were tongue and groove. Not so good when the rest of the boards are square edge.

I progressed around the room ripping up all the old boards that had seen better days. Everything was battened down with a generous helping of wood screws to keep the flexing and squeaking to a minimum. 

Then I had to go round and lift/hammer down all the remaining nails. There were about 50 of them. This was after removing well over 1000 in the last couple of months. Why so many nails? No idea, but really annoying.

After that, just some scraping of plaster and paint and lots and lots of sweeping getting ready for the new flooring to go down.

Day 340: A family painting day

Now that the walls are plastered, time to get on with the painting. We've given the plaster about a week so it was dry to touch but still not thoroughly dried. I picked up special bare plaster paint from ScrewFix that both provides sufficient priming to newly plastered walls but also allows them to continue drying. I picked up a bunch of other materials as well to complete the job.

First step, preparation. The walls were good but not perfect. Some minor imperfections needed to be be filled using some fine surface filler. As stated on the tin, this stuff goes on smooth. A I learned however, don't chuck too much on as it's a pain to sand down afterwards.

After the walls were prepped, on went the paint. I enlisted help from the whole family for this. Some paint actually made it onto the walls. I think the kids enjoyed helping out - Ash especially.

So I was pretty impressed with the "No Nonsense" bare plaster paint. No watering down needed, good coverage properties and goes on nice and thick to hide any minor imperfections. 20L was enough for 2 coats on all surfaces of the kitchen. It's very white however. Our kitchen looks much brighter, albeit a bit clinical.

Next up, the floors .. 

All the materials needed ...

For the minor blemishes...

Caitlin did actually paint .. just not when the camera was on

Ash was right into in however ..

Fascinating ..

Covered in paint .. and loving it.

Attention to detail

One very white kitchen

From a different angle ..

Day 330: Getting plastered

Finally, everything was now ready for Jim to do his magic and make the walls look like, .. um walls. I've tried and failed to plaster myself. It's one of those things where you can get 90% there, but you will forever be noticing that 10%. That and I'd probably be dropping my share of grown-up words in the process. Best to leave this one to the pro's

Personally, I've been looking forward to this moment as the kitchen will start looking finished. I'm getting a bit tired of the "character" finish walls and ceiling.

So after 2 days, Jim is in Mexico and our the walls are now nice and smooth. A little prep work and we will be ready for paint ..

BTW .. the lights had to come down to do the plasterin' .. They'll go back up when we've painted.

Day 323: Crazy tapin'

So fast approaching a big milestone on the kitchen. Plaster time!

Jim is booked in a couple of days and the kitchen isn't quite ready. Key thing now is to finish taping the plasterboard. Key to avoid cracks in the not to distant future along the joints. The secret is to avoid air bubbles under the tape - sounds easy enough - but after a full day of work and having to go up and down the ladder to do the umpteenth strip of tape on the ceiling it's easy to miss. And believe me, it's a right PITA to remedy afterwards. Luckily only a couple of spots in the room needed a little TLC.

Corner joints were covered with a metal bead to get a nice smooth line and protect the walls from future bumps. With 2 little ones, that's pretty much guaranteed.

Everything is starting to take form now. Can't wait to see what it looks like without all the "character features" on the wall. Stay tuned ...

Day 320: Time Capsule

We decided to leave our mark on the property in a different way today by building a time capsule. I doubt that this will have the same impact as the Boston Time Capsule - but hey, you never know.

So the key question .. what do you put in one of these things? Obviously nothing of too much value as we are essentially throwing it away, to possibly be found some ways away in the future, if ever. A little research online didn't help much - it appears there isn't a consensus on what people in the future (or aliens) would hope to find in such a piece of history.

So we looked around the house and decided to put in the following:

• The Economist (best way for future people to understand current news around the world)
• Time Out London (so future people can get a glimpse of life in London)
• City AM (just for the title, post Brexit they may not be saying much of that for a while)
• A letter to future people telling them about us and the work we are doing on the house - D'Oh, forgot to put a link to this website. There again, I'm sure this site will be a household name by the time anyone opens the capsule#
• Photos - of course. Maybe a bit creepy, but needed to be done. Random pictures of the family and the house
• Money £££ - not a lot, just a selection of random coins. Guess it replaces the shilling that I found earlier
• Single socks - they must have ended up in there, as I can never find a matching pair these days!

All of these things were then placed in a Tupperware container and sealed with Duct Tape. Both are scientific marvels of today in their own right.

The container was then place in a secret location..... The fireplace opening in our kitchen that we are closing off. Shhhhh, don't tell anyone ...

The box fit nicely on top of the old chimney stone. And then it was covered with a piece of plasterboard and taped over. Later this will be plastered and painted and nobody (aside from my loyal blog readers) will know it's there. 

Just a little piece of history waiting to be found.