Day 367: The Great Peninsula

This weekend's little task was to complete the worktop on the peninsula. If you've read my previous posts on worktops, you'll know that we have a bit of a love-hate relationship going on... mostly hate.

What I don't like about them:

• They are heavy
• They are unforgiving
• Cutting is messy

But a kitchen without a worktop wouldn't get me any Brownie points. And I'd probably lose my DIY license around the house. So off I go.

The countertop was rough cut to size and scribed previously but not fastened down. I still needed a sliver of counter to go on the other side of the range. The fancy jig shown below was to keep everything straight whilst the glue was setting. In the end, it wasn't at all necessary. But still a cool setup.

Next came the edging. As the countertop had to be cut to size, there was one rough edge. This was lightly sanded down to prepare for the edging strip. The capital pine worktop has a rounded ABS edge that is impact resistant and can be sanded down to get a nice rounded edge. It is quite thick and sold in rolls, making it somewhat difficult to fix in place. 

I held it down with a straight piece of wood and clamps and applied contact adhesive to both the edging strip and the cut edge of the worktop. I should mention now that the adhesive was all green, tree hugger, save the dolphin friendly. I could probably drink the stuff. And did it work ... NO! So lesson learned, drive a Prius if you want to save the whales but make sure to use solvents if you want your countertop edging to stick.

With the edging on (finally) the countertop was ready to go back into place and fastened down.

 

And the fit was of course perfect.

Amazon to the rescue. My super solvent, hazardous, ozone and small animal killing extreme mega grip contact adhesive showed up not a minute too soon. And did it work ... YES!!!!!

Countertop's on and fastened down, edging tightly glued, drawers installed .. welcome to the Great Peninsula

Day 369: A spooky Halloween update

What a difference a year makes.

Last year, I was stripping Artex and knocking down walls. The only Halloween decoration was a half-filled skip out front of the house. The place had natural spooky appeal I guess. Kids didn't want to go near the place as they were under the impression we were hosting a meth lab. Check out the Walter White costume - BTW this was pointed out to me after the fact, not at all intentional.

This year, We added a few skeletons, spiders (the original ones gave up and left), tomb stones and lots of scary sound effects. And a spooky vampire princess and witch to boot. And the kids came ... in significant numbers I may add. What a difference a year makes. Next year the plan is to set up a Halloween shot bar out front for the adults, and continue with the treats for the kiddies.

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.