Kitchen Makeover - Part 4 - On the homeward straight

The kitchen was really starting to look like a proper room now with its Calico walls and cream floor tiles

This is the view from the hall doorway towards the french doors leading to the orangery, which was jam packed with kitchen units...

This is from the back door to where my sink, dishwasher and washing would be going.

Again from the back door towards the hall doorway

And finally from the hall doorway towards the back door.

The next stage was fitting in the units and this is a story in itself.....so you'll have to wait for the next post!!

Kitchen Makeover - Part 3 - Plastering and Painting

This is a nice short post as it shows what the kitchen looked like once it has been plastered, this also meant that although we had a break from having the builders in it also meant two whole days of painting as I as I was determined to paint the whole room (i know I'm mad!!) as I didn't want to have to paint around the units!!!

There are no pictures of me or the painting as I was just too busy and too exhausted to take any. All I remember is that on the second day of painting I was locked in the kitchen with the radio, the paint and the paint tray and wasn't allowed out. With my cups of tea and lunch being passed through the window!!! I finally finished about 4 o'clock that evening and we all went out and enjoyed a lovely meal at Frankie and Benny's....
I still have a few bits to finish and the skirting to paint and with my lot running in and out all day the nice calico coloured walls are in need of a bit of a touch up but on the whole it does look lovely and clean (ish) and fresh...

Kitchen Makeover - Part 2 - Ripping Out & Making Good

I'd forgotten just how hectic January was for us this year in the first week we had the final two wooden windows replaced and the new oak porch added to the back door and no sooner had that finished the builders arrived again to start on the kitchen. It was rather a manic couple of days if I remember rightly as I only had one day to box up and empty the kitchen and I think I was still finishing off when the builders arrived early in the morning.

This post shows the kitchen space with all the units removed.

See I hadn't quite finished tidying everything away, well they did want bacon sandwiches didn't they???

More progress with the first fix for the electrics, trying to decide where I wanted all those sockets!!!

The ceiling had to come down again for the electrics but this was an easy job (shes says not having had to do it!) as the panels had been screwed in place..

The big machinery was out today because the old floor tiles had to come up and trenches dug out for new water pipes and the gas pipe for the hob. We also found that part of the floor wasn't level so that had to come up to and then all be levelled off ready for my lovely new flooring.

It's starting to look more like a room again now with the last of the plasterboard going up.

The rsj's are finally boxed in...

This last picture shows what I was using for a washing up bowl in the very very cold garage that was our makeshift kitchen as well as the storage room for the builders tools etc, thank god for good friends, takeaways and launderettes!!!

Kitchen Makeover - Part 1 - Demolition!!!

As I seem to be getting my A**e in gear I thought it was high time I posted about our kitchen makeover before we make a start on the bathroom!!!
I have just had to check with Paul as my poor addled brain can't seem to remember when all this happened as it's just a distant blur so here goes...
Back in November 2009 we had an orangery put on the back of the house as after the arrival of Tompom we needed a bit more room for our growing family, this would mean Rachel moving from her downstairs bedroom at the back of the house to what was the dining room at the front of the house. This would then enable us to knock through from the kitchen to Rachel's old room and create a nice big kitchen opening on to the orangery (are you with me so far!)
Having built the orangery this stayed empty and unused for sometime whilst we decided exactly what we wanted to do in the kitchen.
I couldn't find many photos of the before kitchen but here is one I took on the morning before the knock through.

The knock through for some unknown reason we booked for the May/June 2010 half term holidays I don't know what we were thinking as
builders removing major supporting walls plus kids running around = disaster so I had to take the kids out everyday to keep out of the way!!!

Paul was very worried that the corner of the house might fall down as we were taking out two supporting walls and I think he had a few sleepless nights worrying about all those acro's.

This is our builder Ben - smiling at the beginning of the job!!!

We also had to take down the whole ceiling which was lath and plaster and I was so glad that Paul had made the boys seal up the door to the rest of the house!!! There was dust everywhere!!!

As you can see we still managed to stay on line whilst this was going on!!!

That big thing in the corner is not a freezer but is infact my electric boiler - what a beast!!!

The pink curtains still half hanging from when this was Rachel's old room.

My makeshift area - i say makeshift but it stayed like this until February this year!!!

Initially we were only going to knock through the one wall but I'm so glad we decided to open up the other side too as we finally managed to get rid of the red brick pillar and open the the sink wall completely.

This is the view from the back door looking in.

The back entrance to the house was always really small and as we use this as our main door we wanted to open it up so the door to Rachel's room on the left of the door was blocked up and the wall on the right taken back as far as it would go.

The cupboard there hides all the fuse boards and meters so that had to stay for the time being until the electrician was able to come and move all the boxes etc.

So that's the knock through as I said we lived with it (minus the acro's) like this until February this year and I'm glad we did as it gave us time to get used to the space and work out what we wanted to do, although it was funny was how we got used to living like this and it wasn't until we visited other peoples houses with proper kitchens that we realised what a mess ours really was!!! This spurred us on to make the decision to finish the kitchen.

Our new Porch

January seems to have passed in a haze of builders, tea, and lack of sleep!!!! Also my 9.30pm computer curfew is still in force (the computer is in Rachel's room temporarily)which means my blogging time has been drastically reduced. I still have some much to show you all with regards to the kitchen but first things first, I promised to show the pictures of the new oak porch we had fitted on the side door. Unfortunately the porch didn't get the recognition it deserved as work started on the kitchen the day after it was fitted and then it was non stop!!!!

So here are the before photos

we inherited a flat roof extension from the previous previous owners, which originally only had one window and the door, and as I like to keep things symmetrical we added another window on the other side to even things out. We then also added the orangery and although the walls are staggered this side of the house is now quite long and we felt that the side door needed and bit more umph!!! Initially I considered a white painted wooden porch because the house is Victorian, but couldn't find what I was looking for. Then Paul suggested an oak porch and we spent several months looking at other peoples porches whenever we were out and about (sad I know). We finally decided that an oak porch was what we wanted and found a fantastic company via ebay!!!!

http://www.richwoodoak.co.uk/

Measurements and design were all confirmed via email (which I have to say was a little scary and I checked the measurements lots of times before finally sending them off) and then Richard and his father in law arrived early on the Friday morning to erect the porch, the quality and the craftsmanship is second to non and I would totally recommend them, we have future plans to knock down the garage and replace it with an oak cart lodge so I've no doubt that RichWood will be visiting us again. Hopefully the weather will be better next time as I did feel sorry for them watching out the window as they erected the porch in the pouring rain....

The pictures below were taken during all the kitchen work as our builder Ben was also tiling the porch roof for us with some clay tiles that we had bought, again from ebay!!!!

And finally here is the porch fully tiled, leaded and ridged!!! (the ridge tiles weren't from ebay but from a local reclamation yard!!)

We're really pleased with the outcome and now my only job (she's says adding it to the long list of other jobs!!!) is to repaint the door, frame and step......

And so it begins......

The work on the house that is
today we finally replaced the last two wooden windows in our house, with some lovely double glazed ones!!! oh the warmth.....no more morning condensation, and no more draughts!!!
It was too late tonight when they finished to take any photos so i shall take some tomorrow to show you them all lovely and new because I've no doubt once the novelty of shiny new windows has worn off I shall turn a blind eye to the sticky fingers, nose marks  and the odd lick!!!!

And we're not stopping there....

on Friday we're having an oak porch fitted to the back door (it's really a side door but its our back door if you know what i mean)this was supposed to have been fitted before Christmas and I was going to buy lots of pretty lights and pots to decorate it but unfortunately the chappie who is making it chopped off the top of one of his fingers (hope he didn't get any blood on my new porch!)and so it was delayed. I shall keep all my sparkly Christmas ideas for next year!!!because the novelty of the new porch would have worn off and I won't mind sticking pins/nails in it to hold up all the lovely sparkly lights!!!

We've then got the weekend to empty the kitchen (you remember last year we built an orangery and knocked down two walls in the kitchen)of all it's clutter before Ben the Builder is back to work some magic, plastering walls and ceilings, laying floors, fitting kitchens so that we can really use all the lovely new space that we created last year! The orangery will be painted and is getting new flooring too
I have no idea how we are going to eat, drink, wash dishes, wash clothes etc but it will be worth it when it's all finished.

I think Tompom and I will be popping out a lot!!!leaving Paul to project manage - which he does so brilliantly!!!

I'm hoping to set the computer up in Rachel's room for the next couple of weeks so will try and pop in when i can but i think she might object to me tapping away at the keyboard whilst she's trying to sleep!!

A busy week - part 1

Its been pretty hectic here over the past week or so but we had some glorious weather and have achieved a lot!! Firstly the builders arrived the first Saturday of the Easter Holidays and worked sooo hard to get all the driveway, patio and landscaping finished. They finally finished at 8pm on Tuesday and boy did they look fit to drop!!! We're extremely pleased with the final outcome and as always with these things details were tweaked along the way to achieve the best result. There's lots of planting to be done and we have already had one trip to the garden centre and have planted up the bed by the gate and have added lots of colour to the pots by the front door.
Here's Paul enjoying the sunshine on his new patio....

The new driveway now has plenty of room for visitors and no more lunchtime parking tickets!!! we live on a no through road close to one of the main routes into London and before the lunchtime parking restriction people who car shared often left their cars in the lane outside, unfortunately due to the parking restriction and lack of space on the old drive both I and friends have been caught out with a nasty £30 fine for parking outside our own house!!!! Not anymore!!!!

The new front step is fabulous (we were really unsure how it would turn out) but it really draws you into the front door.

The house looks sparkling with its fresh coat of paint and all the lead and pipes painted black.

We're still very much in that state of awe you have when something is newly finished and you can't help just looking at it and admiring it and want it all to stay just as it is..... I'm sure that will wear off soon and then we can really enjoy our new patio.....