Kitchen renovations - the continuing saga

We have been taking up the flooring. With the U-shaped kitchen having been removed, we need to put new flooring down. Under the slate-look lino that has been on the floor, we have found two layers of lino tiles. We have been having to use a heat gun to prise them up one by one, it's been going on for weeks but the boys have done a fair bit this holidays and we are almost finished.

We are thinking of covering the floor in a product called 'Allure'. It's kind of lino but looks like wood. It comes in strips or planks which stick together along one sticky edge. It's easy to DIY because it's easy to cut to shape. We looked at real wood and wood laminate but have been told the real wood scratches too easily and wood laminate can't take a lot of water.

All but finished with the kitchen . . .

. . . but it was a close call.

Sam came on Tuesday and put on handles, the bulkheads and other stuff. We are just one handle short - the kit came without all the pieces. The other problem is that one of the drawers under the cooktop is not fitting properly and sticks out about 5 cm so Sam will have to come back and fix that.

This morning Adam the electrician came. He had to rootle around under the house to get the dishwasher connected up. Had a horrid ten minutes or so after he went under the house first - he couldn't get under there. Had visions of having to remodel the whole kitchen! Armed with a torch, however, Adam went back in and under and found a way round what initially appeared to be a brick wall going the length of the house. Dishwasher connected and has done one wash successfully.

Next problem was one of the fans in the wall oven. It was rattling around quite noisily. Adam had the oven out of the wall and the lid off it trying to fix it but it still rattled and I thought at least one day of the upcoming long summer holiday was going to be spent waiting for an Electrolux person to see to it. However, by the time Ian came home and I put the fan on for Ian to hear the problem, it was gone - in fact the oven fans are so quiet I had to open the oven door to check they were on at all.

So! The slideshow has been updated and you can look at it here.

Kitchen update

The kitchen sink has been hooked up to the plumbing and we no longer have to wash up in the laundry :
Kitchen renovation slideshow

Kitchen reno

I've been at home the past couple of days as the kitchen is renovated.

We've gone from this . . .

to this . . .

and now this . . .

Take a look at the slideshow here for more pictures.

Next week the Caesarstone bench will be installed along with the dishwasher, wall oven and stove top.

Kitchen renovation - our current obsession

Thought some people might be interested in the kitchen plans. Can be skipped over for those competely disinterested - just be grateful you don't have to hear us in full flight if you came to the house!

Our kitchen is being done in Kitchen Connection Bordeaux style. It will be off white and has tongue and groove panels in the doors. The benches will be made of Caesarstone.

Here is the kitchen as it is now. Instead of the U shape we will be having a galley style kitchen, open on both ends.



The space where the fridge is will not change - just the new cupboard above it.

Next to it there will be a narrow cupboard with winerack above then a corner pantry.



Next to the pantry, sort of where the microwave is now, will be a wall oven then a little bit of bench space then the cooktop.






We have chosen a Smeg induction stove. It was not only on sale at a very good price; it comes with $500 worth of pots and pans.















The bench top against the wall will then extend another couple of metres. Under the benchtop, from the wall oven to the end will be 3 sets of drawers. They have a shallow drawer on top for cutlery, etc. The bottom two drawers in each are deeper, for pots and pans and other stuff. We had deep drawers at Macquarie Road and found them much easier for keeping pots and pans in than a cupboard - less bending to see where things are.

On the other side of the kitchen will be a bench running parallel with the one against the wall. In it will be the sink - a white, square, porcelain Butler/Belfast sink and a dishwasher under the bench beside it. The bench will then extend down to end at the same place as the one on the wall and will have an overhang on the other side and at the end so we can put a few stools under and have a breakfast bar thing happening.

Long long weekend

It's a public holiday long weekend here this weekend. I also had an RDO (rostered day off, I get one every 3 weeks) on Friday to make the weekend extra long. Spent most of Friday at the hairdressers. Bit boring for Ishbel but she had to come - she'd cut her own fringe earlier in the week so the hairdo needed rescue work!

On Friday night I had my book group girls here for our October meeting. We'd been reading Enduring Love by Ian McEwan (marvellous story). We also watched the movie which stars the aesthetically pleasing Daniel Craig. While it's a good movie there were so many changes to the story from the book it got a bit frustrating. "Why did they change that?" was our constant cry. I hate it when film-makers take a perfectly good story and fiddle with it. Anyway we still had a nice evening and it really showed us how great this house is - we girls could be tucked away yapping and watching TV in the family room while the boys watched their movie in the sitting room (on 3 camping chairs, can't wait for the couch and armchairs to be ready).

Friday was very very hot and windy and we were on Standby 1 fire alert (on standby at home). Actually the bushfire season officially started on October 1. I've been travelling around with my kit in the back of the car incase of call outs so I can go from work or wherever. There was rain on Friday night and we woke to much much cooler weather on Saturday morning and it rained on and off all day.

We went down to Penrith to finalise our kitchen and appliances on Saturday morning. It's all the little choices like tile and benchtop choices that I find the most difficult. I find it hard to visualise what a large expanse of benchtop/splashback will look like from the small samples you see in the showroom. Anyway, we think we've chosen well and have a preliminary date of 11 November for the installation.

Last night we were at Bec and Steve's for their housewarming party. During the evening they got engaged, Bec having chosen to get a bracelet instead of an engagement ring.

Daylight Savings has started this morning so the time difference is now (according to Skype) GMT +1. The boys were up early to go to RFS training. Ian is going to the footy grand final today. Carolyn, who usually takes Ishbel on the first Sunday of the month so I can go to RFS and Ian can go on a bike ride, works at the stadium where the final is on so I can't go to training today. When Ishbel finally wakes up we'll have to find something girly to do to pass the time.

Hugh is bringing the boys home from training. He has a business as a bush regeneration person so he's coming to give us some advice on the bushy bit of the back garden. Robbie and Ian have been busy pulling out a whole load of bushes which they think are weeds. I'm hoping Hugh will confirm they have been pulling out weeds and help us with what should be planted for the sake of the little Red Crowned Toadlets that should be out there. Robbie has also taken care of the Spider plant that was out the back - we now have 6 or so HUGE bin bags full of the stuff.

Will try and take some pictures of the house and garden so you can see how we've progressed.

Booking our kitchen makeover

We had a man from Kitchen Connections come last night and do us a plan and give us a quote for a new kitchen. Janet and Steven had their kitchen done by this company last year and were pleased with the work and the process.

Eeek!

Will have to spend late night shopping on Thursday and Saturday checking appliances and prices - we need an oven, stovetop and rangehood. Also on Saturday we will finalise colour of doors, benchtops and splashback tiles.

Booking our kitchen makeover

Ian, Ishbel and I were out and about early (comparatively) yesterday morning to have a look at some kitchen showrooms. Two we visited were closed, not good in terms of availability I thought but we have an appointment for one guy to come tomorrow evening and the other mob will ring tomorrow to make their appointment.

We attacked the huge amount of spider plant in the garden after we got back. We've barely scratched the surface of the problem and already have 4 big bin bags full of the stuff. We're still considering what to do with the agapanthus. Hugh from the Brigade who works in LandCare/bush weeding for a living hates agapanthus with a passion as it spreads so easily in to the bush but we've always kind of liked it! There are whopping great clumps of it were we are thinking of putting a veggie garden though.

We had Karen, Dan and Ben round for dinner last night before Ben goes up to his Dad for the holidays. Karen and Ben had popped in during the morning while Ian, Ish and I were out so we'd missed them. Hundreds of tacos, apple pie and lashings of ice cream later and we were all full up.

Today we are off down to town to see Cirque du Soleil - Dralion. Looking forward to it very much.