New Kitchen

It's Finished! Well, almost.

The final milestone. The floor is laid and the table and chairs arrived this lunch time so we are now in our new kitchen / dining room. What a transformation it is too.

I am pleased to see that the original design graphics are very close to the real thing. It's just what we wanted.

A new bright, clean looking kitchen that should not date too much in the years to come. Just some minor decorating to complete.

The design is very close to what we have.

Day 42

Just another day!

Would you believe it? The flooring company has just phoned us to say that some of the Amtico flooring parts have not arrived and will not be with them till next Wednesday at the earliest. So the fitter is going to lay part of the flooring that will allow the Fridge/Freezer back into its location to allow us to, at least, use the kitchen again in the mean time. Here's how it looks in the mean time.

The delivery of the new table/chairs will have to be delayed. Oh bother, "The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men gang aft agley," ... Robert Burns.

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Day 32!

Nearly there.

That is the last of the installation by the Kitchen installation company apart from coming back to fit the plynth kick plates once the floor covering is installed.

The joiner fitted the final cupboard and also fitted the glass shelving above the sink area.

Now all we are waiting for is the new flooring system by Amtico. This work starts next Wednesday and should be completed by the Friday. After that there are the plynth kick plates to fit and the coving to complete in the dining area, a final coat of paint and then installing the new dining are table and chairs. We have never had a new dining room table or chairs. They have always been hand-me-downs from my Mum & Dad.

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As a reminder here is the design picture of what it should look like on completion.

Labels: kitchen

Day 27

As planned, the friendly plumber arrived and installed the taps & pipe-work for the sinks and the gas hob. Here they are. The joiner should arrive tomorrow to complete the installation of the splash back panels and one more cupboard and glass shelving if it all arrives in time. Looks like snow is here for a few days so this might delay things a bit.

We are nearly there! It won't look right untill the new flooring is layed on the 23rd February. BUT after that we still have the skirtings and kickplates to install and then painted before we can say it is fully commissioned and ready for operational handover to the user. I wrote the OTP's ages ago and we have completed most of the handovers for the equipment but until the operator signs the completion certificate I am having sleepless nights. LOL << Sorry, I just coudn't resist going back to a time when I was commissioning plant for TOTAL.

Days 13 to 26

Snow, Snow, Snow!

Another Milestone today. The newly manufactured Corian worktops arrived and were installed this morning. Never mind that we had the biggest snow fall of 2007 today, just when we didn't need it. However, the worktops were installed without a hitch.

The joiner arrived in the afternoon to begin the installation of the back panels.

There is still quite a bit of work to do above the sink installing glass shelving and lights.The stainless steel splash back has also to be fitted once the gas Hob is installed.

The plumber will be tomorrow to install the hob and the taps and drains for the new sinks.

As we had no water or washing facilities tonight we went out for our evening meal to the Cock & Bull a few miles from Ellon.

Poor old Mandy is not sure what's going on in her world. She finds her food in various locations during these works and has to get to the garden by using the lounge patio doors on some occasions.

Days 6 to 12

Its been a week since my last entry because things have slowed down quite a bit now as we are waiting for the new Worktop to be specially manufacured for the kitchen.

During the last week we got the Fridge / Freezer installed, the washing machine and oven connected and some painting of the walls and ceiling done. The 2 new radiators were also hooked up.

We had a minor drama during the weekend when the radiator in the living room stopped working. After 2 days without heat in the living room, the temperature falling to 16C and only 2C outside I decided to look for the problem. With the help of a friend we found out that there must be some sludge blocking the inlet or outle valves and with a little bit of thought we managed to flow water out through the vent valve. This moved the sludge away from the valves. Success! We now have heat again.

We are now waiting for Bob to complete the patio door outside works, the installation of the new worktop and gas hob and the laying of the floor tiles and kick plates. It will be 3 more weeks before we are finally in our new kitchen but it should be worth all the effort.

DAY 5

Well, can you believe it? Yules delivered the patio door this morning. Bob the builder had a bit of a struggle fitting it but by the end of the day it was installed just as the high winds were arriving. He will continue working on the surrounds for the door over the weekend.

The joiner spent the day installing the doors for the electrical washing machine and dishwasher along with other doors. He also installed the top section above the cupboard units ready for the finishing strips. The joiner will not be back until the new worktops arrive in 3 weeks time.

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The electrician will return next week to complete his work and the taper and plasterer will be along to cover in all the holes and rough areas.

DAY 4

Thursday 11th : Today was more eventful .

The plumber installing the new gas hob informed me that the gas main pressure in the house was too high. Obviously this can be dangerous so I called my gas supplier and before I knew it a gas engineer was at the door to look at the problem. Ten minutes later he had replaced the gas

regulator and checked out my central gas-heating boiler for safe exhaust fumes and then left. I am very impressed with Transco.

I am not so impressed with YULE Glass Company! They have failed to deliver the patio window on time and now Bob the builder is held up. It also means that the Fridge Freezer doors will have to come off to get it through the kitchen door that is not as wide as the new patio door. The delivery date was 8th January. So much for service!?! If you are reading this, Mr Yule, I am not a happy chappy!

We have also got a temporary sink installed. This is really great. Try living without a sink for three days and you will know what I mean. We need the temporary sink because the new work surfaces have to be specially made to measure to fit the kitchen. Hence the reason we require some temporary work surfaces and a sink while the new work surfaces are manufactured.

All the electrical appliances are installed apart from the fridge freezer. The gas hob will not be installed until we get our new work surfaces installed but we will have an oven, grill and microwave oven to get us by in the mean time.

DAY 3

Today the plumber installed the new central heating radiators in the hall and kitchen. The joiner installed the wall cabinets but because one wall was not straight he took some time to get the cabinets to fit correctly. One bigger problem is that it seems that the designer did not get the height of the central support beam correct when measuring the kitchen with the result that one of our wall cabinets will not be able to be opened once it is cut into shape. The joiner and the designer are going to look for a resolution tomorrow. Otherwise everything is going well.

The new patio door has not arrived from the supplier but my building contractor, Bob, got on with stripping the brickwork and plasterboard from below the present window in preparation for fitting the new door. Lets hope it arrives tomorrow!

We spent the day out and visited Banchory in Deeside with friends for a light lunch. In the evening we were invited to Claire and Ferruccio's home for our meal so that we did not have to cook at home today.

DAY 2

It was a very windy day. Second day progress shows th

at some of the units are installed in their correct locations.

The garage back door had to be removed to allow the sink pedestal through to the kitchen.

The electrical power distribution and plumbing under the floor were installed.

The house lighting and power sockets were off all day so I spent the day reading and repairing photo albums.

We had our dinner out as we didn't feel like making our meal in the study with a microwave oven and washing up in the bath. Some people

live like that but it seems strange doing it. Washing up the dirty dishes etc is the worst bit.

DAY ONE

It took 2 weeks to install our kitchen but only one day to remove it. Here is the area being prepared for the new units. The plumber, joiner and electrician all took their part in removing, re-arraigning and installing new cables and pipe work. When the plumber had finished his work for the day and turned on the water supply our pump that powers our washing water (shower etc) would not start. After a short discussion with

the engineer at his base we discovered that the Pump pressure accumulator had lost its air pressure. All that was needed were a few pumps of air from my cycle tyre pump to get the pressure up to 1 bar and we were OK again. We can have a wash tonight, thank goodness!