Category Archives: kitchen makeover

its all happening – kitchen update

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Yesterday was one heck of a busy day. And every busy day begins with a busy day before cause I had to remove everything that wasn’t nailed down from the kitchen.

That means I had to empty all cupboards and find a spot for the necessities (toaster, jug, coffee) and rudimentary food prep and cleaning. We now have a temporary kitchen area in the office and are washing up in the bathroom sink.

Handyman got here early in the morning and we removed the rest of the kitchen cabinets, then he started removing the flooring – vinyl and masonite.

I helped. I got down on the floor and started removing nails. Fun job.

The kitchen is a real mess. We have holes in the walls, electrical cords taped to the wall (my idea to keep them off the ground where the dogs can touch them, even though they’re capped off). Speaking of caps, Handyman forgot to bring the caps for the taps so he had to put the tap back on so we could have water in the house without also having a swimming pool in the kitchen. Bet you’ve never seen a mixer tap used like this before!

We found that the bump on the floor is because there’s a rectangle of boards that was put in later or something. The joist along the wall in that area is about 1/2 inch lower than the rest, creating a wierd dip. The previous owners found it easier to trim the baseboards than to do the floor properly.

So my plan of sanding the floor this weekend goes out the window. I don’t think it’ll be smart to hire a sander for the weekend hoping that Handyman gets the floor issue sorted out on Saturday… Who knows what we’ll find when the floor comes up…

What did I say about this job growing with everything we start and can’t finish?

The electrician arrived to do a bit more wiring work. I somehow found the only electrician in Tasmania who believes in drip feeding his work. Seriously, he keeps calling to say he needs to come around and do something, does a small amount of work, then comes again a few days later to do a bit more.

Maybe he just likes my company!

Well, he’s a nice guy, neat, does a good job. And he likes country music. Anyone who likes Dwight Yoakam is a friend of mine. As long as it all comes together at the end I’ll be happy. He can’t finish the job till Aurora comes to move the electricity meter. Then he has to connect the stove and he’s done.

I had advertised the kitchen online and a guy came with a truck and a friend to pick it up. Thank goodness cause the porch was chockablock and I hadn’t been able to access my workshop area for weeks.

With all those cabinets gone, I was finally able to get to my power tools and I’m afraid that proved to be a temptation too hard to resist. I never finished pulling nails in the kitchen… I got distracted.

I’ll share my creations later. Meanwhile Wayne has been warned to stay out of the kitchen and I’m feeling better even though I have to make toast in my office and have aching hands.

Being creative makes my day.

z

its sinking in

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Ok.

Deep breath.

I think I’ve narrowed it down.

I realised that whichever way I go, I need a sink with the space to put in two taps. See, we have rainwater tanks. And those tanks only work when the pump is working. ie if there’s a blackout we have no water in the house.

Or we wouldn’t have water in the house if we didn’t also have a gravity feed from the bore water tank.

Sure, the water isn’t the nicest to drink, but you can use it to wash up (to save rainwater) and cook with. For that reason we have 2 taps in the kitchen and in the bathroom. The mixer tap for ‘real’ water, and a regular cold water tap for the bore water.

So, after all that stuffing around yesterday and the tossing and turning last night, the conclusion I’ve come to is that NONE of those sinks I’d narrowed down to my list of 3 will do. None of them have enough space around the rim for 2 taps.

I now have a new list of 3, two of them are economical in price and come in shiny stainless steel, one is more expensive (but cheaper than the Franke) and comes in brushed stainless steel.

Needless to say I’m leaning towards the most expensive, brushed stainless one. Its called Posh. That’s so me… (not). Its got a bigger, deeper large bowl and a 1/2 bowl and overall size is 1050mm.

Next on the list are the Squareline sinks. Those are pretty much a tie in as much as bowl sizes, one has a 3/4 2nd bowl, the other has a 1/2 second bowl. Those are 980mm wide and 1080mm wide. If they done have the Posh in stock I’ll chose one of the others. They’re sold at the hardware store and they have plenty in stock. Or so they told me.

I choose to believe them.

So, I’ve made a decision. On Monday when the girl from the plumbing store calls to let me know if they can get the Franke in for me in time I’ll tell her I want the Posh instead, find out if they have one in store and go pick it up after work.

If they don’t I’ll just go buy one of the others.

Get the darn thing done and over with.

Now, on other news, I sit here while Handyman and significant other pull out the pantry in the kitchen. They already pulled out the corner unit so the electrician can put the wire in for the dishwasher. I’ve spend most of the day till now moving stuff from the pantry and rearranging things in the kitchen.

This is the bit I dislike about renovating.

The good news is that we have floorboards under the lino and under the masonite!!!!!!!!!!!!

When we rip out the rest of the kitchen cupboards we’ll lift up the flooring so the new cupboards can go on the floorboards!

That discovery really made my day!

Now I’m pondering whether to risk painting a bit on the porch rails. Will it rain? They said chance of early afternoon showers… Yesterday it poured and thundered. But the sun is playing hide and seek… The potato vine is saying ‘please paint so I can grow upwards’ but the sun is saying ‘go on, I dare you to paint’… decisions…

z

sink-ing…………

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Today I spent the entire day looking at sinks. our kitchen guy said the cabinets would be ready in 3 weeks. A week ago. So I went shopping for a sink.

I started out unsure about what I wanted. By the end of the day I was unsure of who I was.

See, I thought I had the sink sorted.

Firstly, I wanted a double bowl sink. But I’ve managed for 3 years with a single bowl and it hasn’t killed me. Then I decided I won’t need 2 bowls. I’ll have a dishwasher.

I planned to go with a laundry tub – single bowl, big, deep. No drainboard, but my sink in Fentonbury didn’t have a drainboard and I managed for 8 years with no permanent scars. I still have the plastic white drainboard I bought for there. We could use that till I find something prettier.

Then our kitchen guy recommended a Franke sink, single bowl, with a bowl almost as big and deep as a laundry tub, with the added bonus of drainboard as well. Yay.

Today I found out that they need to order that sink from Melbourne. They say 7-10 days delivery.

So, do I go ahead and order it and risk the sink not arriving in time for the kitchen installation?

Wayne doesn’t want to risk it…

I spent the day looking for alternatives. Prices vary wildly from under $100 to over $1000.

I’m not insane. I’m not willing to pay more than the cost of the Franke sink ($396) if I’m to pick an alternative. The idea would be to find something cheaper and save money, right?

This is where things started to go downhill.

Single sink? One and 3/4 sink? Drainboard or no drainboard? Bigger, deeper sink or shallower and smaller overall?

WAH!

I’m surprised I’m not still lying in the middle of the hardware kitchen aisle in a fetal position sucking my thumb….

I did what any normal (slightly OCD*) person would do.

I made up a comparison table.

Hey. It worked for me when I was buying my first new car. It should work when I find myself unable to make a decision for something that costs 1/100,000,000th of that.

By making a table, doing hands on research, pushing Google to its limits and driving a good friend to drink, I managed to narrow it down to a choice of 3 single bowl sinks. The Franke and 2 others which are smaller overall but still with good sized bowls and nice designs.

Too rounded?

Better?

Then I realised the bench top won’t be ready for installation in two weeks. If the kitchen is actually being installed in two weeks. We are talking about tradesmen here… We could put the old sink in the temporary bench top till the new bench top is finished and the sink arrives… I can still get the Franke.

Easy.

It should be easy. Right?

z

*Tell me… is it normal to count everything? Is it possible to be ‘slightly OCD’ or have OCD tendencies? I count everything. I count snips when I trim pom poms. I count mugs as I rinse them. I count brushstrokes when I brush my teeth.

Basically, I count when my mind isn’t busy doing anything else.

Is that normal? Should I have my head examined?

a special find

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I found the most gorgeous step ladder EVER.

I was picking up Wayne at work when I noticed this beauty in the middle of the training room.

You know me. I have an eye for special things. And this is special.

I had to have it. Turns out it belonged to a good friend of mine so I made an offer and this gorgeous stepladder is now living at my place.

Its in great condition considering its very old. There’s some staining on the timber and the middle step has broken off. Nothing a bit of sanding and gluing can’t fix.

(You don’t want to know what I paid for it, but I think it was worth it.)
I already have a spot planned for this baby. I’m going to put it in the entry/pantry.
This is the plan:
The entry to our house is a tiny little area which holds the fridge and the pantry cupboard I moved from the living room. (Minus its doors as the space is too cramped for doors.) Eventually I’d like to build a custom pantry which will go over the fridge to maximise storage space. 
This is what I’d like to build (from DIY Showoff).
The main problem, however, is that any pantry will be high and I can’t easily reach things on the top shelves.
This is where the step ladder comes in.
With a custom built pantry cupboard I’ll have a spot for the ladder to sit, keeping it handy for when I need to step up and get something from a top shelf…
…With the added benefit of looking pretty and being one of the first things I’ll see when I enter the house.
The custom pantry is a long way away, especially since I’m told that making it out of galvanised pipe will 
cost me an arm and a leg, so there’s no rush to fix this beauty up, but I’m sure glad I have it!
z

baby steps – kitchen update

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Where did we leave off on the kitchen saga? Last time I posted about it we’d run into the minor snag of the power cables and facing a battle with the power company.

Not much has happened on that front yet.

In fact, nothing has happened on that front yet. The electrician only came in this morning to get the details he needed to put in the paperwork! Who knows when he’d have done it if I hadn’t called him to remind him we were waiting…

Did I tell you we added to that job?

See, the power comes into the house near the front door (the door furthest from the driveway of course), which means that we will never be able to put a roof on that side of the porch. It makes perfect sense that, since they’ll already be there to move the meter box, that they should move the connection/whatever its called too. Just a bit further over so we can put a roof on the front porch.

One day. If Wayne ever gets over the cost of the kitchen renovation.

The Handyman now has all the timber he needs to do the job, so he’s already started on putting a wall in where the old window was. On the side without the power cables, of course.

Did I mention we added to that job?

Ok, this wasn’t all my doing! I was the one who asked him to put a ceiling in the mud room. (Its just corregated iron in there now). Wayne was the one who asked him to enclose the end of the porch.

Its not a bad idea. The wind and rain come in that way and everything we leave outside gets wet.

Yeah, yeah, it was a stupid place to put a porch, but it was the ONLY place we could put a porch.

An enclosed end will give us a spot where we can safely leave things out of the weather.

‘Cause the mud room isn’t big enough for all our coats and boots.

z

let the games begin – kitchen update

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You know the saying?
If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.
We haven’t even started yet and we’re already starting to hit snags.
Yesterday morning I went into Hobart for a few things and picked up a slab of concrete to sit the hot water cylinder on when we move it. It was at the front of the house when we bought here, then when we built the front porch, it ended up being ON the porch. It’ll be moved to the side of the house outside the bathroom window.
I took the antique style knobs I have with me to compare them to the colour of the stove. I thought they were close in colour. I was right. They’re an almost perfect match. Terrific. I can use what I have for the cabinet doors and they’ll tie in with the stove.
Its not a great photo. The laminate sample is Antique White sheen which is a semi gloss finish. That’s what I’ve chosen for the doors. The knob is a bit more cream than it looks in the photo.
I located some drawer pulls on ebay at a great price and purchased them. I now have the hardware for the cabinets and drawers and they’re exactly what I wanted. This is a photo similar to the pulls I ordered. These will go on the drawers.
I was feeling so proud of myself. I was so on top of things!
When I got home I started on the cabinets.
First I moved the microwave to the ‘pantry’ in the entry. I still dislike that rabbit warren but unless I change everything now and make the job bigger than it is, I have to live with it.
I had to make a hole in the back of the pantry (hello hole saw), then I struggled for half an hour to get the plug through the hole and connect it to power.
I managed, with very little injury to myself or others.
I discovered there are a multitude of power points behind the microwave. I gotta give it to the previous owners of this place: they didn’t scrimp on power points!
Then I unscrewed all the visible screws and started taking apart the upper cabinets on the left of the kitchen. Starting with the shelves, then the rest. It was touch and go there for a while. I was pushing, shoving, swinging panels back and forth, and eventually one cabinet came down.
Crashing down might be a better description…
Good news: 
I discovered there’s plaster behind the cabinets and behind the laminate tile sheeting.
The bulkheads are plaster. Easy to remove.
Bad news:
The ceiling and walls don’t exactly meet so there’s a gap up there. Not totally unexpected.
Since I don’t really want any ‘visitors’, I opted to leave part of the 2nd cabinet up there till its time to do the walls.
Our handyman, who’s moving the windows, dropped in this evening. Tomorrow morning he’ll be coming around and helping the plumber move the hot water cylinder. He was here to make sure we turned the hot water cylinder off properly.
Good thing he came around too. 
He said he told me but I never heard it… Apparently we need an electrician to wire the hot water cylinder in to its new place!
Yep.
So, that ‘two hour’ job just spun out… If I can’t get ahold of an electrician to do the wiring tomorrow we may be taking sponge baths in the hydrobath for a few days.
Also, the handyman discovered that we can’t use the window from the left/mudroom side of the the kitchen in the front. Its the same size as the windows in the living room but it will have to sit higher due to the benchtops, and the porch roof is lower than the kitchen ceiling…
So tomorrow morning I’ll have to call around and see if I can buy an ‘off the rack’ window to suit that spot.
And chase up electricians.
And call my cousin (that’s what I’ll call my ‘almost family’* kitchen designer) to make sure he got my email regarding the kitchen cabinet colour and the solid timber benchtop plans.
*His grandmother and my mother were good friends on Paros when they were younger. That almost makes us family. Heck, given that we’re probably the only people from Paros in the whole of Tasmania, we’re siblings!
Plus I have to go up to Cheeky tomorrow. The vet’s coming out to do the big SNIP. ugh. Poor baby. I’m not sure how I’ll handle it, let alone how HE’LL handle it…
I went up there this afternoon and just sat and fed him carrots and apples and held the rope and lead him around a bit. Yesterday I got him to come and eat a carrot out of my mouth. He’s so darn CUTE. I’ve been building this great relationship based on gentleness and trust, and tomorrow I have to hold him while a vet does unspeakable things to him.
Will he ever forgive me?
z