project kitchen

before

i look back at this pic and i just have to laugh. i can't believe i lived like this for months! all credit to D -- while i was enjoying toronto and new york last autumn, he was cleaning out our loft (ie. attic?) to make space for all our kitchen stuff to go into storage, ripping out most of the cabinets, and steaming off years and layers of wallpaper on all the walls and the ceiling. we bought a cheap ikea bookshelf that was used to temporarily store our essentials -- kettle, toaster, microwave, rice cooker and some dishes and pots and pans.

starting work

once we had finally decided on our kitchen design and had put in the order for all the cabinets and materials, the builders came in to do some of the major work. in order to support the new cabinets, two of the (very curved and crooked!) walls were stripped back to the beams, new plaster board put up, and a skim coat of plaster applied over all walls and the ceiling.


here you can see the plaster board has gone up!

also, our new kitchen was going to have a tiled floor, but in order for the tiles to lie flat and not crack, our bumpy and sloping floor needed to be leveled off. this meant taking up years and layers of flooring (lino, cork, even (sadly) the original floorboards), taking it back to the beams. supports were then added in places where the beams were sloping, and once perfectly level a layer of plywood was applied.


here you can see the plywood has been applied (and we have a floor again, hurray!)

the original victorian fireplace was also taken out and sent off to be restored to its original glory -- this meant removing years and years and coats and coats of white paint, all of which had turned the fine detailing into lumps of paint.

the victorian "sash" window also needed to be repaired -- so D took this out, replaced the panes of glass, took out the rotting bits of wood, and repainted the frames. but this did mean for several weeks we had bubble wrap covering a whole in the wall...!

we were soooo lucky with our builders. because of the recession, big building projects are now harder to come by. our builders (who would normally work on huge posh developments) needed the income of working on smaller projects, like our little flat. they certainly lived up to the reputation of polish builders being hard-working, conscientious, and perfectionists. they would start the day at 7.30 and sometimes not finish until 6 or 6.30, doing really exhausting physical work, and then before going home would take the time to sweep up, vacuum and clean so that we weren't stepping on dust everywhere we went. the only time i was in a bad mood with them was when they showed up at 7.30 on a saturday morning! crazy.

anyway, most of the new kitchen is in now, thank goodness. more pics soon!