Kitchen - Electrical & Plumbing

This week has been huge!  

Architraves and skirtings have been done. We opted for a wide chunky style in both as I think it matches the house well without slavishly copying the original.  So while we have gone for a sympathetic renovation (to the existing house) I have wanted to keep this new area looking / feeling contemporary as I think it's important to delineate where the 1928 house ends the 2013 house begins. Therefore we have omitted things like cornices and then kept the architraves and skirtings simple and square in the new areas.  

Another big milestone this week is that the plumbing and electrics have been completed in the kitchen / family room (ensuite will be tackled when the laundry goes in later.) Today I used my dishwasher for the first time! Everything sparkled afterwards it was incredible! 

I cooked Charlie's dinner on our new stove top as our old stove/oven has been disconnected ready for demolition on Monday / Tuesday. It is very strange to finally be in this new working kitchen. I still half expect the real owners to walk in and send us packing. I'm sure it will eventually feel like home but right now I can't imagine EVER taking it for granted. 

We enjoyed eating dinner from our new island bench while marvelling at how clean all our glasses are now - it was wonderful.

Kitchen - Benchtops arrive.

The stone arrived today and what a difference this made. Finally our little kitchen is evolving into..well a kitchen. We used 'Caesarstone Organic white' as I felt we needed some subtle texture. I think it looks brilliant. We are still awaiting a few things from the cabinet maker which should come next week I'm told. 

Tomorrow Con is here to assess where we are at and I believe next week there should be some more action happening. I hope so. I would particularly like to the see the plumber and the electrician on site as it has become torture having all these lovely new appliances laying around but unable to be used.

Particularly the dishwasher! I'm desperate to get my dishwasher working....please anyone!

Bricks clean / windows dirty.

Last Friday the bricks were cleaned, completing the external. And while I am happy with the end result of the bricks, my windows which were nice and clean are now a mess. Typical!

Valentine's Day

Thank you Darling xxx

External Painting - Finished

The external painting has now been finished. I believe the bricks are booked in to be cleaned on Friday. Hope they don't clean up too much as I've grown to like this shabbier reclaimed look.

Happiness and having no money.

Yesterday we ventured into the Good Guys to purchase our kitchen sink mixer, negotiated a better price than was on the label then went up to pay at the registers with our credit card. Sure enough the girl processing the payments looked over her glasses at us with a stern yet pitiful look and announced 'credit card declined'.

David (having never experienced this phenomenon in his life) stood there stunned. Admittedly, while shocked myself, I was also partially amused watching Davids face go from denial to confusion then finally panic. "Where has our money gone!" he exclaimed "What have you bought?"

It ended up being a case of David mistakenly paying for our stone benches with this particular credit card instead of doing a direct debit. The expression of relief after looking up his account was priceless! I wish I had a camera.

But this isn't a story of having no money, it's a story of being happy. And happy we are!

We are approximately 70% along in this renovation journey with the hard stuff behind us. This new era of life in our improved house has began (I think it officially started when the kitchen was installed). Make no mistake we are counting our pennies. Priorities have changed from buying what we think is the best choice, to what's the cheapest / best value.

And while happiness is a fleeting moment that can evaporate with the next arrival of bills. Today, for now anyway, we are completely and utterly happy with life. Watching our vision of 'home' and 'family life' materialise in this way is wonderful. Yes, for a long time to come we will probably stand anxiously at the checkout praying for the 'transaction approved' receipt.

But honestly, I wouldn't change a thing.

External Painting - Part 1

I have been very slow with the posts lately. Mostly due to not a lot happening, so little to report.

There has however been small little changes like the outside flashing has been put up, and this week Tom started painting the exterior. And while I realise these small jobs are barely news worthy I thought I would document it none the less.

The only thing worse than boring posts is no posts, right?

So Tom in action.

Already looking better with just the undercoat. Looking forward to seeing the end result.

Kitchen - Part 1

After what has felt like an age, Peter from Parkview Cabinetry called on Wednesday afternoon to say they were installing our kitchen the following day. Yipee!

They arrived bright and early at 8.30am and by 3pm that day almost all was completed. We do need the electrician to come out and install the electrical appliances which should happen in the next couple of days.

This morning the stonemasons arrived to pick up the templates for the stone benches, so all going well this time next week we should be in business.

So, Colours? We ended up going with 'Dulux Calfskin' for the grey and 'Dulux Natural White' for the white overheads. So far I am very happy with our choice. 'Calfskin' was selected because it works well as a neutral base which helps other colours to pop (Note the floral cup down the bottom popping away!). Hopefully it will work well with our choice of stone too.

Other changes? We ended up reducing the island bench from 1200mm to 1100mm. Once we saw the 1200mm template in place we realised this size was a bit too large for the space. We also reduced the space from benchtop to benchtop from 1300mm to 1250mm. A small change I know, but I wanted just enough room for two people to walk comfortably past each other and no more. I arranged with Peter to raise the benchtops from 900mm (standard height) to 925mm as 900mm felt a little low for me.

We have lived with this kitchen for approx. 15 whole hours now. Both David and I are still yet to move anything across from our old kitchen. We find ourselves pulling up chairs and just staring at it. Is it really here? Or are we hallucinating?

Our kitchen - Ta Daa!

Electrical appliances still to be installed

One bin is for rubbish and one is for recyclables.