Kitchen replacement — execution

The hard lifting done on the kitchen replacement, we moved toward completion (with just a wee bit remaining to do) starting with painting enough to cover the exposed bricks and new plaster but leaving the rest to transpire moisture (yes, I am still banging on about the house ‘breathing’).

Ikea boxes, durable foods, dishes, and cookware were scattered all over the veranda, living room, and dining room much to the delight of the kitty. He has been a massive help as our supervisor during the ordeal but the effort sometimes wears him out:

Last Sunday, we finally mounted the first cabinets on the wall and shifted a bunch of the pile of kitchen shit back into a less temporary place. A little progress on this occurred each night thereafter heading into our 5-day-weekend push to finish. Doors, shelves, lighting for the worktop beneath the tall cabinets, and the over-the-fridge cabinetry were mounted during our usual television-sloth periods Monday and Tuesday.

Thursday, the tiles arrived for the wet- and cooking-side of the galley and the sprint was on.

With wall cabinets hung and under-cabinet lighting installed, we moved on to the base cabinets as the population of Ikea boxes in the rest of the house dwindled.

Jimi, ever the helpful one (the cat is absolutely bomb proof and fears nothing/has interest in everything and just wants to be like his dad), supervised cutting the worktops.

We still have to source skirting boards and coving but most of it has already turned out how we hoped. Better than, to be honest.

There was one major fuck up in the whole effort. I blame Jimi since, as I mentioned, he took the lead on the work tops. After carefully cutting an opening for the sink and tap, I flipped it over to discover the meaning of chirality when those features were on the right side but rotated 180 degrees (sinister when I wanted dexter).

The replacement arrived a week later. The built in dishwasher door was also a struggle since there wasn’t a cabinet on the left to mount the door hinge on. We used some spare panelling to fashion an enclosure for it:

Trim panelling up and knobs in place, all the remains are the aforementioned skirting and coving installs and regrouting and sealing the quarry tiles on the floor. At last….

There is a spices/oils/vinegars drawer between the stove and small cabinet; the wee door on that worktop is to hide and provide access to the boiler plumbing.

All that remains are minor details to be completed over the Hanukah break (Jimi is still too destructive to bring a Christmas tree in the house so we’ve decided to raise him Jewish).