Kitchen's Kitchen

I think looks of these shiny kitchen cabinets are deceiving, our kitchen in this flat is similar, it looks great on the surface, but its 15 years old, every cabinet is a weird shape due to pipes/meters/boilers behind, there are no drawers just awkward cupboard space with stuff jammed into it at awkward angles.

stoked you're getting what you want @Velocio !

That kitchen looks lush as it is.

Yeah, it sold the house to us.

But it was smoke and mirrors, what it looked like on a 5 minute viewing and how it turned out to be are very different things.

The new kitchen isn't dramatically different in layout, but the quality will match the appearance.

I'm already enjoying hearing the "WTF"s from the builder accompanied by an occasional "Well that's new to me" and "I've not seen that before".

This builder only does kitchens, 1-2 per month for the last decade, so that's the reference point :D

If I had my own flat I'd have bought the old kitchen off you if it came apart well enough. Alas I doubt I'll become a home owner in London in the next decade

It regrettably hasn't come apart cleanly.

As @rogan suggested, behind the veneer there is messy work.

In this case, who needs to screw or bolt things together when hot glue guns exist!

That they've done this in hard to reach places has resulted in the old MDF finding the bond between panels is stronger than the bonding of the MDF itself... it's all just falling apart messily.

That was the same in our old flat. Shiny exterior on the units meant it looked clean and new. Although it didn't hide the kind of fun you're dealing with/fixing, it was super sketchy under the surface.

Are you selling the old cooker etc?

The fridge, dishwasher and washing machine are end of life.

The microwave would need work to get it working again (it's not worked the entire time we've had it and I've not investigated why) and to fix the cosmetic damage it experienced removing it.

There's potential to save the oven, hob and hood... but in all honesty a bottom/mid range thing now would be less of a headache than these old things and all of these are not normal sizes: 80cm wide hob and 89cm wide hood, a double height oven and grill means it can't fit under-counter.

The wine fridge was the best thing we had in terms of white goods, and I'm keeping that and have re-housed it in the living room for now but will be moved into the store room later and a mini cellar made in a corner.

Yeah makes sense.

Tbh I was totally amazed what people will buy off eBay - as we have a garage I kept everything and took some crap photos and listed each item as pickup only. Sold the lot! Was all tired but functional and better that than a landfill

Day 1

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How long do you expect the work to take?

Are we there yet?

Has this been resolved?

Has the flat been resold?

Done by end of month hopefully.
This is the schedule I received from the builder however I'll say I'm sceptical of the handover date given potential COVID restrictions that may impact the schedule.

4th Jan – 8th Jan

• Kitchen removal, remove tiles and clean sub floor.
  
• Install new boiler.
  
• First fix plumbing and electrics
  
  

11th – 15th Jan

• Plastering, floor preparation and floor tiling.
  
  

18th – 22nd Jan

• Install new skirting and paint room ready for kitchen install.
  
• Kitchen install (delivery 20/01)
  
  

25th Jan only

• Complete kitchen, 2 nd fix plumbing, electrics and fuse board change.
  
• (kitchen will be fully functional at this point apart from the kitchen tap.)
  
  

Once worktops have been fitted.
Install kitchen tap.
Complete hand over to customer.

Good progress.

Day 2

The floor is good... this was a nice surprise.

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The first hiccup... the radiator, despite being ordered a month ago apparently hasn't yet arrived at the shop who sold it to me. I took their guarantee of it being pre-Christmas with a grain of salt, but they basically fibbed and implied they had it in stock and in the shop and only when I asked about collection did it turn out that they didn't have it and needed to chase it down.

Other minor details being worked through:

• The floating shelves I ordered for a brick wall... the wall is stud, and so we need to carve out a huge panel and put a hard wood backing to it.
  
• The Hue light strips under counter have an annoying little white plastic box near the light strip itself. Normally they'd build this into the cabinet but I've been pretty firm on "everything needs to be maintainable" so we need to cut a little hole in the fascia panel that goes under the cabinets to make it accessible.
  
  

And my downstairs neighbours wisely decamped to the North of England early December. But lockdown now keeps them there, plus they knew I was doing this work and I'm sure they just wish to avoid the noise. So what's the catch? Well I'm putting a new hole in my wall and aside from debris falling into their garden we'd need to put the little grills over the extractor hole, etc. We are considering a ladder down from the kitchen window to the garden and then shift it across so we can get back up... oh well.

need to put the little grills over the extractor hole

A couple of flats ago, we were on the ground floor. 2nd floor was getting their ancient boiler replaced and instead of asking if they could run a ladder up from our tiny yard, they did it all from the inside. Which included seemingly just fucking the old, heavy metal flue out through the wall so it could land where it fell. Luckily it was while I was at work as it was back in the days when I used to smoke and it landed right where I would normally stand outside of an evening. So you're already being more courteous than most.

I would expect your respective leases / titles to each contain a right of access onto the other’s property for the purpose of maintaining one’s own.
So you could just ask if they have a spare key.

If you have really nice neighbours you could each swap keys anyway, in case they get a burst pipe or something.

The leases do have that... but we don't possess keys for each others flat, and whilst we've both freely provided access to date, the fact that they are now a few hundred miles away and we are in lockdown is the complexity here. They thought they'd be back for Christmas but were caught out and didn't want to return to a tier 4 area.

There are no keys under a doormat.

They haven't left a key with a local friend or family member?

They might've left a spare set of keys to a friend/relative who lives nearby. I always do. (edit: sorry, should've refreshed before posting)

They are like me... no local friends or family members.

But I shall message them and let them know I'll be accessing their inaccessible rear garden :)

Day 3

Everything is marked out, technical details accommodated for, final decisions on first fix electrics done (i.e. placements of plug sockets, how lighting fits in, where the spur goes, etc), and a big hole made in the plasterboard wall.

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Ooh... Pic 3 from that shows one of the WTF's... the socket above the extractor fan hole has the electrical cable going diagonally down to the right. This itself is a big no-no... but there was a light screwed into the wall and one of the screws missed that cable by about 1mm and the person who fitted the light would not have known until they hit it.

We've also found the answer to "Why was the cooker, some lights, boiler and all sockets on the same circuit?"... the answer was a single power cable running into the kitchen from behind a skirting board... the kitchen never had separate circuits for anything.

wow