Kitchen's Kitchen

The floating shelves I ordered for a brick wall... the wall is stud

Ha!

It's OK as the builder is just going to rebuild the wall to support them.

They may have a cleaner with keys, but if not I guess the ladder option is best. Or they can post keys maybe

oh, I got a reply from the neighbour... there is a key and I'll have it soon.

The builder and I were totally up for a nest of ladders from the window, but are both grateful that isn't actually needed.

Good work DK!
Are you getting stuck in yourself or just on the cuppas?

The builder is a total workaholic perfectionist and isn't really interested in me helping out. I have offered, and would like to... but he's got this. And he's clearly OCD in the best way, this is fixed price but he's already finding more little things to do to raise the quality of it all... like inserting a tiny oak slope to correct the few mm differences between the woodblock flooring in the hall and the height of the tiles in the kitchen... I would've lived with it but he's "you gave me responsibility for the entire kitchen and this is part of that so it needs to be done".

Extra things he's taken on (as part of the original cost even those these were not mentioned):

• Dealing with the non-standard Hue lighting for under-cabinet
  
• Dealing with the non-standard Hue ceiling light fitting
  
• Chopping the window frame to be more aesthetically pleasing (without the bottom shelf thing sticking out so wide)
  
• Moving a double socket thing 1cm to the left and a few mm higher so it's perfect
  
• Rebuilding a chunk of stud wall so shelves can hold a hefty weight (lots of wine)
  
• Taking on the recessed cupboard in the old chimney space.
  
• That minor height difference in the flooring
  
  

If he doesn't charge me more I'm inclined to just tip him in cash because he's gone way way beyond what I asked for. I was only asking for the major things to be done (boiler, electrics, floor, and get the room to a decent standard for the kitchen to be fitted) and he's gone to perfection Instagram kitchen standard... which I appreciate deeply.

Day 4 has become busy.

Builder, plumber, plumber intern, painter all in at once. The new boiler is going in today, and chasing of radiator pipes into the wall, etc.

Very exited to see this taking shape.

New WTF... the gas pipe that had great pressure at the meter was reduced to a tiny pipe under the floorboards. All of my problems over the past couple of years of not being able to run the heater or hot water or hob at the same time were down to the fact that when the boiler was fitted someone reduced in the inlet pipe for the last 2m and in doing so limited the amount of gas that could reach the boiler.

What this does mean is that the new boiler and new pipe will be a massive improvement over the old, heating faster and burning way more efficiently.

What flooring are you going for?

Porcelain tiles

Specifically this: https://www.porcelain-tiles.co.uk/tile/grey-stone-polished/
In the matte / natural finish:

They sent a load of free samples that I had on the floor for days. I was looking for a mid-grey which looks natural and is on the light side during the night, and on the dark side during the day, which doesn't reflect the ceiling lighting too much, and looks good with all of the dark wood bits.

The idea is that the floor is neutral, that future changes in colours of the cabinets or walls are not affected by the floor colour at all.

The tiles I've opted for are 60cm squares, and will be laid out as a grid with the grout pattern centred to give an even distance to the bottom of the units on all sides. The tiling will be wall-to-wall under the cabinets and appliances, and we're setting the radiator into the wall so that there's no drilling of tiles needed. All pipework is being set behind skirting boards, etc.

The real money has gone into the worktop though... the floor is along the lines of "posh flagstone" but the worktop is the feature.

I've yet to choose the slab of granite for the worktop. The quarry have a whole load they're photographing for me.

Mayfair Granite have a pretty serous sale on right now. And they are one of the best rated in the country. Can do templating to install in 10 days.

The tiles I have are already downstairs, and the tiler will be installing next week.

These were £1.4k for 21m2.

Does it barspin?

I meant for the worktop! Tiles are lovely.

I'm going for a Cosmic Black granite... it's from a quarry in Brazil and is a black with diffused but strong veins of golds and silvers.

Looks like this:

I've yet to choose the slab from which the worktop will come.

Day 4

New boiler (inc hole in wall for flue), new plumbing (inc filter for boiler under the sink), all pipes chased, new radiator location, reinforced stud wall for the shelving.

The boiler is already active and the house is now warming up again.

4 Attachments

Have decided to expand the scope of the work.

Am now going for a full repaint of the hallway, as well as minor fixes in the bathroom (remove mirror from wall, repair stud wall, fix sink back to wall, put the taps the right way around!, re-paint the whole of the bathroom)... as basically this kitchen renovation has proved quite expensive and so I'll delay plans to renovate the bathroom for a couple of years, and instead will give it a lick of paint and correct the minor annoyances to give it a new lease of life.

Of course... this means choosing colours.

I'm thinking:

• Hallway = Dulux Atmosphere https://www.dulux.co.uk/en/colour-details/atmosphere
  
• Bathroom = Dulux Ballerina Dance https://www.dulux.co.uk/en/colour-details/ballerina-dance
  
  

The hall being a light hazy blue I'm pretty set on... the bathroom, I've no idea, just making this up as I go along but as there are a lot of greens and blues throughout the house I'm thinking a red tone... and a dusky light red or powdery pink might be nice.

Festool stacking boxes, a man with taste.

The builder is a total workaholic perfectionist

The guy who did my sash windows was like this. Great as he did an excellent job for the price we initially agreed but it did slow things down. (Although I didn't really care as I was out during the day and all the mess was confined to the spare room.)

We've just gone with blush pink in part of our kitchen which is nicely understated

For the hallway I'd try to find a paint more durable than Dulux. Ask you painter what the most durable brand is he works with then try and go with that.

I did... and the reply was "absolutely not Farrow & Ball, it's terrible... but if you have a colour you want from their range or Little Green, or anywhere else then we can colour match. Our recommendation is a specific Dulux Trade mix or a Johnsons depending on which surface and the amount of brushing against it or knocks it will take, but don't worry you're not limited to colours from them".

I'm happy with the Dulux Sage Green and Grey Steel 4 for the kitchen... despite first getting every other paint swatch you can imagine... so I just looked through their colours for the others.

It’s funny, the last 2 decorators I have used have both objected to us wanting F&B. Though both on the basis of it being a pig to paint with. The last guy we had in to paint the kitchen and hall, advised that we use Johnson’s and he’d paint match, the downside being we would not get the chalky finish of F&B and it was only £80 cheaper. £1480 vs £1400 for the hallway...we stuck to F&B, the whole ground floor is painted in F&B and we’ve not had any issues in regards to durability.

Weirdly our decorator loves F&B. Only the modern emulsion though.

I reckon a lot of decorators got stung by the estate emulsion and eggshell, which is a total ballache.

Johnston's durable Matt and acrylic eggshell has great colour match and was a dream to paint with when I did our bedroom last week.