Home DIY

That would be great if it were possible - but I'm planning to just work with the area that has the carcass in it at the moment rather than completely rebuild where the old unit was.

you've lost me a bit, i'm afraid. you've got a cupboard there to the right of the catflap and a large space in front of the catflap underneath the protruding worktop. let's call them space A and space B respectively. can you describe your problems in each space?

Space A is just space and will remain so.

Space B (cupboard there to the right of the catflap) is half of a corner unit that was sliced in half to accommodate the cat flap.

At the moment it's just a hole that's good for exploring toddlers to climb into but little else.

I'm trying to make it useful and tidy by fitting a door, shelves, and a wine rack.

The wine rack will be on the left hand side of Space B, alongside the wall.

Then I can either add L-shaped shelves which wrap around the wine rack, or turn the space behind where the wine rack will be into an unreachable void, and have rectangular shelves.

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is the wine rack that silver one pictured, which holds four bottles horizontally?

how exactly is that going against the wall?

It's the sort of thing I'd be reasonably happy to do myself but wouldn't endorse anyone else doing, if you know what I mean.

One thing to remember about fuses is they're not very good or very quick at dealing with small overloads, so if you accidentally turn on too many rings you can draw quite a bit more than 13A without the fuse blowing. IIRC the standard British fuse spec allows something like 20A to be drawn indefinitely.

In theory things protected by 13A fuses have this design margin built into their own spec so they won't melt or catch fire before the fuse blows. But it's not something you want to be relying on.

Sorry, I just can't let this go. It it drawers, not draws.

Strange capped hollow bolt thing that was recessed into some skirting I just removed. What is it??

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Your house will now deflate

What’s the other side of the wall? Old pipe work for a bathroom?

No, that was some old part of our fridge that was causing confusion.

I've just assembled the new wine rack (pictured below).

My wife's preference is to forego the space behind the wine rack, and put in a piece of MDF between wine rack and cupboard space to create a rectangular cupboard rather than making it more complicated.

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Empty space above the stairway. No bathroom nearby.

Ex radiator pipe?

In steel I’d doubt that

👌 ta, probably alright but a bit of a bodge is the reassurance I was after.

Chances of needing more than 1 ring are pretty remote so I’m happy to briefly bodge it.

Our house had pipes like this to get water which has heated behind the fireplaces to various parts around the house

now we're getting somewhere. L-shaped shelves. what side will the door hinge on?

Left, so you can see into it more easily when you open the door.

We're probably going for a full-height door but I'm arguing for a shelf/shelves that aren't the full depth of the cupboard so you can still access stuff that's at the back on the bottom shelf.

cool. no idea why i typed L-shaped shelves because I meant straight. with the door, just be mindful of it fouling on that skirting and the potential difficulty of getting wine in and out. you might want to have the rack on the right.

Take back off wine rack. Buy another wine rack. Install one in front of the other as a double-depth wine rack. Store twice as much wine.

Buy wine in boxes for more efficient packing

Looks like BSP threaded pipe, why it’s there I couldn’t tell you.

Glory hole. For really small blokes.

I used to work for a charity that had 160 howden’s kitchens - and we bought and fitted at least 15 big kitchens per year. they got better over time and stood up to being bashed around a lot.

It all depends on how well your builder knows the local depot. The listed prices are way over what you should end up paying. They do lots of handy inclusive adaptations that work pretty well for the mainstream market.

New CEO recently and a little downturn in profits so I think they might be trying to up their competitiveness a little.

Barely “diy”, but I just assembled a fairly solid set of wall mounted shelves and, having followed the instructions blindly, I realise that the wall fittings aren’t included.

The instructions suggest I need the l shape hooks shown in the picture but don’t provide any specifications. The closest I can find on the b&q website are described as “cup hooks” which seem deeply dubious... what sort of fitting do I need and where do I buy it?

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Dear lord, this is going to take me a long time, isn't it.

20 pieces has taken 2 hours!