Still on the Kitchen!

It's been a while! Luckily for you, I've got lots of photos this round!

I'll start by telling you that we've had a few weekends off to enjoy the sunshine and to actually have a social life...so we are still not finished in the Kitchen front!

Richard Browne has continued to plumb away and he is pretty much done now!

We have a tank full of water and fully plumbed into the mains!

These pipes will be boxed in 

Our pump is in and everything is connected up to the hot water tank.

Our hot water will be from the Rayburn which we can't get going until at least one radiator is in

We decided we didn't want big chunky radiators taking up space so decided

Pretty early on we wanted to try skirting radiators. 

Andy found a company who advised their aluminium skirting could be bent, so we had 5 meters delivered.

We can see now why the company recommend they are the ones who come and bend it! Our round room is all over he place...so we needed bends here and there and everywhere!

But persistence paid off and it was eventually bent into the shape of the room. 

Prior to this, Andy had put up some cladding, which I then painted. He found some flexible decorative dado rail which was also painted to match. And the result looks bloody good!

The trim round the top of the skirting needs finishing off. When the radiator is on it should shrink a bit so we are waiting for that before we add some caulking and paint it. I can't decide if it should be the same colour as the wall or the same colour as the cladding. 

Radiator in, plumbing done and the flue is in place! We bought some smoke bombs to test there was no leaking and it was successful first time! The smoke went straight up and out the chimney! 

We are very nearly ready to fire up Ray! We just need Mr Browne to come back and finish up a little bit more and cap some pipes. 

Given we have our water plumbed in, we also have taps we can turn on and off!

The pressure is actually not that bad! We will be having a pump for the shower as we both like a good blast when showering!

We've stained and waxed the worktops nice and dark to match the floor and I've been busy sanding and painting our kitchen cupboards. It's still not fully complete, and I'm not 100% happy with the colour I've painted them, but it's certainly come along!

We also decided to clean and paint the window and will replace the highest pain of glass where the extractor fan was. It's actually come up pretty well, so we will save some money by not replacing the window frame.

We also purchased some wooden cabinets to go on the other side of the fridge and hot water cabinet as some additional storage and decoration

Obviously we still have a bit to do with the painting but it is definitely getting there.

Finally, we've had a huge issue with our fridge and freezer.

I returned home from work one evening to find the house full of smoke and a sheepish looking Andy holding a fire extinguisher. Apparently he decided to plug in the fridge and freezer that came with our kitchen and they both exploded and caught on fire!

So we went online to Currys to buy a new one. I won't bore you with the whole story, but we basically were sent a damaged item with the replacement item also being damaged. That wouldn't have been so bad if it didn't take about 30 phone calls to Currys customer service to be told contradicting information around exchanges, delivery and refunds.

In the end, we physically took the 2nd damaged fridge freezer to a store and got a refund. So, we will continue to search for an integrated fridge freezer!

I'm hoping by the next update I would have at least started, if not finished the tiling in the kitchen! 

The Kitchen takes shape!

Greetings friends. Family. Neighbours. People I don't know from overseas (you know who you are - I've seen you in the blog stats! Unless I have family in Russia I don't know about??)

Kitchen is coming along nicely!

We abandoned the idea of Andy making worktops from scratch when he found some nice chunky wooden worktops online.

http://www.kitchen-surplus.co.uk/timber_worktops.html

This place does some fantastic deals on solid worktops. They delivered fast and the quality is outstanding. I highly recommend them if you are wanting wooden worktops. We got the farmhouse oak and paid the price on the website, plus 40 for delivery. Bargain!

Obviously they come as a 3m untreated board, so you need to treat and saw it yourself. Luckily, I have an Andy who can  do all that!

I have to say, that boy done good. Considering he has never cut a worktop before, he did a fantastic job! Mind you...he hasn't done any of what he's doing before and he's doing great.

He even cut nicely round our new sink! Only 1 side is done as we need Rich to finish the plumbing before we can put the units in on the other side. More of that later.

On to the sink; we've been looking for a Belfast sink that will fit a 500mm unit but weren't having much luck. We then found that a reclamation place near Stow was selling some new Armitage Shanks ones for about 200 pounds so we set off to take a look.

When we got there, we saw one outside which measured up and was perfect. When we enquired, the chap said we couldn't have that one as it was damaged. He then proceeded to show us the tiniest hairline crack on the side of the sink that you can't even notice, and would be covered up by the units either side.

Anyway, he knocked it down to half price because of the "damage" which did us fine! The taps we wanted were 350 quid so we headed to ebay once again.

We found a seller who had a poorly listed large Belfast sink for sale with taps for 70 pounds so we snapped that up! We might have even found someone who wants to take the large sink off us too!

I bloody love ebay. 

Most of the stuff in the kitchen is from ebay!

It looks great! I'm very pleased.

Believe it or not, the unit to the right of the sink has an integrated dishwasher inside and the unit to the left has an integrated washer dryer. We didn't buy them from ebay. We got them from currys! But, I managed to find a 10% off voucher by doing a Google search for currys vouchers and saved about 50 quid.

Andy has also wired a new fuse box which we've sat in the hole that was the service hatch.

We need Southern Electric to come and move the old meter as its on a wall that isn't going to be there soon, so we will get it connected and checked and have a nice new fuse box hidden away!

We're going to be putting a push open door for access which will be concealed by clever tiling.

The other thing we've done is put our wagon wheel light up!

This was the first thing we bought from the house (ebay again!). As soon as I saw the inside I knew it was crying out for an amazing hanging light - and I wanted a wagon wheel!

We aren't happy with the chains. Usually, you'd have one chain come down and open up into 4 chains connected to the "light" but we obviously have a window at the top that a chain can't be attached too.

We had to go 4 into 1 back into 4 and we just aren't liking how it looks.

We're going to see what it will look like with 4 chains coming straight down, I think it will look better though. You can't really see from the picture, but trust me - it doesn't look right as it is.

We haven't added any lighting yet, we wanted to get it out of the way and see what it looks like. We're going to have candles around the top with LED flickering lights for effect only. Then we will have an LED bulb in the bottom to give downlight.

When it's finished, like everything else, it will look amazing!

Richard Browne has been back in to do some more plumbing. Bless him, he has a tricky job as the area he has to work in is so tight.

We have to have a hot water cylinder of at least 190l capacity for the Rayburn and we needed it to fit in a kitchen cupboard so it's as close to the Rayburn as possible. The system is all gravity fed but I won't go into details...mainly because I don't fully understand it myself!

Anyway, we managed to find an online company that make custom sized cylinders and with a calculator on their website that lets you put in sizes and tells you how much capacity that would be. This was extremely useful and we managed to find a size that fits in the cupboards and gives us the capacity we need!

They were extremely well priced too - I'm sure we paid about 200 for the cylinder, fully insulated and delivered.

There she is!

He's done a very neat job with the plumbing and is very nearly done! One more visit should do it, which I'm glad about because he keeps polishing off my favourite caramel biscuits!!!

All the pipes will be hidden behind units once done.

Finally, I've been taking a long time to decide on what colour to paint the cabinet doors but I've now decided!

I'm going to paint them a similar colour to the walls (light grey) with some nice pewter knobs.

That's my test door. I think when it's all done, it's gonna look great! It's amazing how a lick of paint and new handles can transform kitchen unit doors.

The worktops will be stained dark like the floor, and there will be tiles along the wall in a crackle glaze, random pattern like below:

I can see it all taking shape which is very exciting! It won't be long before we can start on the extensions.

Andy thinks it will take about a year from when he starts digging the foundations to us being in a position where we can move in. That won't mean we are completely finished, but enough to be out of the van, finally!

We are hoping to get out conditions satisfied by West Berks council soon too! Our architect sent them new drawings showing the landscaping and where the protective fencing will go. I bloody hope they like it!!!

Kitchen and floor

Hello readers.

A good bank holiday weekend was had! We had Richard Browne (our plumber friend) come round and lay all the piping for the kitchen ready for appliances and heating etc. 

Andy also lay all the wiring for lighting, plug sockets etc which runs on top of the pipes (not pictured).

Saturday was spent cutting insulation for the floor. We had previously started this a good few months ago but the insulation started curving and shrinking which was weird so we started again.

Sunday we got to put our lovely scaffold board flooring down! 

Andy did a fantastic job of sanding it all and cutting it to fit the curve.

Once it was down we were able to get a couple of coats of varnish on, giving it a fine sanding in between each coat to stop the shine and keep it looking rustic.

I'm so pleased with how it has turned out, it looks great! 

We have stopped at the end there because we need to wait until the new back doors are in. The next planks we put down will be butted up right up against the door. And as we don't fully know what style of door we want, we don't want to put it down and have a gap.

Monday was spent in our lock up sorting out our kitchen! We pulled it all out and decided what we wanted to take back to the house to see what fitted and what looked good. It also gave us a chance to organise everything and do a bit of a inventory ready for when we put the bits we don't use back in ebay. You will be pleased to hear it survived the winter and is damage free.

All week, we've been putting things into position and working out what we like and don't like and what fits.

We think we have finally cracked it this weekend and have roughly put it all into place:

Nothing is fixed down yet including the doors and I will be painting the cabinets. We also need a worktop which Andy has decided to make himself from new scaffold boards so they are nice and chunky and match the floor.

We aren't having any wall cabinets as it looks too cramped but we are going to have shelving and hooks next to the Rayburn to hang sauce pans and things.

The big cabinet to the right is the fridge freezer and the cabinet to the left is where our hot water tank will sit. Because our heating is being run by the Rayburn, the tank needs to be as near as possible to the cooker. The bathroom will be too small to house an airing cupboard and our hall is also too small for one so its ok in the kitchen. 

Our corner units we bought as part of the kitchen set were too big so we will need to open up the cabinets in the corner so you can get access into the corner so it isn't wasted space. It will be a sort of custom made corner unit.

Andy also wants us to have a "pop up" microwave on one side and a "pop up" appliance of some kind on the other side to make use of the wasted corner space, keep the tops clear of appliances, and because he wants a mechanical toy to play with! 

It's not a bad size kitchen for the size of the house and we will be able to have a dishwasher, washing machine and Belfast sink in there too. We haven't gone down the route of having another cooker or hob for summer use when the Rayburn is off. We will probably buy a plug in single halogen hob, perhaps a Geroge Foreman type grill and with the microwave that should be adequate for summer cooking. The hot water tank will also have an immersion which will mean our summer bills will be pricier than our winter bills!

I will show updated pictures when the kitchen is fully painted and fitted.

No update on the planning front. I haven't spoken to our architect for a few weeks so will have to call him for an update on building control plans also. I think we are just going to do what the council want. If they want us to plant new trees - fine but they will be very small saplings and may disappear as soon as the project is finished!

We will be ready to pull down the extensions soon and then the digger we bought can come out of retirement for the mass digging of foundations and trenches that is to come! 

Edit:

This is the kitchen a year ago!

By this rate, our house will be finished in 5 years! 

Lots and lots of painting and planning issues

Hello readers! Lots to update you on - I will start with the plastering!

The guy we had lined up to plaster let us down on the morning he was due. We frantically searched around and did manage to find another plasterer who could fit us in that week which was very lucky and a relief.

4 days later, 2 chaps had completely re-plastered the main part of the house.

It was during a cold snap so the plaster took ages to try - I think we left it for nearly 2 weeks!

After it had dried enough, the White wash started. What a mission that was! As chief painter, I had to brave the scaffold tower and paint the ceiling. Given the roundness of the room, the paint roller only works horizontally not vertically so this added extra time. Going up and down the scaffold tower to get a better position added more time. There were parts too low down for the tower and too high for standing so add in having to go up and down a ladder to the equation and I think you can get the point. It took HOURS to white wash that bloody room. 

After the White wash dried, I possibly made a school boy error and decided to do another White wash, but with more paint and less water. I did this because I read online it was a good idea and would make the final paint job look good.

Again, HOURS!!!

After that coat, a coat of pure white went on. Andy helped me with this coat, but he hates painting so I did most of this coat too. This coat we decided to start on a Saturday night after coming back from visiting my Dad.

We finished painting at 2.30am Sunday morning. 

After that nightmare, we still has the colour to then put on. My good friend Jo, who likes painting, came round to help and we managed to get a coat of colour on in a few hours.

But - we ran out of paint with just a small section to go which was unfortunate. We were using the Velspar paint from b&q as I was being very fussy about the colour.  Their biggest tin wasn't quite enough to do the room so I went back and bought two more big tins. Which cost a fortune. The chap in b&q assured me because the paint mix was to exact measurements, there shouldn't be a colour difference. I will hand it to him - he wasn't wrong! 

Andy agreed to help with the final coat of colour and I can confirm last weekend we finally finished the painting!! What a relief.

And the results:

It looks amazing. The paint shop is superb - if I do say so myself!

Now - I just want to point a few things out.

Firstly - yes, the colour is light grey. It needs to be light because the only real light that comes into this room is from the back. You might think a lot of effort was taken to make a room look similar to how it did before - but it's a big difference. 

Secondly, yes, I know there are white sections at the bottom. This is because the kitchen units are going here so I didn't see the point in painting all the way down.

Thirdly, if you look at the pictures and think you see a "patch" you are wrong. It's just shadow. Believe me, I have checked!

And finally...yes...we still haven't finished the cladding...and that window isn't staying so will remain looking tatty for now.

With all that out of the way, we have begun the task of sanding down and varnishing our ebay scaffold boards we bought which will be our flooring. I really want a floorboard look and feel but reclaimed floorboards are pricey where as scaffold boards are not! And they look really good once they are done up:

After that, we need to get the plumbing pipes laid, flooring down and then we can put the kitchen in! Once that's done, we can turn our attention to the extensions.

You may be wondering why we haven't started since we've had planning approved. Well, that will be because we didn't realise we had planning conditions which need to be met before we can start.

I don't want to bad mouth West Berks Council in case their spies are watching, but they put what I believe are conditions that they have no right to put on us.

My main gripe is a condition where by the council want to see detailed plans of what our garden will look like once complete - including plant species etc. last time I looked, we were applying for building planning consent - not garden consent. I don't know anyone who has ever had to say to the council how their garden is going to look after their extension is finished. It's absurd.

Anyway, they have a bee in their bonnet because we cut down the trees and are trying to tell us we shouldn't have done that. Even though their website clearly says unless trees have a TPO or you are in a conservation area (which we aren't according to the council website map) then one is fully entitled to cut down trees on ones land. Which one did. 

But now they want us to replant replacement trees even though they know we have a small plot and any tree we plant will become invasive. The reason we cut those trees down was because of the damage to the house they were doing.

Another one that has ground my gears is that the council want us to pay to put up some sort of protective fencing around the trees. You may be thinking "but your trees are cut down?" And you would be right. They want us to do this for trees nearby that are not on our land. I mean...what???

We are building on our plot...if the tree isn't on our plot...it's not getting touched!!

There are more standard conditions but these are the two that we are pushing back on.

Technically, we can't start doing anything until these conditions are satisfied. We aren't quite ready, but we will be soon so I hope we manage to get this resolved or we may just start and see what happens. What's the worst that can happen? Are they really going to make us rip down a completed extension because I decided last minute to add a frigging pond to my garden?? I'd like to see them try. 

If anyone reading this does have any genuine advice on challenging the council - please email me: teags86@hotmail.com

Prep for the plasterer and planning update

Greetings!

As I've mentioned in one of my previous posts, I'm saving up progress so I can make an interesting post every now and then rather than update regularly with little news.

So, I shall start by letting you all know that our plans were approved by the council last week!

Now, that doesn't mean we can start working straight away as we need to get detailed plans drawn up for building control and then possibly a soil sample for foundation calculations. It does mean we can start demolition of the old extensions which we will only do when our kitchen is finished.

As for the kitchen - we have been preparing for plastering which is happening this week. We've finished painting, run some wiring and generally tidied up and got rid of some rubble.

As well as having our wagon wheel light, we are having some additional up lights which will be blended into the plaster. They are 12v LEDs and actually look pretty good!

Andy has also blocked up the door that currently leads from the kitchen to the bathroom. This now means we have to use to back door for now to get into the main part of the house.

 

Above is the existing floor plan. The door leading to the "kitchen area" is what has now been blocked up.

New floor plan (when we are done) is below:

We also bought some scaffold boards off eBay which will be our kitchen floor. We need to clean the brick dust off them, sand them and wax them and they will look just as good as floor boards. 

After the plastering and floor is laid is we can fit the kitchen! 

We are surviving caravan life - even with the recent bought of cold weather. The electric blankets have been working over time!

Santa brought motivation for Christmas!

Hello!

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year.

We had some time off over the festive period so have picked up the pace again on the house.

The plaster boarding of the conical section is now complete! Hurrah! 

Before getting the plasterer in, there's a few more areas of rotten render to take down and we need to block up the doorway. 

We took two corner sections from the lock up, where our eBay kitchen currently lives, to see how it was fitting with the Rayburn. It's not a bad fit, needs a bit of adjusting to ensure there's enough of a gap between the combustible cabinets and the cooker.

We have also been putting up wood beams on the conical roof:

These have two jobs. Firstly, to provide some additional support to the roof. Some of the rafters are not in good shape and we are adding extra weight to the roof with the insulation and plaster board. And the second is for decoration. A sort of exposed beam effect. 

We've also sanded the existing rafters in the other section and painted them. I only took a picture after I did 1! I will put more on next time.

Because it is soft wood, we have to use the proper outdoor wood paint. Luckily, these days they have an array of colours so we've gone for a muted grey! The colour theme of the kitchen and dining room will be light and lots of grey variations and creams.

Here is a look at my scrap book page for the Kitchen if you're interested:

The East Garston Parish council will be meeting Wednesday 7th Jan evening to discuss our plans so Andy and I will be attending with our fingers crossed!

West Berks council have said they will be advising us of their decision on 3rd Feb. I've been keeping up to date with the responses from the various other parties they write too (archeology, conservation officer, the bat people etc) and so far the responses have been sufficient. I don't want to jinx it though!

Life in the caravan is having ups and downs. We went away for a weekend and returned to find a mouse hole had been chewed from the section where the gas cylinders live to the inside of the caravan. To add serious insult to injury, the little bugger nicked our advent calendar chocolates!

We took the awning out of the front, which the little darling was using to get up to the top to chew through, and left a humane trap and blocked up the hole with expandable foam. Heard him mooching around one night, but he avoided the trap and he can't climb up any more to get inside so I think he's got bored and left. 

Him and his family obviously had a merry bloody Christmas feasting on our advent calendar chocolates. And they were Mars chocolates too!!

Other than that, we're keeping warm and are having hot showers by recirculating the water into the tank and hen hooking it up to the shower which doubles the heat. It's actually not a bad shower! 

The cooker arrives!

I've decided only to only update when something or a few something's happen. Otherwise, it will be a dull read and a lot of "tired from work...couldn't be bothered today!"

A couple of weeks ago, we had the two trees in the front garden chopped down. It was sad to see them go, but you may remember from a previous post that they were causing us issues. Perhaps when we are done, we will plant something else not so intrusive.

We have finished the insulation but are a bit slow with the plaster boarding as it does take a little while to flex and drill into a curved shape. 

The majority of our time has been spent making a floor frame and concrete base for our cooker which arrived this weekend.

It's bloody heavy and we spent a good few hours trying to get it across the rough terrain and into the house. 

But here she is :-)

This is not our final flooring by the way...

That's Andy's engine crane we used to move it around. It came in handy! That man has a tool for everything!

We bought a flue off eBay and had it

Powder coated black. Andy's next job (as well as to finish off the plasterboarding) is to get the flue through the roof and connected to the cooker.

After Christmas, we should be able to get a plasterer in and then get the kitchen fitted, as long as it has survived the winter in the lock up!

We are hoping whilst this is going on, West Berkshire council are looking at our plans and thinking how amazing it's going to look and grant us planning permission!!!