Tag: house

October 3, 2010
Early last month, I was talking about various layouts I was thinking of for my lounge.

One of the layouts used the smaller part of my lounge, that had formerly been the dining area as a TV snug. This appealed to me, as most of the time, it is only me (or at most 2 people) watching TV – if I have people round, the TV is normally off.

September 28, 2010
Having postponed my trip down to Kent on Friday, due to being ill, I decided to give it a go yesterday, as I was feeling a little better.

Ashford looks a lot closer on the map, than it is – 3 hours drive there, and 3 hours back. But it was mostly motorway, and easy driving. Having got on the road just belfore 11am, I arrived at the American BBQ Company just after 2, and Jackie had my new pellet grill out ready to show me. It is mostly preassembled, all I have to do is fix the pellet hopper to the BBQ unit (4 bolts), and fix on the chimney (4 bolts) and I am ready.

September 8, 2010
They do say ‘little things please little minds’, and the guys have done so many wonderful things in my lounge, over the last week.

But something that really put a smile on my face today was to see a proper hinged panelled door, opening into the kitchen, to replace the stupid (and ugly) flush sliding door that used to dominate a wall in my lounge and – when open – actually obscured a light switch.

September 1, 2010
Tim and Nev came back yesterday; having done a great job on the kitchen, they are now here to do my lounge/diner.

They have only been here two days, but already the walls are stripped, the hideous brick fake fireplace has gone, and the awful artex ceiling is now under a layer of plasterboard, waiting to be plastered over.

August 9, 2010
I’ve been running around a bit lately, and so haven’t posted much about the work going on here.

Tim and Nev finished their bit over a week ago, although the kitchen isn’t quite finished yet. All the units are fitted, the tops are in and the walls between the units are tiled; the new coving (boxing in some pipes, and the tops of the wall cupboards, which are a pain to clean) is done. The only thing not done is painting the remaining walls, and fitting a floor covering.

July 22, 2010
Tim and Nev have been with me all this week, and all the new units are in now, the sink is installed and plumbed, and all of the worktops are in place. There is still plenty to do (including tiling and painting), but already the kitchen is looking absolutely amazing, and I can see that I have almost doubled my usable cupboard space. Which, of course is the whole point of the exercise.

Something I didn’t mention before is in preparation for this work, I naturally had to empty out the kitchen of everything – pots and pans, crockery, cutlery, appliances and groceries. I never realised that I had so much in the kitchen – I have two large portable shelf units in the lounge stacked high my bookcase is crammed with tins and packets, and my conservatory has 4 large storage boxes full of bits and bobs.

July 19, 2010
July 3, 2010
I have been doing stuff around the house today – essentially packing all my books away, so the kitchen cupboards and shelves can be transferred onto the lounge bookshelves, in preparation for the great kitchen tear-down. However, I then need to put the books (and other junk) somewhere, which necessitated a major rearrangement of my box room to Tardis-like capacity. (Regular readers will know that I now have storage space in the loft, but that is for *organised* storage.

The only problem with this plan is that I have been at it all day, solidly. Despite a couple of attempts to be distracted, it turns out that almost everyone else is too busy today to blog (thanks to Paul, though!).

June 26, 2010
Back in May, I was complaining about the various companies I had asked to quote for my kitchen not listening to my actual requirements. Or perhaps I should say listening to my requirements, but then completely ignoring them. The fact that what I was asking for was probably the simplest solution (with a floor plan exactly the same as my current kitchen) made this doubly irritating.

Then last week, I posted that my kitchen units were being delivered this weekend (they arrived today, and are now safely stored in my garage), so apparently I have resolved my kitchen installer nightmare.

June 20, 2010
My kitchen units are to be delivered next weekend, and I need to store them until they are fitted. As a result I spent all of yesterday in the garage, sorting it out.

A couple of years ago, I bought some racking to go out there, but only two racks went up at the time, as there were a a number of big items taking up space – one or two mine, but mostly stuff I had been conned into storing for friends, apparently on an non-ending basis.

June 4, 2010
Before I got the boiler moved to the loft, I had a new hatch and ladder installed by the Attic and Loft Company.

Now they have just finished stage 2 of the job, having reinsulated and boarded the entire loft. As a result, I now have 36 square metres of empty storage space.

May 25, 2010
Further to my earlier comments about the various folk I’ve had quoting my kitchen, and how they don’t seem to be able to listen to what I say.

As I mentioned earlier, I had a visit yesterday from yet another chap to measure up and design my kitchen. This is after the company (who, for various reasons, I would like to use) had earlier quoted with some odd decisions on unit sizes. It was explained to me that this was a ball-park price, and they would send a designer.