The new kitchen going in!

The New Kitchen going in - at least what we had of it! IKEA took over a month to get us all the bits and pieces - Next day delivery? Yeah.... 

Modification of kitchen cupboards

Here's Tim late at night chopping bits and pieces off cupborads to fit around pipes - We're very popular with the neighbours! 

Preparing the surfaces

Mom does a good job at preparing surfaces! (and then a great job at painting over them!) 

Mr. Simon the Ikea kitchen maker

Here's my brother Simon making some drawer units for us, in the garden. Very useful! 

Washing up!

Of course we still washed our dishes - Well my lovely pregnant wife did, at least - in the old basin! 

Kitchen sink

What do you think of our kitchen sink? 

Back Kitchen

You'll see we needed to repair the ceiling a bit! 

Haute-Cuisine!

Cooking builder style: Camping stove, wok, workmate, bacon and eggs with toast. A real hit! 

New Kitchen Floor

Adventures with Laminate Flooring! this was quite fun, and not as hard as I thought - only advice, don't do this late at night - your brain goes fuzzy and you make more mistakes. (The only mistakes I made were for the last few planks! Very annoying!

Helpful Father

Dad came all the way from Cambridge one morning to help me clear the kitchen of units before having to return home - lovely floor! 

Tile removal

So the walls come down, the toilet comes out, so do some of the units, and here's Lara removing the tiles... 

Open plan kitchen - bathroom

They say open-plan living is fashionable. Not so sure about having no walls between the toilet and the kitchen sink though! 

Mould, mould everywhere!

This shows the internal wall with lovely mould... knocking down a wall is great stress-relief! 

Jericho

So (after much prayer and marching) ... the trumpets sound! The walls had to come down.

Kitchen as was

This is the kitchen as it used to be. there were units all along both sides. the back part, through the arch was split into three areas with a toilet, basin and washing machine - not a good use of space at all! 

tiles in!

Here are the tiles in place! We've now grouted and put up the shower screen - at 1 am! crazy, but fun! 

el-choppo!

Lara cutting tiles with a dodgy tile cutter we later bought a proper size one, and that worked much better! 

Tiling late at night!

Here I am at night tiling - Lara was much better at cutting the tiles than me - but I could stick things to the wall! 

Painting the bathroom

Here's some paint on the walls! 

Bath in place!

Here's the bath in - this was great as it meant we could wash again! (I admit - we were staying with our good friend Richard and Ruth while we had no running water...) 

New sink in place....

Here's the new sink in place, with the new floor going down... 

Bathroom Overhaul (2)

This is after we ripped out the shower and some of the floor... bath to go in this place 

Bathroom Overhaul

Who wallpapers a ceiling above a shower? the answer - those who like mouldy showers! This had to go!