Kitchen Reveal

I never thought the day would finally arrive!!!!  Our kitchen is 90% complete, and I totally love it... not sure why I doubted myself sometimes through the process!

Its been quite a long process!  It all started on 3 October 2014 when the old kitchen was demolished and the walls were adjusted and partly removed.  Its now 1 December 2014!!

This was our original kitchen and dining room... dated, dark, very tired, small grouted tiles as the bench top!!

This is the start of the new cabinetry being installed.  The wall above the cabinetry eventually gets cut down to the appropriate bench height.  Apparently they leave it this high in the first instance to align the cabinetry. 

range hood cabinet 

breakfast bar template being created : view into dining area

view into kitchen

laundry chute!!

view through to the laundry

scullery sink and sash window through to laundry

loving the cabinet fronts 

Derek making a start on our splash back tiles

Our breakfast bench top arrived a day earlier than expected... the communication here wasn't that great between the fabricator and the joiner!  Though I was very thankful that it did arrive a day earlier, as this meant the builder could return to finish off the architraves around the breakfast bar.  I was worried he wouldn't be able to, as he is due to start a contract for five months in the South Island from beginning of December!! The electrician could finish off the power points and a few other bits and pieces.  With me flying to England on the 1st December I very much wanted to leave it all finished and usable for Dave and Kimi while I'm away.

Be nice to come home to a finished kitchen too!!

breakfast bar bench top arriving!

Its the eleventh hour and its 90% complete... I'm due to fly out to the UK at 4.20pm today and have had the kitchen joiner, electrician and window guy in finishing things off this morning!!!  Ive also been zooming around in the car shopping for things for the kitchen, i.e., baskets, mats, containers etc.  

We still need to finish off all the tiling, splash back for the scullery, laundry and behind the kitchen bench.  This can be done while I'm away or when we return.  The important piece of tiling was behind the cooker, as our plumber wouldn't certify it until it had a splash back, so we got that area tiled first by our dear friend Derek, who did an amazing job.  Dave also did an amazing job of the grouting.  Totally love the design we chose. 

The below picture is our new flooring in the entrance way, through to the kitchen and along the hallway, we totally love it.  Its a Karndean product, parquet... Auburn oak.

This is the front of our cabinetry, nice and sleek...

View into the scullery.  There's still a few outstanding jobs to be done here... another shelf to install above these; glass still has to be installed in the sash window frame; still waiting on the wicker pull out baskets to arrive; and we still need to tile the back wall too!!

This is our laundry chute and floating shelving...  were still waiting for the washing machine and dryer to be installed and the tiling on the wall to be done!

Here's our Parmco cooker.... the tiling still needs to be finished underneath the window frame along the bench top.

View from dining room... the fridge space is big enough for a double fridge, but for the time being our single one fits really well.  Love our blackboard!  A bead also need to be installed in the middle of the glass to match the window frames.

View from dining room... totally love our breakfast bar... lots of bench space to spread out on.

closer view of our splash back tiles

Our builder, plumber, electrician and kitchen joiner have all been absolutely amazing.  Would highly recommend all of them.

I'm now signing off on our house renovations for 2014!!  I'm off to enjoy a family Christmas in England for seven weeks!!  Looking forward to getting stuck back into finishing our home off in 2015... there's still lots and lots to be done!!!

 Merry Christmas everyone! Enjoy and be safe.  Peace to everyone xxx

Hallway Makeover

Today, was a bit of a slow start, for some reason I couldn't get going.  Thankfully a dear friend Monique came to the rescue with a large Cappuccino and a chat.

Thanks Monique your a life saver :-) x

Once I had my caffeine fix I then, very enthusiastically, started removing the very very old, worn musty smelling brown carpet.  The carpet is probably the original from 1980 when the house was built!!! The underlay had completely disintegrated!!

In my original post I said we bought our home 15 years ago.  Our home was two stories, with windows and net curtains upstairs, but there wasn't a staircase to the upstairs.  So ten years ago we undertook our first renovation project.

Here are some before shots of the original looking hallway, before I get into today's job at hand...

Original hallway 15 years ago!
This is the door into the downstairs bedroom

we removed a quarter of this bedroom to allow
for the staircase to be installed

Staircase installed

Our hallway also used to be a wall full of cupboards too!! One was for coats, another for linen which also housed a hot water cylinder, and the third a storage cupboard.  

When installing the staircase we also decided to remove the coat cupboard to enlarge the pantry in the kitchen.  

We enlarged the linen cupboard as we removed the hot water cylinder due to installing a Rinnai system.

We removed the storage cupboard, this gave us a work station in Cam's bedroom.

hallway, with one set of double doors for the linen cupboard

hallway completed, and wallpapered.
ten years ago the red was quite trendy!!

Anyhow, back to the present day....

We have two weeks to clear the carpet, prep, wallpaper and paint the hallway ready for the hard flooring to be laid.  There's nothing like a deadline to get motivated!!!

Yesterday I stripped the backing paper off the walls and primed the new plaster boards.

Even found Ghosts in the walls!!! 

So today I cleared the carpet, underlay and the tacks around the outer edge.  As well as wash part of the woodwork down with sugar soap.

the underlay was pretty much munted!!! 

I filled a bucket and half with the crumbled, shredded, sand like underlay.

I felt a great sense of achievement looking at a job well done, even if I say so myself!!

While I am doing all of this, our new kitchen is being installed at the same time... its all getting very exciting now... gosh I hope I like the kitchen when its finished... I've waited so long for it... my emotions are all over the place! One day I think yes its going to be great, others I think oh no what was I thinking!!!  I can't wait to see and reveal how our new kitchen is going to look!  Unfortunately we are all going to have to wait a little while longer!!!

There is only one cupboard unit left in the hallway to install in the kitchen, along with the range hood and gas/electric cooker hiding away down the hallway!

The plumber should be on site Thursday / Friday to connect everything up.  The builder will be returning on Tuesday next week to finish off the skirting boards, architraves, and cornice.

Tomorrow I'm going to finish off washing down the woodwork, and make a start on painting the cornice, skirting boards and inside front door.  I'm off to bed now to catch some Zzzzzz's.

Thanks for reading, until the next update on the hallway.

Window prepping & painting

What a great feeling, a huge sense of achievement!!  We have finished the laundry, kitchen and dining room windows and french doors!!

The mammoth task started with me paint stripping the windows weeks ago!!

haha, that's me in action!

Dave also removed a lot of the old putty too as it had hardened, cracked and some of it had just fallen out! Then muggins here, was wiping down one of the pains one day, being very gentle, and while doing so my hand went straight through the glass!  Ooops! I was very lucky I didn't cut myself, just a bit shaken.  Thankfully I was wearing rubber gloves at the time.  A phone call later and a glazier turned up to replace the pain for me in the afternoon.

That weekend Dave re-puttyed all the window frames.

Over Labour weekend we started the undercoating on the windows and french door.  Once dried I sanded them down and put on the first top coat.  I sanded them again and applied the final top coat.

Dave undercoating the kitchen window

dining room french door undercoated

Last Tuesday, I finished painting the kitchen and laundry window, inside and out ready for the kitchen to be installed on the Thursday.  Though the kitchen didn't end up getting installed, ahhhh!!! There was a delay in getting the panels from the painters!!! We've been promised it will now be installed on Monday.  Fingers and toes crossed!!!

Instead of masking all the window panes we are painting the glass then removing the paint from the glass with a paint scraping knife... it probably takes a bit longer than masking but you get a better finish.

The windows are looking so much better... look at the comparison above, white vs the mucky brown that used to be on the window frames! Above you can also see a sample of what were going to paint the weatherboards, its called Delta by Resene.  I think it will look really smart once completed.  I hope so anyhow!!

I also removed all the window latches, as they were covered in paint and a little rusty!

I took the following steps to polish the latches up.

1. Soaked in a jar of Coopers paint stripper for a couple of hours.
2. Rinsed in a jar of Coopers flusher.
3. Soaked in a jar of Coca Cola for several hours!!! (Just think what this does to your stomach!!!)
4. Rinsed in warm water.
5. Dried off.
6. Scrubbed with steel wool.

Voila they are all nice and shiny again!!

This weekend we finished painting, inside and out, the dining room french door, windows and outside side lounge windows.

North side lounge windows

North side dining windows, the two on the right.

Wow what a difference the white window frames make vs the brown window frames upstairs!!!  Can't wait to attack the upstairs!!  Think we will have to hire a cherry picker to do these, instead of scaffolding!!!  I will have to make some enquiries.

Dave also prepped and painted the kitchen/laundry sliding door.

Were getting there!!!