Bye Bye old kitchen...

The day has finally arrived for our old kitchen to be removed, well the first part of it anyhow!  Good riddance I say!!!!

Friday we relocated our existing kitchen sink unit into our garage, so we can utilise it as a work bench.  Also this will be very useful to utilise in the four weeks we won't have a kitchen!!  It will be a great fish filleting bench too, well would be if we ever went and caught any fish!!!  Something we could do when we have finished renovating perhaps Dave!

Henk Otte our plumber arrived early Friday morning to disconnect the water pipes, remove our existing kitchen sink unit and re-connect it in the garage.  It was great as I was able to help him too.  I had fun chipping, well more like smashing, the tiles off the wall!!!  Henk is a close friend of Dave's so really nice to deal with someone we know and who we know will do a great job for us.

All gone!!!  Now I can easily access the kitchen window to paint strip it before the builder arrives this coming Friday!

And, here's the kitchen sink unit in its new home in the garage.  Our plumber needs to return on Monday to connect the water and the clothes washing machine up for us so we can utilise it while our kitchen is being gutted and installed.  The electrician was in on Thursday and installed the power points for us too.  So soon it will be fully functional.

Friday and today, Kimi and I relocated all the food, crockery, and glassware into our make shift kitchen, i.e., the spare bedroom. Its like glam camping!!! 

Dave removed all the pantry shelving and all the glass cabinet doors today, with the help from Kimi.  Thanks guys you did an amazing job today :-)) xxx

glass cabinet doors gone

glass cabinet doors gone this side too 

Pantry shelving gone

So there's no much left now!!  Paul our builder will arrive on Friday and say what did you need me for, haha!!!  He can make a good start gutting the rest of the kitchen this coming Friday without having to dismantle things.  So can't wait!!! 

Landscaping : Stage Two

The WelTec Students have returned to now re-develop our back garden area.  It took us a while, but we have now decided to concrete it and divide it with 50 ml strips of wood criss-crossing through it diagonally.  So far the guys have pulled up the paving stones, removed the fence and posts and put the surround/border around the edge.  Next stage is to remove the grass layer, then level it all off, place the wood strips and pour the concrete.

Where the fence was we are thinking of building a built up herb garden, BBQ and Pizza cooking area.  So this still gives a separation between areas, while giving it a more functional use.

The guys will return in two weeks to finish off, as they have a block and brick laying course they have to attend to in the meantime.

Paint Stripping the Windows...

Firstly, our builder has confirmed this morning that he is going to start our kitchen renovation on 3 October 2014, so feeling very excited today!

The kitchen joiner has also started ordering his materials too, so let the kitchen renovation begin :-)

Receiving this great news has got me really pumped, so thought as the sun is shining, and Spring is in the air, I would make a start today on stripping the paint back to the original woodwork on the window frames in the dining room before the kitchen is installed.  Once I've done this I need to re-putty the window frames and prime them to protect the woodwork.  Then when the kitchen renovation is complete Dave and I can paint the dining and kitchen areas together.  The panting is the easy and fun bit, its all the prep work that is fiddly and takes the time!!

So this morning, before my Monday morning ritual of Pilates at 9.30am, for an hour, followed by coffee with the girls, I did the following: stripped the bed, put the washing machine on; drove my gorgeous hubby, Dave to work; got home, had a delicious Chocolate Isagenix Shake for breakfast (full of protein); removed all the curtains and unscrewed the curtain tracks in the dining room ready to start stripping later on; then hung the sheets on the line in the beautiful sunshine.

with curtains 

curtains & tracks removed

Pilates was great this morning, I find its a great way to start the week.  I particularly enjoyed sitting in the sun afterwards catching up with the girls from the class!  Its a ritual after our class that we catch up for a coffee, and have a good ole chin wag!  Today I also had to see my physio, who so happens to be my Pilates instructor too after our coffee catch up as my shoulder has been playing up.  I blame the lino removal!!!  

Before I can start the stripping I need to get the ironing out the way, the sheets are nice and dry so can iron them too and re-make the bed.  Ahhh, all done.

Right, now I can get stuck into paint stripping the windows.  Back in an earlier post I talked about the stripping product that I'm going to be using... its called Cooper's Restoration System, no sanding required.  We bought it at the local Home & Garden Show after watching their demonstration.  At a good price of course!

Within the pack you get 40 litres of stripper, 20 litres of flusher, 1kg roll of stripping wool, a dozen lengths of grit pad, four pump/spray bottles, a detail brush and a broad knife.

Here's the instruction guide... I followed it to the tee, and it worked really well.  

The pink bottle is the stripper and the blue is the flusher.

My first attempt isn't too bad, even if I say so myself!! It took me a little while to get in to the rhythm, probably took me a couple of hours to just do this window, but I was up and down cutting the stripping wool and grit pads and filling up the spray bottles.  Tomorrow I will have the wool and grit pads all cut and ready to grab, plus will have extra cloths to wipe down in between.  I have some old sheets I can cut up for this too.  Haha, old undies come in useful too, yes they have been cleaned first! 

So one window down, another 29 to go!!  Though in fact there will be 58 windows in total, as we are doing the outside too!!!  Then there are 4 French Doors as well, both sides.  I guess this is going to keep me busy for a little while!!

I'm looking forward to getting stuck in :-)

Landscaping : Stage One

A few months ago we went to the local Home & Garden Show, which was very informative in lots of ways.  One in particular was the first stand in the main entrance, which was a landscape garden created by the local WeITec students (Wellington Institute of Technology).  We got chatting to their tutor about their design work and creations.  As we were both so impressed with their work, we have signed them up to re-design our garden as it needs a bit of TLC to impress new buyers.

This is a win win situation for all.  We pay for materials, the students get hands on real experience during their course and at the end of the job we make a contribution to the students starter tool packs.  

The first stage is to re-lay the pavers where the washing line is situated.  The current pavers are sunken, the drainage is non existent and the corrugated panelling has holes in it.  This took eight guys  approximately two & half days to complete this week.  We were really lucky with the weather too, they had gorgeous dry sunny days to work in.  We are really impressed with the outcome and their hard work.

The three 'U's' : ugly, uneven & undulated

Uneven paving

pavers all removed, ready for the ground to be compacted

new corrugated panelling installed, drain in place & pavers being laid 

The finished look - amazing transformation

Now its a much nicer area to hang washing out, when the sun is shining! :-)

I look forward to sharing stage two with you in the near future.