My kitchen diner thread
Discussion
So as I'm sat in my lounge waiting for my builder to turn up for the first day I thought why not start a PH thread as I know most people in HGAD love a renovation thread (myself especially) I would share mine.
So we have a very small kitchen at the minute and we want a nice kitchen diner. So after a few questions on here we decided to look at kitchens and started with Howdens. We were pretty happy with what he had designed but thought we needed to get another quote so we went to B&Q, oh what a mistake. I'm sure it isn't all B&Qs but our local one was horrendous and the plan although the same as Howdens was just really bad and we left very deflated and annoyed at how bad a job they did. So we decided to go for the Burford range from Howdens and got a pretty good discount as well as their October sale.
So this is the design we went for
Our current layout as you can from the floor plan means we need the wall knocking through and we also decided to get the chimney breast taken out as it's never used and will get us so much more space. We will also be blocking up the door on the right into the dining room and the side door as we never really use it so decided we'd use the front or patio doors.
Then as we draw near to the build date I put our current kitchen up on eBay and Gumtree and this weekend someone came along placed £100 in my hands and drove off with my kitchen, result as it was only going to go into the skip and it's paid for my kitchen taps as I see it.
Here is a before and after
|http://thumbsnap.com/UAYP6aBS[/url]
When we got the house we saw an old boiler vent on the outside which we assumed was bricked up, we were wrong they just put a wall unit in front of it so a bit of tape later it stopped the draft thank god!
[url]
I work for Sky TV and found out they get some incredible deals on Bosch & Siemens appliances (about 20% less then AO.com) so I've specced all the appliances out with Bosch and saved myself a small fortune with that too and they're all getting delivered tomorrow which I hope will fit in my garage.
We also set up the box room as a small kitchen which we've used this weekend and works pretty well. The only downside is having to do the washing up in the bath which is a bit odd but we're getting used to it.
|http://thumbsnap.com/VoL54dHR[/url][url]
So here we are so far waiting for my builder to turn up (any time now). I'll try and keep this as up to date as I can! I am helping him for 3 days to do some labouring this week so should get plenty of pictures. I'd say I'm quite a practical guy and can do some stuff so hopefully I can get stuck in and help.
[url]
So we have a very small kitchen at the minute and we want a nice kitchen diner. So after a few questions on here we decided to look at kitchens and started with Howdens. We were pretty happy with what he had designed but thought we needed to get another quote so we went to B&Q, oh what a mistake. I'm sure it isn't all B&Qs but our local one was horrendous and the plan although the same as Howdens was just really bad and we left very deflated and annoyed at how bad a job they did. So we decided to go for the Burford range from Howdens and got a pretty good discount as well as their October sale.
So this is the design we went for
Our current layout as you can from the floor plan means we need the wall knocking through and we also decided to get the chimney breast taken out as it's never used and will get us so much more space. We will also be blocking up the door on the right into the dining room and the side door as we never really use it so decided we'd use the front or patio doors.
Then as we draw near to the build date I put our current kitchen up on eBay and Gumtree and this weekend someone came along placed £100 in my hands and drove off with my kitchen, result as it was only going to go into the skip and it's paid for my kitchen taps as I see it.
Here is a before and after
|http://thumbsnap.com/UAYP6aBS[/url]When we got the house we saw an old boiler vent on the outside which we assumed was bricked up, we were wrong they just put a wall unit in front of it so a bit of tape later it stopped the draft thank god!
[url]I work for Sky TV and found out they get some incredible deals on Bosch & Siemens appliances (about 20% less then AO.com) so I've specced all the appliances out with Bosch and saved myself a small fortune with that too and they're all getting delivered tomorrow which I hope will fit in my garage.
We also set up the box room as a small kitchen which we've used this weekend and works pretty well. The only downside is having to do the washing up in the bath which is a bit odd but we're getting used to it.
|http://thumbsnap.com/VoL54dHR[/url][url]So here we are so far waiting for my builder to turn up (any time now). I'll try and keep this as up to date as I can! I am helping him for 3 days to do some labouring this week so should get plenty of pictures. I'd say I'm quite a practical guy and can do some stuff so hopefully I can get stuck in and help.
[url]The vent - any vent, anywhere - do not cover. Kitchen escpecially, it is there to provide combustion and purge ventilation for not just old boilers, but hobs and ovens too. If the room isn't increasing massively, you will certainly appreciate having a vent, even if smaller than old air brick.
Nice plans, shall be following with interest.
Nice plans, shall be following with interest.
Awesome, always like seeing these threads!
Just for some inspiration to keep you going through all the mess, here's a couple of photos of what we did. We knocked together the downstairs loo (which was moved), the small kitchen and the dining room. During:
After and all finished.
And we washed up in the bath too, it's a killer for your lower back. Keep the updates coming
Just for some inspiration to keep you going through all the mess, here's a couple of photos of what we did. We knocked together the downstairs loo (which was moved), the small kitchen and the dining room. During:
After and all finished.
And we washed up in the bath too, it's a killer for your lower back. Keep the updates coming
I feel your pain, but trust me, it's worth it. We used a conservatory as a makeshift kitchen for 8 weeks - no gas, one electric socket with an extension lead and a hosepipe through a hole in the wall. I'd recommend getting an electric frying pan, we cooked everything from fry up to curries and stews in it.
I wouldn't recommend using it whilst the microwave and kettle are plugged into the same extension reel though...
I've got some pictures at the end of this thread - http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Good luck, and enjoy the ride. You'll look back on the upheaval with a smile when you're all sat socialising in the room afterwards.
I wouldn't recommend using it whilst the microwave and kettle are plugged into the same extension reel though...
I've got some pictures at the end of this thread - http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Good luck, and enjoy the ride. You'll look back on the upheaval with a smile when you're all sat socialising in the room afterwards.
DAY 1
So just finished of day one. I can't remember if i said but I'm doing 3 days labouring this week to get it going a bit quicker.
So first thing was to get the laminate floor up, skirting and picture frames off. Easily done when you have a flat bar and a hammer. While I was going that the builder was taking the door frames off and then the mess started. I mean the dust is INSANE! Luckily we were prepared for it but I forgot to move some trainers which got absolutely coated in dust *sigh*.
We stripped the walls of plaster, kitchen tiles, and got the props up which I felt was the most exciting part of the whole day. Then the wall started coming down and I could see my kitchen from my dining room and I loved that bit. The amount of space that's opened up really gave me a sense of how much space we're going to have.
Tomorrow the skip arrived which is annoying as it's all on the drive at the minute. Then brick the door up ready for the RSJ and then knock the rest of the wall down and hopefully get all the chimney breast down.
Anyway who wants to read when you can look at pictures!
just some of the dust in the hall way
Keeping the wooden lintel in - didn't even know that we had wires in for the house alarm which is just what you want when you fork out for a wireless system
I've got to put all this into the skip tomorrow! FUN FUN!
Me wondering why the hell I decided to start it!
Hope you are all enjoying reading to far! Hopefully I will have more for you tomorrow!!
So just finished of day one. I can't remember if i said but I'm doing 3 days labouring this week to get it going a bit quicker.
So first thing was to get the laminate floor up, skirting and picture frames off. Easily done when you have a flat bar and a hammer. While I was going that the builder was taking the door frames off and then the mess started. I mean the dust is INSANE! Luckily we were prepared for it but I forgot to move some trainers which got absolutely coated in dust *sigh*.
We stripped the walls of plaster, kitchen tiles, and got the props up which I felt was the most exciting part of the whole day. Then the wall started coming down and I could see my kitchen from my dining room and I loved that bit. The amount of space that's opened up really gave me a sense of how much space we're going to have.
Tomorrow the skip arrived which is annoying as it's all on the drive at the minute. Then brick the door up ready for the RSJ and then knock the rest of the wall down and hopefully get all the chimney breast down.
Anyway who wants to read when you can look at pictures!
just some of the dust in the hall way
Keeping the wooden lintel in - didn't even know that we had wires in for the house alarm which is just what you want when you fork out for a wireless system
I've got to put all this into the skip tomorrow! FUN FUN!
Me wondering why the hell I decided to start it!
Hope you are all enjoying reading to far! Hopefully I will have more for you tomorrow!!
Chippo1 said:
Well my only comment would be , why have the oven on the floor ? A real backache ! And dam sod to use .
Because of the size of the room and kitchen it wouldn't go on the wall without taking a bit of worktop or wall unit and we have a lot of crap to store lol. Plus I've lived with an oven at that level all my life so not even given it a second thought.It might be too late now but we rigged up some polythene sheet from amazon and one of these zipper doors to keep the FEARSOME amount of dust from going upstairs:
grenpayne said:
It might be too late now but we rigged up some polythene sheet from amazon and one of these zipper doors to keep the FEARSOME amount of dust from going upstairs:
Yeh very much too late! We put one of those zipper doors on the lounge door which works a treat but luckily there hasn't been that much going upstairs and we dust sheeted the s
t out of it.
I've had one of those zipped doors separating the front of my house from the kitchen/diner at the back of the house for 3 months, while we've basically removed the entire ground floor rear wall and put in an extension and a sh*t load of steelwork. Very little dust has made it though to the front half of the house, and none upstairs, except a bit carried in on our feet - our builders have been amazed how effective it was, the biggest bang for £20 of anything in the job!
I can't recommend them enough if you're doing building work. Look out for the one that comes pre-assembled, i.e. you don't have to cut the door into the polythene sheet and then tape the zip in place. It does make the place look a bit "Dexter" though... ;-)
I can't recommend them enough if you're doing building work. Look out for the one that comes pre-assembled, i.e. you don't have to cut the door into the polythene sheet and then tape the zip in place. It does make the place look a bit "Dexter" though... ;-)
Update time.
Now I’m back at work I can get round to updating this.
So day 2 & 3 merged into one and I got pretty tired filling a skip with bricks and rubble. However, we now have the steels in, the props down, the wall down and 95% of the chimney breast down.
Only slight annoyance is we had to knock a hole through to our lounge so we could put the steel in which has broken the original coving, so if anyone has experience on how to get coving repaired / replaced to look the same I’d love to know as its original and we'd like to keep it.
On day 2 the skip arrived so I got filling that up, the electrics upstairs kept tripping out we think because of the jungle of wires coming down from the ceiling which would of been fine if it didn't have the boiler wired into the upstairs socket circuit. I had to guilt trip my electrician who was luckily only working 10 minutes away to come and disconnect the jungle of wires a day early so it didn't keep tripping the boiler out and we could be warm on the coldest night of the year so far and if snowed in Leeds which made it even more important we had some heating and hot water.
Yesterday we had to tackle with the snow so I started by sweeping the slush off the drive so it didn't get brought into the house which worked a treat but it was really cold when you stood still for a while. I helped lift the two steels into place which was easy enough and then started to knock down the remaining chimney breast.
The electrician came and got the lighting circuit finished and I made the decision to put the boiler on its own circuit so in the future if we have any more electrical problems we can turn everything else on and still have the boiler on which I thought was a good idea but I could be wrong but he got that wiring in place to do today. The most stressful bit was deciding where to put the spot lights I thought! I hope I’ve got them in the right place but I’ll only really know when they're fitted I suppose.
The plan for them while I’m at work today is to get the rest of the chimney breast down, knocked the last bit of wall through for the new pantry from the hall way and that's the last of the big destruction and dust bit so can hopefully have a quick clean about this weekend once the majority of the dust has had time to settle down, oh and to block up that stupid massive hole where the old boiler was to stop it being so draftee. The electrician is going to wire the boiler up and get the plug sockets done too.
The final thing we found yesterday that's a concern is the distance from the wall to the middle of the room where the washing machine is going to go because I don't think there's going to be a very big walk way so an alteration to the kitchen might be in order but I’ll find out tonight when I go and measure up.
Anyway hope I haven't bored you too much and here come the pictures.
half filled after half an hours work - it's pretty full now
building up to support the steel
Goodbye wall, hello open plan
Then the snow arrived
This happened Wednesday morning
[url]
|http://thumbsnap.com/9fAPTwga[/url
That's all i managed to take but i'll take some more tonight and upload todays work on here too.
Now I’m back at work I can get round to updating this.
So day 2 & 3 merged into one and I got pretty tired filling a skip with bricks and rubble. However, we now have the steels in, the props down, the wall down and 95% of the chimney breast down.
Only slight annoyance is we had to knock a hole through to our lounge so we could put the steel in which has broken the original coving, so if anyone has experience on how to get coving repaired / replaced to look the same I’d love to know as its original and we'd like to keep it.
On day 2 the skip arrived so I got filling that up, the electrics upstairs kept tripping out we think because of the jungle of wires coming down from the ceiling which would of been fine if it didn't have the boiler wired into the upstairs socket circuit. I had to guilt trip my electrician who was luckily only working 10 minutes away to come and disconnect the jungle of wires a day early so it didn't keep tripping the boiler out and we could be warm on the coldest night of the year so far and if snowed in Leeds which made it even more important we had some heating and hot water.
Yesterday we had to tackle with the snow so I started by sweeping the slush off the drive so it didn't get brought into the house which worked a treat but it was really cold when you stood still for a while. I helped lift the two steels into place which was easy enough and then started to knock down the remaining chimney breast.
The electrician came and got the lighting circuit finished and I made the decision to put the boiler on its own circuit so in the future if we have any more electrical problems we can turn everything else on and still have the boiler on which I thought was a good idea but I could be wrong but he got that wiring in place to do today. The most stressful bit was deciding where to put the spot lights I thought! I hope I’ve got them in the right place but I’ll only really know when they're fitted I suppose.
The plan for them while I’m at work today is to get the rest of the chimney breast down, knocked the last bit of wall through for the new pantry from the hall way and that's the last of the big destruction and dust bit so can hopefully have a quick clean about this weekend once the majority of the dust has had time to settle down, oh and to block up that stupid massive hole where the old boiler was to stop it being so draftee. The electrician is going to wire the boiler up and get the plug sockets done too.
The final thing we found yesterday that's a concern is the distance from the wall to the middle of the room where the washing machine is going to go because I don't think there's going to be a very big walk way so an alteration to the kitchen might be in order but I’ll find out tonight when I go and measure up.
Anyway hope I haven't bored you too much and here come the pictures.
half filled after half an hours work - it's pretty full now
building up to support the steel
Goodbye wall, hello open plan
Then the snow arrived
This happened Wednesday morning
[url]
|http://thumbsnap.com/9fAPTwga[/urlThat's all i managed to take but i'll take some more tonight and upload todays work on here too.
Try and keep some of those distressed, stripped internal brick walls! Did that in my Victorian place, and it looks stunning - especially with raw metal tubular steel radiators mounted on them with exposed, polished copper piping.
Cheaper than plastering it, too. Embrace the rustic/industrial look!
Cheaper than plastering it, too. Embrace the rustic/industrial look!
Harry Flashman said:
Try and keep some of those distressed, stripped internal brick walls! Did that in my Victorian place, and it looks stunning - especially with raw metal tubular steel radiators mounted on them with exposed, polished copper piping.
Cheaper than plastering it, too. Embrace the rustic/industrial look!
I was thinking that when the wall from the kitchen was back to bare brick but that wall with the chimney on is the dividing wall between me and the neighbour and as much as i'd like to keep it the noise from the neighbours would come though and vice versa so i'm getting some extra thick plasterboard going on to block out the noise from both of us.Cheaper than plastering it, too. Embrace the rustic/industrial look!
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