It’s been a long time coming but finally I decided to upgrade my kitchen from stone age to modern age. Many things have prevented me doing this in the past. The main one being the ongoing subsidence which, although largely cured, has left me a bit nervous of splashing out a great deal of money on major internal improvements in case the walls fall down. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but if I had to do remedial work to the structure, it would probably involve removing internal fittings as well. And then there’s the cost. Have you any idea how much a nice drawer handle is?
Finally, there was the decision on exactly what did I want? Shaker, modern, solid, soft close, granite, wood, gloss, metal, overhead, underfloor? My kitchen is small, even with the extension, and I wanted to make the most of it. But how? I’m no design visionary and every time I tried laying things out I was left with a small square of space in which to stand while surrounded by units.
But then I had a brainwave. Before the extension, my kitchen was a tiny galley style affair. With the extension, I could return to the galley style and bring some of it back into the old kitchen area. With a built in oven, that would free up much of the extension for a breakfast table. If my life were a cartoon (some say it is), a small electric lightbulb would have appeared above my head.
Fast forward through the purchasing process to last week. I spent most of my spare time clearing out the kitchen. To give you an idea of what that meant, I found a brand new frying an at the back of a cupboard. I have no idea when I bought it. I found a collection of empty rubbish bags showing the progress in style of the council’s bag decoration. Early bags were made with thicker plastic, for example. And the font has changed on the directions printed on the bags.
On Friday, I was given my delivery slot. I was told at the time of buying that delivery would be today, and that I would be given a two hour slot. That’s great. I had the chance to take Rufus for a walk, clear the front room to allow storage of the units and take a trip to the local recycling site with a car load of rubbish. So imagine my surprise to get a phone call while Rufus and I were dodging stealth cows and watching a little foal playing with it’s parents on Fairwood Common. “It’s the delivery driver here, we’re 5 minutes from your house.”
20 minutes later, I was screeching* to a halt outside my house where the van was, indeed, parked and the guys were unloading the units. 45 minutes of huffing and puffing later, there was a complete kitchen, with oven and hob, sitting in some cardboard boxes in my front room. Everything but the kitchen sink. Which turned out to be there as well.
*may have been a gentle and considered parking maneouver, ensuring the vehicle ended up parallel to the kerb without the tyres touching the pavement.
Rufus and I started to gather all the rubbish that was going down to the tip. As you can see in the photo below, he did his bit in preparing the cardboard. Then, after a busy 20 minutes sorting all the recycling out and trying to figure which container it all went in (the guys working there were really helpful with that) I was driving back home and finally managed to get to sit down after 5 hours on the go.
They come to fit it next week. Between now and then I have to eat my way through the contents of the freezer (Rufus has offered to help with that), finish emptying the cupboards and set up a temporary kitchen where I can make tea or coffee while they work.
franticsmurf 