KITCHEN UNITS FITTED

Many months back when I first started looking for kitchen units, I searched high and low for a retailer that would supply me with a black carcass coupled with oak doors.  Don’t be daft, no-one wants that colour combo for a kitchen so it was no surprise that kitchen units fitting this specification couldn’t be found anywhere for love nor money. 

 

Black and wood - a lovely combo

Eventually I got a quote from IKEA – certainly can’t be beaten on price for their units.  Their quote was about half the price of all the other suppliers approached (Homebase, Wickes, B&Q etc) and if you have a small kitchen then you know IKEA’s design is going to make the best use of all available space.  Of course, all units are supplied flat packed so ask yourself do you really want to spend hours assembling it all?  Not likely.  IKEA’s installation costs are calculated on a per unit basis, the more you have to build, the higher the price.  As a rough guide I was quoted £1,500 for assembly of my kitchen layout. 

Colour wise, IKEA’s black Metod cabinets would have been perfect but for the lack of oak look doors and the fact that they don’t supply 500 mm wide units.  The closest wood look door called Askersund, a light ash offering the colour of partially cooked pasta, just didn’t do it for me.

 

The closest choice for black cabinets

Too light in colour

In the end I purchased the kitchen units from Covers at Chichester who supplied these ready built instead of flat packed, a bit like a Howdens kitchen.  Lovely oak doors but no black carcasses. 

 

Kitchen units - grey and oak

My kitchen units are grey in colour with dark anthracite wood grained panels on the ends. 

 

New England oak coloured doors

Dark anthracite grained end panels

The doors are called New England oak, a beautiful colour with realistic looking wood grain which you can choose to have either vertical or horizontal.  I’ve gone for a vertical grain.

Vertical grain oak doors

To gain the most storage space from the wall hung cabinets, I have chosen the tallest possible.  At 900 mm high these cabinets are huge, almost too tall for the height of the room and to leave a decent gap between the worktop and the cabinet, they’ve been hung directly under the cornice. 

 

Very tall wall hung cabinet 

Cabinet height is something to bear in mind when designing your kitchen.  You don’t want lots of wasted space above the wall units that only gather junk, dust/grease but at the same time, you need to ensure the room doesn’t look overwhelmed by units that are not in proportion overall. 

 

Lots of storage but too high?

Always check that your kitchen supplier will exchange any cabinets after you’ve taken delivery of them.  A fact that was not pointed out to me at the point of purchase otherwise I would have paid more attention to the dimensions of both the room and the cabinets on the design plan and perhaps selected ones less tall.

 

Base units all fitted

Other design issues to look out for - kitchen sinks and the cabinets that house them.  My new sink is a single stainless steel bowl with no drainer.  It’s small, sleek and has little shelves which are used with an over sink drainer or chopping board.  Fabulous!  Except that it is quite deep.  

Small but quite deep

So?  Well once the plumbing is added under the sink, you’ve lost half your cupboard space.  Not something your kitchen designer points out to you when they’re flogging you an expensive new sink.

 

Position of new sink

Corner units – now these are an interesting kettle of fish.  It appears not all corner units have L shaped shelves inside them, some just have a single straight shelf or a variety of carousel type attachments.  These conveniently allow you to rotate pots outwards but are not very space effective as all your pots/pans can only be placed inside the carousel unit.  Consider carefully how and what you’re going to store in it.

 

For best use of space, get an L shaped shelf

My corner unit has a lovely shaped internal shelf but has doors that do not appear to open centrally outwards as depicted in the installation diagram.  Instead, these are hinged in the middle which means you have to side step around the door when opening it in order to get into the cupboard.  Weird or what?  Again, something to double check during kitchen design.

 

Centrally opening doors on corner cabinet

This is what I've ended up with

Now that the kitchen units have been fitted, the whole room has taken on a completely different look definitely feeling larger and more spacious than the old kitchen.

New kitchen

Old kitchen

LIZ TRUSS RESIGNS

Well, well, well, so Liz Truss has finally resigned!  The current political situation reminds me of that old 80’s joke ‘what lasts longer a pope or a wine gum?’  In this case, wine gums.  Inevitably, the only option left on the table was for Dizzy Lizzy to go home and eat a large slice of humble pie, washed down with a nice cup of tea. 

Of course, the question now on everyone’s lips is who will be our next Prime Minister?  In lieu of a general election, here’s my hot list of prime candidates to lead the UK:

 

Bring Back Burgers!

Ronald McDonald – Bring Back Burgers is his party’s motto.  Down with tofu and anything else that doesn’t come from cows.  His manifesto includes a Windfall Tax on beans and any vegetarian food that gives rise to toxic emissions which is pretty much everything.

 

Vote for Tickle Me Tuesdays

Elmo – Come on, everyone loves Elmo!  He’s got to be better than any of the muppets put forward by the Tories.  His manifesto includes a Tickle Me Tuesday where the nation will go outside every week at 8 pm to tickle their neighbour because some of these miserable buggers need laughter in their lives.

 

Not again!

Boris Johnson – Bring Back Boris?  Ok maybe a second season of the Boris soap isn’t such a good idea after all so moving swiftly on.

 

Always observe the Sabbath Day

Ozzy Osbourne – Who better to light up the nation’s way forward than the Prince of Darkness himself!  Ozzy’s mandate will ensure the preservation of bats, free prescription medication and observing the Sabbath Day on 3 December which will be declared a new UK bank holiday.

 

I can find you the cheapest policies

Auto Sergei – Can search the markets for the least disruptive policy and guarantee you a free cup of coffee to boot.  What’s not to like?

 

I'll show Larry the Mouser who's the top cat

Bertie – Who says cats can’t be Prime Ministers? 

 

I'm perfect for this political drama

Olivia Coleman – She’s been in everything except No 10.  No hang on, what about The Crown?  I feel a string of BAFTA’s coming on and no doubt she’ll cut a fine dramatic figure during PM Question Time plus her exit will no doubt feature one of those really hammy Hollywood death scenes.

 

Austerity's my middle name

Roland Rat – Err, do you mean Rishi Sunak?  Tipped as the red hot favourite, Rishi will make austerity look about as necessary as a colonic irrigation.  If he gets into power, be prepared to tighten your belts to the point you can’t breathe.  

I’m watching this space for political developments as well as watching paint dry as Fluvid has struck.  

Getting ready to mist coat the kitchen walls

Two diluted coats of matt emulsion

One undiluted coat of white matt emulsion as a base

And whilst our builder is stuck at home with a snotty nose and wracking cough, I’ve thrown open all the windows to paint the kitchen before the base units get fitted next week.

Dulux Soft Fauna 5 - my favourite colour

Kitchen all painted and ready for base units to be fitted

TILE TRAUMA

Something told me it was going to be one of those weeks …. 

So, Chancellor Khazi has been flushed down the drain by Dizzy Lizzy and I’m sure it won’t be long before she’s packing her bags.  Politics – it has to be the best comedy show in town!  Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried. 

Khazi is not the only one that’s feeling traumatised.  My kitchen floor was going like a dream until Wednesday when I got home from work to be told by our builder that there’s a tile shortage and for once, neither Covid nor the war in Ukraine is to blame.  Aagh!

 

You're gonna need a bigger tile order

How could this be?  I used the tile calculator feature on Tile Mountain’s website rounding up my measurements and adding a few more for good measure so how could we possibly not have enough floor tiles?

 

What do you mean there aren't enough?

And as if that wasn’t bad enough when I rang Tile Mountain to order a few more boxes – shock horror!  My particular tile has been discontinued.  ‘But I only ordered them in May’ I wailed down the phone to the non-plussed young lady on the other end who showed as much interest in my plight as if she’d found a loose bit of fluff on her sweater.  

Here’s the thing that tile buyers might not discover until its too late.  When tile retailing websites show quantities online, it does not necessarily relate to the number of packs of tiles but to the number of metres.  For example when it says ‘1’ in the quantity box, you are not ordering a box that contains 7 tiles but you are in fact ordering 5 tiles which is 1 metres worth.  Confusing?  Not half! 

Thus when I ordered what I thought was 20 boxes each containing 7 tiles (140 in total) what I received was 20 metres worth of tiles (100 in total).  No wonder we’re short.  

Fortunately, I managed to find another tile retailer in Oldham that carried this same design and had some tiles in stock but it’s cost me an extra £113 to get these urgently delivered next week. 

My advice – check, check and double check the tile retailers website when you place your order that you are going to receive the right quantity of tiles for your project.  

In the meantime, the rest of the floor tiles have been laid and grouted.  They look lovely and go really well with the dark grey colour of the kitchen units.

Flooring begun

Gizmos used for spacing and levelling

Neatly spaced out

Blending the two rooms together

Finished with Manhattan grey grouting

New floor gets the Bertie seal of approval

KITCHEN PLASTERED

It’s one thing drilling holes for cables and power sockets but it takes a lot of skill to fill in holes where electrical fittings have been so that it looks like they were never there in the first place.

 

Extractor fan hole before plastering

And afterwards

The kitchen has now been re-plastered so whilst that is drying, the builders have begun to lay the ceramic floor tiles I purchased earlier on in the year and I’ve painted up the ceiling/cornice in the extension.

 

Kitchen plastered

and slowly drying out

Looking more like a proper room

Mist coating the walls under the Velux window

Extension ceiling before painting

And after the first couple of mist coats

A quick word on flooring before we take a sneaky peek at the new floor tiles.  

With so many different types of flooring available on the market today, choosing the right one for your project is always going to be a headache.  Do you go for function over fashion?  Trending now but is it going to age faster than our tortoise?  Then there’s the clincher – how much can you really afford to spend on flooring without bankrupting yourself in the process?

 

Floor levelled and ready for tiling

I'm still young in tortoise years

I think our choice of flooring reflects a balanced combination of all of the above.  Ceramic tiles are practical, easy to clean and Victorian style patterns are very much in vogue at the moment.  

The pattern I’ve picked is called ‘Southampton’ from Tile Mountain and is a geometric encaustic style design in grey/beige tones.    I liked this design as I thought it would go well with my overall Art Deco theme and blend in nicely with the new kitchen units.  The tiles themselves are quite large in size (450 mm x 450 mm) but made to look like 4 smaller ones.

 

Southampton porcelain floor tiles

Price wise very competitive at under £20 per square metre so well within our budget. 

I guess the biggest downside to having a ceramic tiled floor is that it may be cold underfoot or if you drop anything fragile onto it then you know it’s going to smash to smithereens as tiled surfaces are very hard.   So going forward, don’t be a butterfingers and note to self, buy a nice rug to go under the dining table to keep your toes from frostbite.

Enjoying the glorious October sunshine