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

SPARKS FLY

Well not literally as our electrician is far too careful to be burning the house down but he’s done a great job in deciphering my instruction posters and re-wiring our kitchen. 

Ready for the fridge/freezer

Electrical first fix completed

 

First fix in the kitchen completed including the removal of bricks to make room for a small wall mounted extractor fan.  Being greedy, I’ve decided to have not one but two extractor fans – a cooker hood type and a pull cord type. 

 

Relocating the hole further down

But as cornice is also being fitted in the kitchen as well as the extension, then the hole for the fan needs to be moved further down the wall.  This is not the work of 5 minutes even for a super-hero sparkie like ours.

 

Wall mounted extractor fan to fit in here

A very tidy job indeed, not a loose cable in sight which is just how I like it. 

The gas man’s done his bit too extending the gas pipe along the skirting to prepare for when the new gas hob is fitted.

 

Gas connection ready for new hob

Electrics and gas ticked off the list, all is now in place for kitchen plastering.

THE GREAT BREAKTHROUGH

At last all those wonderful things spotted through the peep hole by Howard Scarper (building contractor & archaeologist) have come to pass.  The great breakthrough has finally happened!

 

Birth of a new kitchen/diner

Gone is the window and wall separating the new extension from the old kitchen.

 

Wall and window removed

Gone in 60 seconds

All that is left of the past is a standalone sink and hob unit. 

 

Standalone sink unit

What's left of the cooking facilities

Everything else has been ripped out, chopped up and taken to the tip to make way for all those wonderful things such as new Neff oven and kitchen units.

 

Clearing out the units ready for the gas man

Dodgy looking wiring 

What was behind the old oven housing

Yuk!  There's more dust back here than in King Tut's tomb

Demolition in progress

Everything's gone to the tip

It’s headless chicken week.  Project activity has been ramped up to the degree that it’s become hard to keep up with everything that’s going on or needs to be organised.  This is what makes a great difference between a project being completely managed by your builder and one where you are in control of things.  It’s down to you to keep all the balls in the air!  If you are not a control freak like me, best to leave it to the experts.

And whilst we’re on the subject of project management, this is an example of control freakery at its most extreme. 

 

Attack of the instruction notes!

Making sure it all goes according to plan

The sparkie is in on Friday to do a first and second electrical fix in the extension and kitchen but as I won’t be around first thing to let him in then I’ve left instructions stuck to the wall to remind him of what’s required.  I can’t begin to imagine what will be going through his head when he sees all this.  I expect he’ll think I’m some kind of notepad nutter and he won’t be far off the mark.

Re-plumbing the sink and washing machine

So whilst the walls in the extension are being plastered, the gas connection for the new hob extended, the cornice fitted and countless ‘To Do’ lists being drawn up by me, good progress continues to be made.

Kitchen ceiling re-boarded

And freshly plastered

Archway in the making

Archway all plastered

Plaster drying out