Wednesday 16 October 2013

Moving on

Well the time is nearly upon us....a week and a half till move day - yikes! and the packing is in full swing!

The good news is that within 24 hours of the flat being listed for rent, we have just agreed to let to some really lovely tenants who we think will love the place as much as we do. Just thought I would share the finished pictures with you so we can draw a line under the south-east london flat and look forward to starting the house...



















Looking at the kitchen pictures now, I am going to find parting with it very difficult indeed. I just want to thank my clever neighbours for all their hard work at http://www.karlmarrowfurniture.com/ the beauty and ingeniousness of it is down to their ability to take an idea and transform it into something wonderful and I am so glad that we were able to create it, even if I do have to leave it behind (sob). I just have to keep it in mind that we will be putting in a lovely kitchen in the house....keep saying over and over like a mantra...

With regards to the house we are surging on with the detailed drawings and have our builder lined up and raring to go. Unfortunately there are some man hole covers under the extension that we will now need to get permission from the Environment Agency to build over and will probably have to provide side rodding access, which will take a couple of weeks and be an extra cost, but once that is done we are full steam ahead!!

Now...need to get on with that packing!!




Thursday 3 October 2013

Its a kitchen, Jim, but not as we know it..

*****STOP PRESS****

The Kitchen is finished....one two three HOOOORAAAAY!!!!

Here some shots for your viewing pleasure...lets just remind ourselves of the before....
Hardly any worktop space, no room for a dishwasher


 very old and slightly broken oven...
And now...
 It was never my original intention to own this many Jamie Oliver books, it just sort of happened....There is also under cabinet lighting but I couldn't have it on for the pictures...

 Aha, in the reflection you will see the task lighting under the top cupboards...

 Shelf closed...
 Shelf slides open revealing secret entrance to the utility cupboard (and nice place to hide)...


 Lets not forget the cat needs to get out still...
Unfortunately the video I have to upload is not currently working on here so that will have to wait.

So what do you think??

The other exciting thing is that we only have 23 days left to enjoy this wonderful quirky kitchen before we leave it for the the little house......and start all over again.....


Monday 23 September 2013

Renovation - good for the soul, not good for your nails...

 So its been a busy week/ weekend in the flat, but i can safely and proudly say that after many very late nights and a fair amount of swearing, the tiling is finished and grouted!! Hurrah!


 Unfortunately dark grey grout does little for your nails, you will be pleased to know that in lieu of payment I am demanding a pretty intense manicure once all the work is completed!
 So we painted most of the walls too, and this have fixed the skirting to the main wall as you come in. We still need to said and smooth the big wall before we  can paint it.
 So the sliding shelf and the plinths should be going on this week - its possible that some of it will be there when I get home from work - exciting!! I can't believe its nearly finished. So here are some pictured of what its looking like so far, once the shelves are in and its all dressed properly there will be more.





Wednesday 18 September 2013

Tiles, tiles and more flipping tiles

So the past week has mainly been spent tiling...as you can tell from the title of this post! Annoyingly all the tradesmen we found were super expensive and since we already have a tile cutter we have been doing this ourselves, obviously this means that it is a lot slower and there is a large amount of re-doing (quality control is key!).

Since the weekend we have been tackling the wall tiles, which not only has been a little tricky because of having to tile around plug sockets, but also a little annoying because the adhesive that we are using, unlike the quick drying one that we used for the floor tiles, is pre-mixed (that bit is great actually) but this means that it takes AAAAAAGES to dry and so when you start removing the crosses some of the tiles fall out and you have to do them again -grrrrr! 2 steps forward, 1 step back!

Anyway, we are getting there, albeit slowly. Here are some of the pics from the weekend, we hope to have the walls finished and grouted by this weekend coming when we should be finishing off the floor. Keep your fingers crossed for my sanity people!






Thursday 12 September 2013

Clock is ticking

So I haven't posted in a while, but that because things are moving so fast that by the time I take photos everything has changed, but I thought I would put up some progress photos, even though they are out of date..
 We are currently in the process of tiling the floor, it's now more finished than this but we still need to tile inside the utility cupboard, we will do this this weekend and grout it and I will take more pictures.

Meanwhile the cupboard doors are all on, though there are some missing in these pictures, once again I will take more pictures at the weekend.


We are still waiting for the sliding shelf to go in, and once we have grouted the floor the plinths can be fitted. We are also going to paint the walls this weekend ( a lot to get through!)

Also completed is the back room, apart from finishing the door frame and the window sill, the carpet is now in and the furniture is all put back, I am yet to take pictures (once again!)

All busy busy busy in the flat! All this and only 6 weeks now till the move down to the little house so we can start on that (bet you had forgotten about that hadn't you?!)....