Kitchen Refit 2007

The plan of the kitchen when you enter from the garden

We havent decided on what flooring we're getting yet, we will decide that once everything else has been done.

With our discussion with Richard and Philip's eye for design he asks if they do the cooker in any other colours, which luckily for us they do so we are now getting the same model as above but just in this colour

So for the costs, well it's 20% off, and even with that it comes to over 12K, opps tell Richard he needs to make a better offer than that. He says that he will put the cooker in for free, and if we take it out on finance he will take some more money off plus the interest we will have to pay for having to keep the finance for 3 months. so now the price has dropped to £10.999.20 which after some discussion we agree to as it does include £2216.50 for fitting which we had assumed would be carried out by the builder but this seems a better idea as their used to fitting these kitchens and will know the best way to get round things if problems arise plus they will be better insured to put things right if needs be, working for the company.

Getting a Builder Sorted

We give over all the details of the kitchen we have reserved to the builders for them to try and source at Trade price. You would of thought that this was a fairly easy task, you would be wrong.
Firstly Howdens don't keep the same kitchen under the same name and one of the builders isnt actually going to Howden but to another Trade supplier so we have to wait for him to drop the brouchure in.
We get the brouchure in and there are some really nice kitchen's but not the one we have already choosen, so ask the builder if he could possibly try Howdens and with numerous phone calls from him, often when the soaps where on, arrhhh, he still hasn't sent through a proper quote for the actual refit so our minds are leaning towards the other builder anyway.
This builder has at least given us a proper quote for the works required and the kitchen supply is being dealt with as a seperate issue. We are working on a time line here because once MFI's surveyor has been out to double check all the measurements and requirements we are then honor bound to buy from them.

Yippee the builder sends thro the quote for the kitchen they reckon they can get it for £5806.00 just need to visit the showroom tomorrow and get brouchure to check it is actually the same one.The one that they say is the same is called Hexham Oak.

So excited. Builder has also set up an appointment for the quote from the da,kmp proofers and I call the damp proofers that we had used to do the downstair toilet in Dec 05..

Excitement didnt last long, I looked thro the quote sent over with the parts list from Howdens and the parts list we have from MFI. Some of the items dont add up, and the sizes of the cabinets seem to be different. How's that going to work as MFI's quote is made up from the measurements we gave them. Really can't afford to buy a kitchen that possibly won't fit. I call the builder and voice my concerns. He calls up Howdens and gets them to double check and send over the quote again. Now this is where it gets a bit dodgy. The new quote is different from the first. How can that be? We have given them the same details as before, only difference this time is that another person at Howdens has created the quote. Not happy so decide to pop down and speak to them myself.

So with kids in tow I drive to Howden's. It's basically a big warehouse with a small trade reception so their not use to "the general public" just turning up. I manage to speak to a guy that is prepared to chat to me, I give him the whole story and he says he will do me a quote there and then from the list I have from MFI, which I thought was very kind as he didnt have to he could of just said that they only deal with Trade. Whilst he does that I grab a brouchure to see what the kitchen looks like. It's very similar to the one from MFI but not the same, it doesnt do the three drawer unit we have on the MFI, two smaller drawers on top and a large pan drawer on the bottom. It also doesnt have the varible size cabinets that we require to cover the walls. In the picture you may see that the three units above the drawer unit on the left handside of the cooker has 2 units the same size and the third slightly smaller, the design offered by Howden's doesnt have that option.
This seems to be more hassle than it's worth also found out that the cooker and cooker hood is going to cost nearly �2000 so that has upped the price to £7806.00. so now not looking like such a bargain afterall as we have to pay the installation fee as well.

I email the builder stating that I'm concerned about the difference in unit sizes and could he come round and go through the layout with me from the quote given to Howdens. I also request a list of reference's and remind them of the date we need to make our minds up as to who we would be getting the kitchen supplied from.
To this day I am still waiting even after a number of phone calls. So it was lucky, possibly we will see, that on a trip back on the tram from Katiya's ballet lesson I spot some building works going on in a house opposite the tram stop and give them a call. I ask if they do the sort of work I am requiring to be done and the man says they do and we book an appointment for him to attend to do a quote.

February 6th. The installation man from MFI comes to do the final measurements and discuss any problems he feels that there might be. Seems we need a upgrade on the fuse board by the eletricity supplier before they can start messing and signing off the electrics. As we need the dishwasher removed and are having the washing machine and tumble dryer put inside a cupboard we need additional plugs so we will need to get this work done. With the new new ring main and added extra's that need doing the additional cost for installation is going to be £905. Well that was one cost we hadn't factored for but if it doesnt get done then we're going to be able to get any additional plug sockets so has to be done.

So now we are ready to make out decision on builders, damp proofers, decorators and sort out some dates.

Damp proofing is booked for Tuesday 29th May, Builder booked to complete rip out 20th June, to give the damp proofing time to dry out. MFI are delivering on the 6th July for the fit on the 9th.

Builder comes on the 24th May to remove the radiator and one unit for the damp proofing to be carried out next week, they were very quick and tidy but had to call them back after they had left as when I went into the kitchen I found water everywhere. They returned within 1/2 hour of me calling them and had to go buy a cap for the radiator and that sorted it. Damp proofing guys call on the morning of the 29th to say that they cannot come that day as they are short staffed, rebooked for the 31st May.

So they turn up on the 31st on time but not the guys that did my last lot. The builder had told us when he was ripping the cupboard out that some of the wall that had not been marked on the plan to be done required damp proofing and so we thought we would offer the guys on site some cash to carry the work out. Well these guys arent very talkative but thought I would just go straight in with the question. The answer is "you will have to call the office". So I call the office with the opening line "the guys that where supposed to turn up Tuesday are now here ...." Guess what wall will get done and no charge. Result.

As it's a Thursday Philip working from home so we just shut ourselves and the animals in the living room whilst they get on. All's fine for the first hour or so but then "bang" they've only chisled through a electricity cable so PC's go down. I go out to find out exactly what happened and get told not to worry as they will fix it. So go back in and tell Philip they will sort it and go back to my laptop which has battery life. Well that lasted all of 5 minutes as they have the nerve to just go to the fuse box and trip every switch in it to "off". This means that the seperate supply to the upstairs and server box have also been turned off, so we now have no access to the outside world. This does not make me happy at all. I go out and inform them what they have done and if we have problems their company will be covering any costs and in future it would be wised if they actually asked the home owners permission to switch the relevent supply off. Seriously annoyed.

Builder calls me 17th June to ask if he can start the work a day early, bit of a dilemma as haven't got any boxes to put all the stuff from the kitchen in yet so have to be a trip to Philip's work to see if I can get some from there. Builder has said he will do the outside work first so not to worry to much. So now fingers crossed the weather isnt to bad.

And it begins Tuesday 19th June 07

Had a nightmare morning, was packing up in the kitchen and managed to trip over some boxes and fall head first into the floor, smashing my forehead and get slap burns on my hands and knees and really windy myself. Great what I really need when builder due at 08.30 and I need to do a school run. Lay in recovery position for a bit whilst Philip checks Im not bleeding anywhere and then manage to sit up. Feel really stupid as really have a busy day and now have a large bump on my head a raging headache and burning hands and knees, true to their word the builders turn up at 08.30.

I get back from school run and find their equipment in the back garden and radio all set up and playing Magic. I need to carry on with boxing up the stuff that is still in the kitchen and get it upstairs. Make some breakfast for me and Archer and have a sit down as head is still hurting. The guys are working really well and by mid morning we have a gully almost completed in the dog run. Kyle tells me that Mike the owner has asked for a cheque for part payment today, so have to sort out the bank accounts to make sure the cheque doesnt bounce.

See all the rubble, poor guys had to bag all that up and carry it through the house as we have no side access, we found out when trying to look for a gardener that the gardener would charge us more to do this. Speaking to the gardener we have chosen to do the garden at the end of October, he reckons that the variants in costs is the fact that we have no side access and some gardeners would just quote over the odds to either get a good rate for the hassle or to price themselves out of the loop. Back to the builder's, one of them loves the radio station and keeps commenting on how much he loves certain songs and joins in with them which is very funny as he wouldn't get through to the next round of "Britains got Talent". I manage to sort through most of the stuff left in the cupboards and sort out some bags of stuff for a dump run. Leave Kyle at home with Archer and take the bags down the dump, on my return the guys are just of for their lunch. Sort out the money with Mike and make Archer's his lunch. The guys come back and set back to work, I take Archer and the dogs for a walk to try and get a bit of rest from the noise of the drilling and for Archer to fall asleep. Get back in time to go off and pick Katiya up from school who is looking forward to seeing the builders on her return and see what they have been doing all day. She's disappointed as they have cleared up for the day and left.

Must say am very impressed with their first days work and how clean they have left things.

And the work continues

Skip turns up at 08.15 looks quite small to me, Philip says that you only meant to fill them level. When the guys turn up I asked them about it and get told that if it was privately hired by us then they would probably refuse to take it if over filled or take it if I bung them a note but as they have an account with the firm there shouldnt be a problem as they would just charge the account. Think they will be charging the account.

This turns out to be not quite true, see futher down the page ! Lets just say CRASH

First they need to finish off the drain, as the manhole cover doesn't actually cover a proper man hole, the last lot of builders apparently hadn't done the work properly it's supposed to have open drains so you can see the water running thro but mine has closed pipes so they can't just run a pipe from the drain into it they have to break into one of the pipe there. I haven't a clue whats right and whats not as long as it works.

Only take them just over an hour to finish it and start on pulling out the units out in the kitchen.

Today their not only singing along to Magic they are also entering a competition on it. So we listen to the people's questions and manage to beat them, so they ask if they can call me thro if they get called back. Up for a laugh so say yes. We listen at each hour when two contestants are called back a little upset they havent been called, there was one question "where is East Enders predomantely filmed?" Guy says Watford which we agree with and the presenter says "no"! and the poor guy lost, they wanted Elstree. 14.45 comes around and I have to do the school run and yes you've guessed it they get called up. They tie on the three questions so have to go to a tie breaker and lose it. Shame. I get back and they tell me what happened they ask me the 3rd question which they got wrong and unfortunately for them I knew the answer which would of meant they would of won. Anyway enough of the shanaghans of the day back to the kitchen.

The kitchen cupboards come out as well as the hob and cooker so the chimney breast can come down and they can investigate the other piece of wall that sticks out.

Unfortunately from the picture on the left, taken shortly after we moved in, you can't see the piece of wall that sticks out but shows a good shot of the chimney breast before it got pulled down. So they start on the rip out, we have asked that the corner cabinets and work top by the sink be left and lucky for us that doesnt seem to cause them a problem. Doesnt take them long to take the cabinets out and we find there are two different wall paper underneath, which confirms the stories told, that the extension used to be two seperate rooms one being the kitchen which then led through to the bathroom. Apparently the houses on the street where originally built as flats.

Philip had thought about keeping some of the cabinets to put in his "shed" but as the gardener isn't available until the end of October (hear loud groan, is she going to diaralise that as well? that would be a yes) we have no space to store them. So unfortunantely they have to go. From the right hand picture you get a good view of the small wall protruding, the builders have a difference of opinion as to what it is. One says it's another chimney and one thinks its a pier (?)

I've put all the rubble pictures together as what can I really say about men knocking down a wall and a pile of bricks. We did have a bit of a "moment" though, when the guys where knocking out the chimney in the kitchen my next door neighbour knocked (him being the one who knocked out all his chimney's and took the stack down some years ago) to say that the bricks on his side where moving!. Seems that he hadn't bothered to cover the downstair wall after the chimney removal as it was in his works office cupboard. The guys now have to be a bit more careful, in so much as you can when knocking down a wall. On taking out the upstair chimney they find a hearth and advise to have that removed as well, which we agree to do as don't want that falling thro onto my nice new kitchen. The picture here on the left is a view from the upstairs down into the kitchen. The picture on the right shows how large the hearth was and how how much of the floor they had to replace. Now that the chimney breast have gone, yippee, they have to board up the walls ready for plastering, which is going to be done on Sunday,these guys work weekends.

This is the upstairs boarded ready for plastering, the picture on the right shows a brown circle of filler. The board wasnt sitting flush to the wall and apparently punching a hole in it and filling that hole makes the whole thing "lock" into place properly. Seemed a bit odd to me but it did work. You can see that they have replaced the floor and they did a really nice job on that only thing that spoiled it a bit was the fact they need to bracket up the part of the chimney they can't remove down in the kitchen. Also because they had to board the wall it sticks out slightly from the rest of the hall so decorator will have to sort something when we get him in to redecorate the hallways.

You can't really see from this picture the brakets that they have used come below the new ceiling height, unfortunantely we have to have these brackers as they had to leave some of the chimney breast in upstairs as the bathroom wall and doorway is attached to it and we really don't want to renew the bathroom. But they have agreed to cut them back to as near the wall as possible which then means that they should be covered by the boarding.

The cutting back of the brackets work but it has bought the board out further than the other part of the wall that didnt have the chimney breasts on, so they will need packing out to get the cupboards to sit flush.

From this picture on the left you can see the relation between the picture above of the brackets and what it looks like with the boards up.

So obviously the next stage is the plastering which is organised for a Sunday, just so happened that day we had booked Kyle's indoor sky diving experience in Milton Keynes so had to get organised for the plasterer and leave him to it. Anyone interested in seeing how Kyle got on Click Here, there's a couple of pictures and a movie where he just disappeared up into the top of the chamber despite the Instructor stating that wouldnt happen and unfortunately you hear me shouting for them to "get my baby down", so embarrassed.

So I'm now just going to post the pics of the plastered walls as not alot I can say about plastered walls.

So after the plastering comes the fitting of the new window and door, for some reason they decide that the new door and window should be in line, the old door was set back a bit. Making this decision has a few problems which I will show you further down and to be honest I really don't like the door, much prefer the old wooden one but this one does give more light which is after all the aim of replacing the kitchen. Didn't manage to get a picture of the old window and door being taken out as the boys had to get on as have the kitchen being delivered next day and they need to be done before delivery.

As you can see from the pictures, the decision to move the door also meant that they have moved the window out as well, so nothing is fitting back onto the original placements. Now have a gap from the wall to the window on all sides and also the step out from the door is to small to place a foot onto so you have to sort of leap out of the door. Not very sensible seeing as I managed to damaged my tendons falling out of the door when the step was the correct size. Builders have assured me that they will make things right and make a new back step and fill in the gaps between the window and walls, but that will have to be done after the kitchen is fitted as the delivery is tomorrow. Looking at the back door from inside have realised that its not fitted properly as can see the outside at the bottom left corner so that will need adjusting as well when the builders come back to finish off after kitchen is installed.

Kitchen has been delivered, 79 boxes as well as the cooker, which unfortunately they cant get through the back door now, as the replacement one has left a smaller opening, so the cooker is left in the living room over the weekend. It will fit but will need unpacking and the delivery men say they are not insured to unpack it so if it gets damaged they could not replace it. So decide to leave it for the MFI fitters who will be insured.

Remember futher up the page I said about the "Crash" well here's what happened.

Skip man arrived and knocked on the door, it was spitting down with rain when he knocked. "Morning love, hope you don't think I'm taking that skip with that amount of stuff in it." I informed him it was not my problem and he would have to take it up with the builder and went and got the phone to call them. Builder told me to offer him a tenner and he would pay me back, skip man was not impressed and said it would at least be twenty so I told him to argue the cost over with the builder and let me know what they decide. They decided twenty was ok so I got that and gave it to him and left him to it as I was due out and needed to feed the little one.

Well 5 minutes later Kyle comes down from upstairs, apparently he had been watching the skip guy and told me that the hoist thing had gone through the driveway. So I rushed outside and sure enough the bricks in my drive had been crushed on one side, the feet had gone through it.

The man was not happy and decided he had to drag the skip off the driveway a bit so he could use the path but this time he decided he would put some wood down for the feet to sit on, which I suppose might of helped if he had done that whilst on my drive. So he had to move the lorry forward blocking off the entire road and drag the skip across the drive, all this in pouring rain. The cab of the lorry started lifting off the road so I had to hang onto it for dear life to stop the whole thing tipping over as the driver only had one arm free, the other was moving the skip controls. It was extremely scary. The skip started swaying and at one stage I thought it was going to go through my front windows, so he put it down on the drive again. Now I had to do traffic control whilst he moved the lorry a bit more to enable him to drag the skip futher. Finally after about 15 minutes he got the skip in the air, yes with me hanging off the lorry again and moved it over onto the back. On looking at the back tyre I said "think you've got a puncture now" only to be informed that not a puncture just the weight of the skip. This skip man was not a happy person now. The skip was meant to hold upto 6 tons when level so have no idea exactly how much it did way but I was worried about the man driving it back, I did say on two occasions to leave it and come back with another skip but he wasn't listening or just didnt want to. I called the builder back and told him about the damaged drive which they have agreed to mend, well I certainingly wasnt going to pay for it to be mended. If I had been quicker minded I should of got Kyle to video it as I'm sure it looked quite funny if scary for me but was to worried about the traffic, my drive and windows to think that quick on my feet.

The MFI fitters arrive

As they are fitting a new fuse board and new sockets we are withiout electric for most of the morning, which isnt very good when you have youngster's and a bored teenager in the house. The electric's take two days to do before they can sort out the plumbing and gas and then start to fit the cupboards.

I'M JUST GOING TO PUT THE PICTURES IN THEN WORK THE WORDS AROUND THEM FOR A BIT, SO PLEASE BEAR WITH ME

They rip the sink out and make the necessary adjustments needed for the wiring, Philip having a shed in the back garden and needs electricity to it, and plumbing as the dishwaser is being moved to be next to the sink.

Lots of measuring up between the cupboards here as the cooker needs to fit snugly into the gap.

They get the wall units up fairly quickly, the gap between the work top and bottom of unit just fits the little telly we have in the kitchen, don't know if that was intentional or just good luck :)

They look really good with the handles now on, didnt particularly like these handles in the showroom, mind you the set up for the kitchen was a lot smaller than ours so it may just of been that, but glad we didnt splash out on different ones. The work tops go on, this top goes extremely well with the units, another good choice by the wonderful Philip.

Here's where the dishwasher is now going, and the pull out cupboard. We had a few problems with this cupboard, even though we had discussed it with the MFI salesman he hadnt apparently put it on the order, so only found out it was missing when the surveyor came and I asked about it. Got the cupboard included at only the extra cost of fitting it and not the actual cost for the unit which apparently was about another £200. You can see the worktops better here and the sink fits nicely, I was worried about losing my two sinks from the old kitchen but this sink unit is fairly large. Just means washing up a bit more often.

And the fabulous cooker goes in with the hood, which we are having vented out of the wall by the sink, but you wont see the pipe work once the cornice goes up.

Have finally managed to take some pictures with the cornice up. I did debate whether bothering with the cornice but it does actually finish it off so would recommend to anyone getting this kitchen to get the cornice as well or it looks a little flat.

and one with the dishwasher in its new home.

Tiles, floors and colours of walls.

Now we are tiling from unit tops up to cupboards and onto the wall behind the cooker and up in between the cooker hood and cabinets.

We have after many months and two'ing and fro'ing as to what we were going to have, be it Kardean, the new lino that they have out that is really good stuff and really looks like wood, my mum has it in her kitchen and you really can't tell that it isn't wood until you feel that it is bouncy or good old fashion tiles, decided that we are going with tiles. Mainly because finding someone to install the Kardean was a complete nightmare and the shop selling it was going to charge us £26 per sq mtr and we could buy it from the net at £15. the lino would of dented where we had the table and chairs, not a problem in my mums kitchen as her's is that much smaller.

Colours of walls, this may sound a bit weird but we have decided to go with the colour of the lining paper for the halls and stairs. Decorators have been doing a brilliant job. J M McKenna they are called and I would highly recommend them to anyone. Very thorough and extreme professional, friendly and nothing seems to be to much trouble. My walls have gone from bumpy to smooth and the paints not even on yet. So the colour for the hall is called Muskmelon and in the kitchen Buttermilk and all wood work is pure white.

The tiles for the kitchen walls are Travertine White

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