Six Weeks of Chaos…

As some of you may already know, the Domino household has been undergoing a major refurbishment to Kit’s kitchen. Much needed, much anticipated… and much mess. The work commenced the week before the refit with the door from the hallway into the kitchen being blocked off,and with us having to remove everything from the kitchen cupboards and fridge.

We had a second fridge in the “utility room” so that wasn’t a problem, but where to store all the pots and pans and tins and everything else one keeps in the kitchen. Most of it was stacked upstairs in my workroom, so for 6 weeks I had no where to write or paint. The all important microwave and halogen oven were put in the utility room, so I had somewhere to cook, with cutlery, a few plates etc etc in our lounge. With no running water downstairs apart from a cold tap outside in the garden, all washing up had to be done upstairs in the bathroom sink. At least we had hot water up there.

The work stripping out the old kitchen units began on 15th September. Thankfully, I was out for the day at an art workshop and thus avoided the initial noise and mayhem, only to discover the room was in a worse state than we realised with a lot of damp. This was from two sources: one, a leak several years ago from the bathroom which is above the kitchen, and the other, the seal around the sink and the worktop under the window had gone and water and been able to soak into the wall each time the someone who will remain nameless washed hands or crockery etc up. The next phase was having a new ceiling installed and plastered, all the walls cleaned and treated and re-plastered and the floor tiles lifted and the concrete floor repaired and levelled.

New electrics had to be installed along with a new consumer unit and new plumbing. Meanwhile, any cooking was done outside with a few evenings us having a take-out rather than cook, and all washing up done upstairs in the bathroom sink. What fun. Not. The kettle was kept in the dining room on top of the dishwasher, so we could makes cups of tea and coffee, the washing machine stored outside in the shed. Yes, you’ve guessed it, I wasn’t able to do any laundry for 5 week – a good job we have plenty of clothes and towels. Plus, because of all the dust that gets created, I gave up trying to do any housework.

When the new kitchen units arrived it all had to be stored in our dining room and lounge. Things progressed well until the new large oven was unpacked only for us to realise the store had actually ordered the wrong one. We needed an oven with a hide-away door when it is opened with a twisting handle. The one delivered didn’t have a twisting door handle which was an issue. The store sent us the correct oven but we had to wait several days for the old one to be collected. One the plus side to this, the store credited us with the cost of the wrong oven but did not charge us for the new one! Whilst waiting for progress, Dave sealed and undercoated the walls.

Eventually the cupboards and units were in but the flooring couldn’t be laid as it was too uneven so we had to wait for it to be relevelled, and wait 5 days for it to dry although we could walk on it after 48 hours. The company installing the quartz worktop arrived as booked to take measurements and create the templates, plus we altered our requirement, then came the 5 day wait for them to arrive and be fitted. Once they were installed, the plumber and electrician had to come back to install the sink and connect the electric hob. This was another slight problem in that we had ordered an ordinary electric hob, the one that was fitted was an induction hob. Which meant I had to buy new pans as none of mine, some of which were only a few months old, were not suitable for induction hobs. Oh dear, new saucepans and bits needed.

Even though it is now all completed, it still doesn’t feel like our kitchen, it’s so different . The upshot is, now I have got to grips with how the two ovens and hob work and most of our things are back in there, after much ruthless getting rid of a lot of things never used, a mountain of laundry done, and a final week spent deep cleaning the house and tidying, we are absolutely in love with our new kitchen…

and yes, definitely worth it all in the end.