The cut price kitchen refurb continues.
We had decided, some years ago - when we were doing a lot of self sufficiency stuff - that a proper walk in larder with a marble cold stone would be a good idea. It's been more than 12 years since that thought, and I still like the idea of one, but the need is less.
A sort of ready made version came up for sale, and we decided to buy it. It was cheap (compared to buying the same thing new, I mean) and it was worth a punt.
The knock on consequences were significant, and it's taken weeks to get back under control.
The larder required more than just a cupboard or two being removed. It required several cupboards (base and wall) to be removed, and more to be shifted along. Thi emeant all floor and wall cupboards on two walls had to be emptied.
The chaos was everywhere.
DH then had to build the thing, and get it in place, and then try and put some of the units back in place. I went through everything that came out, sorting it into "keep", "sell", "donate", and "f*ck knows".
The larder was filled up, with cupboards from other walls donating their foodstuff. I even managed to get all the food items out of the utility room, and that was a noteworthy achievement.
Stuff was then loaded into the emptied cupboards, but we just didn't have enough cupboard space (we'd lost quite a lot of cupboards, and we won't regain them for months). I also ended up clearing and doing part of the utility room, as I was both moving stuff out of it and into it.
DH put up a temporary wall unit (one of three that we probably won't be using long term) to try and give me a bigger bit of space. Every little helps.
Eventually, I managed to get my living room back. Later still, I managed to mostly clear the worktops. And then most of the floor. I'd got the floor stuff down to 2 crates of books and a crate of "stuff" which was in the "f.k" pile.
And then a 400 wide larder unit came up! I wasn't sure that I still wanted one, but it was reasonably local, and not a huge price, so we got it. It turned out that DH hadn't quite left a 40mm gap when he fitted the larder, which meant that everything along that wall had to be emptied, again, so everything could be shuffled along.
The larder unit was fitted, everything was shuffled back and omnce again screwed in place. I did a day's worth of tidying on Saturday to get to that point, assisted by lots of loud music from my younger days. I paid for it on Sunday and Monday.
And then, another useful unit came up for sale, about half an hour away. This was interesting because it would enable us to remove the last of the old corner units, and to put a much larger unit in my "prep area". When I contacted the seller, it turned out it wasn't where the ad said (which was where the seller was temporarily living) , it was in London (where their house is) and about an hour away from me. I couldn't face doing it.
I messaged her back and said that I appreciated it probably wasn't worth the hassle for her, but if she could get it to her temporary abode, I'd love to buy it. To my amazement, she agreed!
I got the unit home yesterday, and it is fabulous. It's a gorgeous Schmidt unit, with bifold doors and a pull out shelf. It's going to be a secret cupboard, and it's going to house the water softener etc so our new undersink (whenever we get it) will be free and useable! It is really lovely, and actually made me regret not getting a Schmidt kitchen.
Anyway, the corner cupboard had been partially emptied as I had known that at some point I'd have to rehome the contents. It still contained an impressive amount of....stuff.
We also had to empty the two drawer units that were being swapped, and then we had to move everything. It took all evening to get everything in the right place and to swap the drawer contents over. I was surprised at just how much difference in capacity going from a 1000 drawer to an 800 drawer was. I'm a little sad that the drawer which had looked full but not stuffed now looked really cramped!
A lot of the stuff from the corner unit has been dealt with, but I've still got stuff all over the dining room table, and on some of the kitchen units. We've taken a few steps backwards, and the dining room and kitchen once again have piles of bits all over the place. Most of it will have a home, when we get new wall units.
Just not quite at the moment.
The next minor (famous last words) step will probably be to move the dishwasher along. I'm going to have 2 dishwashers. I can fit in two full size ones, one either side of the sink... but it means that both of them will be right up against units. I'm not sure how that's going to work in practice, as we're used to being able to open the drawers for direct unloading while the dishwasher door is open, and that won't quite be true anymore. The alternative is for the second dishwasher to be a slimline one, which might work, but this means I have fewer options of appliance.
If we can get that test out of the way, then we can consider replacing the sink and rearranging the plumbing. The only thing stopping me doing it anyway is that we won't have a suitable worktop, and I don't want to rush into to worktopping.
I need to make sure that I'm really 100% happy with the layout before we commit to that.
The kitchen looks a bit of an eclectic mess, as we have some units which have temporary fronts on, and some units which themselves are temporary. I keep looking at alternative options for the not-yer-done runs..... and re-considering some that have been done. I'm not quite sure about the tall units, and I'm not quite sure why that is.
I love the drawers, I love the larder, I love the appliances. I'm happy with the idea of buying the brand new wall units that I've had my eye on (and DH has yet to see). I'm happy with now buying any missing units and bits brand new (we've done so well on the other units!).
There's no point in my ordering anything new until I'm sure.
Sure ish.
