Jackadaw

Kitchen: Worse

Every renovation gets worse before it gets better right? We're definitely at the worse stage. There's plaster missing, half built cabinets stacked up, tools littering the floor. But there is also lots of progress. The wiring is where it needs to be, the frames for the cabinets have been built and most of the cabinets are together.

Come on in ... that's right, we have a door ... kind of.

The old tile backsplash wouldn't come off neatly ... so the plaster had to come out with it

The frames that the cabinets will sit on ... and a couple of cabinets in situ

Rather than use the legs that came with the Ikea cabinets we decided to build 30mm MDF bases for them to sit on. It'll make things more stable, add some strength and help hold up the hugely heavy stone benchtop that will go on the island bench.

A close up of the chaos that will eventually become the oven and cooktop

This is where the fridge and walk in pantry will be. That's the pantry walls there on the floor. Oh, and we'll plaster over that sliding door of course.

Looking at the dining area ... yes, we're eating in the lounge room for the duration.

Order will emerge from the chaos ... eventually!

Most of our preparation work is done. Handsome Handy Hubby has the plumbing to move as we are relocating both the sink and dishwasher. The plasterer will be here to set the walls on Friday which should mean I can paint on Saturday and we can place all the cabinets on Friday. The appliances arrive on Friday (hmmm, where on earth am I going to fit them!) and the stone bench top (a drama for another post) will be measured up once that's all done.

Deep breath ... carry on!

Kitchen: Progress?

I should have taken pictures this morning! Why? Because this morning we had an empty room that I had cleaned. It looked huge! Sure, it showed us how much plaster we were going to have to remove and replace, made us think about where the light switch was going to fit and no, we haven't yet taken out the plumbing from the old layout.

But now? Well ... here's where it's at.

Handsome Handy Hubby arrived home with the sliding door and immediately started going about moving the arch 20cm to the right and installing it, the old kitchen was sold on eBay and picked up in the afternoon, just an hour before all the Ikea cabinets were delivered and piled up in the corner.

Next up ...

cleaning up the mess from pulling out the plaster
checking all the Ikea items to make sure they match the delivery
unpacking all the Ikea items to check for any damage
ongoing work with the door way
putting all those Ikea cabinets together - thank you Handsome Handy Hubby for my baby drill that also came home from the hardware store with him and to my Dad who I've got booked in to help me out with this step

In residence

Some new residents have arrived at our place. Can you see where?

Look closely at the right end of the steps

A few days ago, Little Miss and I collected a bunch of sticks from the front yard that had blown out of the tree. I said that it was 'so Daddy won't mow over them'. They've sat by the front door since then ... waiting.

Our collected sticks & my building supplies

Today, with the help of a little string, scissors and some stones from the garden, it seems that fairies have started to move into our garden. At least that's what I'm hoping Little Miss will decide when she discovers it.

As soon as I can get hold of a battery operated tea light, I'm going to bury it into the ground cover that's growing up between the steps and the wall in the hope that Little Miss will think that this is the door to the fairy house under the stairs and the light peeking out is the fairies inside.

Why this sudden interest in creating a fairy garden? There has been a fairy garden my Mum's back yard for years. My nephew and niece have loved playing with it and now our Little Miss loves it too. She moves the fairies and the fairy stones around regularly. Thanks to the magic of Pinterest I recently discovered a book called Gardening in Miniature by Janit Calvo. I also discovered two beautiful Bonsai - a Wisteria and Japanese Maple. A Christmas Amazon voucher a few days later and I've devoured the book ... and been more inspired.

I've always planned to create a fairy garden under the 'Taj Mahal', the cubby house that was Little Miss' last birthday present. And I've loved the idea of creating a garden under the deck when we rebuild that. In the meantime, there are a few nooks and crannies around the garden that I can build some fairy houses into for Little Miss to discover. I've also got some Christmas money burning a hold in my pocket that could become my first container miniature garden.

Could this be my new addiction?

The kitchen renewal begins

We're doing it ... renovating the kitchen that is. After a year and a half of living in this house and doing not much since we moved in, lots of discussion and floor planning, we've hit the go button and are renovating the kitchen. Completely!

What we started with

What we currently have

Where we're heading ... I can't even give you a great mood board for this as it's in my head. But, the elements are white cabinets, stone bench tops, a walk in pantry, glass splashback with picture shelves for art and cookbooks and our existing beautiful bamboo floorboards. And hints of aqua and turquoise to bring in that beachy vibe that I'm aiming for in the whole house. In my head it looks beautiful ... let's hope it turns out even better! Phase 2 will include turning our super wide window into a pass through out onto the deck. But that's going to wait until we rebuild the deck.

What we'll be doing (other than retiring sentences that start with the letter W)

Pull up the bamboo flooring which Handsome Handy Hubby laid himself
Pull out the existing kitchen ... everything is going
Move the arch which leads to the lounge about 20cm to the right and square it at the top
All new appliances - pyrolytic oven, induction cooktop, glass range hood, dishwasher, double door fridge & freezer, undermount sink
Ikea cabinets all round with lots of drawers
Building a step in pantry
Re laying the floors

The layout and spacing will be similar. Floor plan to come ...

It's going to be interesting as we're doing all the work ourselves and so it's going to have to fit in around work and family commitments.

Will there be disagreements? Yes. I'm a planner, a scheduler, a list maker. Handsome Handy Hubby is a wing it kinda guy. So, my calendar of when things are going to happen freaks him out, and I've just got to take it one step at a time and not expect it all to go to plan.

How will we keep ourselves fed while we have to kitchen? The fridge will relocate to the laundry, the washing up will get done in the laundry tub, and we'll be eating a lot of BBQ and salad ... thank goodness we are doing this in summer!

Both of us are thankful that we've waited a year and a half to do this. Why? Because we've gone through a number of ideas for the layout and finishes over this time and finally come up with what we believe will work for function, look fantastic, cause as little disruption as possible when doing it ourselves, and keep the costs down as much as possible when doing a full kitchen renovation.

Let the chaos begin!

Christmas is coming!

Whether I like it or not, there's no denying that it's December 1st. As with many other house holds, that means the tree is going up. I should probably think about some Christmas shopping too right?

Before the tree went up

All trimmed and waiting for gifts ... and perhaps some Christmas themed art on those plain walls.

Keepsake ornament from Little Miss's 2nd Christmas

This year's keepsake ornament

Christmas kisses

I have hydrangeas!

Yes, that statement is worth the exclamation mark. A year ago when we moved into this house I declared that I wanted blue hydrangeas in the garden across the front that would hedge up and bloom right outside my bedroom window. My family event started a hydrangea fund as our housewarming gift.

This time last year I couldn't find blue hydrangeas anywhere ... but now, well here they are.

Handsome Handy Hubby has constructed a pallet veggie garden for himself and after he was at the nursery stocking it up through the week he reported "I think they have those blue purple flower things that you want". Lucky I speak Hubby.

So after swimming lessons this morning a very tired little miss cute and I headed to the nursery and a wonderful display of pink, blue and lavender hydrangea's greeted us. These are the ones we brought home.

After a little digging, worm watching and watering, we went from a garden with one pink test hydrangea in a pot - from my Gram's neighbour. I left it here in the garden to see how it would do for about a year. To a garden with the beginnings of a hydrangea hedge.

It's not the most dramatic change you've ever seen, but it makes my heart sing. Sure, it'll look a bazillion times better when we pull out the banksia and add in the last hydrangea, take their tags off, build a structure to hide the bins, put in a gate on the side of the house for the climbing rose around the corner there to make a home and of course mow the lawns. But it's a start.

Job 1 of about 150 garden jobs done!

Laundry Progress

Laundry isn't my favourite job. Housework in general isn't my favourite job. I'll do the laundry because I like clean knickers, but the housework ... I can find a million reasons to put that off! I do feel much better, more organised and successful if the house is tidy and clean (both at the same time is like a jackpot) so it doesn't get too out of hand.

Since I have to do laundry in order to have clean clothes then I'm determined to do it in a pretty space. We have one important functional need from our laundry ... space for two washing machines. Handsome Handy Hubby does dirty work. When we first moved to Kiama he was coming home covered in grease every day. We were living with my grandmother and I couldn't put that through her washing machine, so we set up ours. Now, he comes home cover in dust from working in a plant that crushes rocks all day. It's better than grease but still not something that we want in the same washing machine as everything else.

We also don't have a lot of built in storage, so packing as much as possible into the laundry is another goal.

My inspirations was of course found in Pinterest. I love the colours and light in the first wonderful space and the hanging rail in the second image is a great addition.

The only structural work we did before we moved into this house was in the laundry. Thankfully, the house was already blessed with a large laundry that we could fit two washing machines in. It's located at the end of the hallway which originally had a very deep storage cupboard, a solid door through to the laundry and was a dark area sucking all light from the hallway. Click here to see the original and new floorplans.

So, we ripped that storage cupboard right out, moved the doorway so that it now goes across the end of the hallway and installed a frosted glass door which glows all morning as the sun streams in through the laundry. We painted it a lovely soft seaglass green - Dulux Zenith Heights

View from the window into the end of the hallway with cupboard and original door removed.

Looking down the hallway to where the cupboard used to be.

New doorway across the end of the hall.

View from the window across to what used to be the end of the hallway

Frosted laundry door across the end of the hall

From the window looking across to what used to be the end of the hallway. Check out that sunshine!

Next step was to get some cupboards and a bench in there. We used basic white flat pack cupboards from Bunnings for now. Hopefully we'll get something more stylish down the track, and a built in linen cupboard but for now this provides the function we need.

Handsome Handy Hubby used the same bamboo boards as we used on the floor to build that beautiful long laundry bench. It's so functional and much nicer than an expanse of white laminex would have been. I actually enjoy standing here in the morning sun folding up the washing.