My home kitchen (Evobean's)

[Evostance]

Just a warning - this thread will no doubt not show completion photos for a while, although I'll keep it updated with progress. It's a slow mover, as it's only being done at the weekends between a few of us, and the entire kitchen has been a total refurb. At times, I wonder if it would have been quicker for us to rip out all the plasterboard and start fresh.


Thanks to everyone who has given me advice, helped with suggestions and price/budget choices. Big thanks to Claydon-Lad (CL) for sourcing the kitchen, and helping me make any final tweaks and giving fitting advice

All design work has been done by myself, with advice from around the web, CL and KFF. My first time designing a kitchen, so I hope the final result is OK! The kitchen is a Crown Imperial Rialto White with Light Grey cornice to frame it

Our house originally had an L shaped kitchen at the rear, next to a dining room. Of course this wasn't what we wanted, so we ripped out the old rotting Wickes white kitchen, along with red wall tiles and 3 layers of ceramic floor tiles, demolished the internal wall and fitted an RSJ, combined with a "feature" bulkhead to create a large kitchen diner. We then constructed a utility in part of the old kitchen.

As the destruction commenced, we've had countless issues from incompetent plumbers, to terrible DIY ranging from paint to electrical which caused things to drag on.
On with the photos.

The design
Just a rough render of what the kitchen will look like when its complete. Tried to do it as accurately as I could in SketchUp.


Before Shots
This was the kitchen before the house was sold to us. Kitchen was a Wickes gloss white kitchen. Plumbing holes were butchered into the units, cabinet interiors had gone yellow, red wall tiles are not our thing, and some of the floor tiles were cracked. It had to go.


Next door to this was the dining room. The bay window doors let in a lot of light, but we wanted to make it open plan. The diving wall was coming out, along with the removal of the old boiler, and fitting a new boiler where the utility would be. Queue incompetent plumber thread, somewhere on this forum.


Kitchen was stripped out, 3 layers of floor tiles came up and time for the wall to come out. It's a structural wall, so needed to be replaced with an RSJ:


Much better


Next up was the utility




Then came the "feature" bulkhead, and the removal of the coving in the dining room. Turned out it was easier to rip the ceiling down rather than trying to fill the plasterboard joins. Also a good opportunity to get the network cabling and electrics done. Ended up with an entire kitchen rewire almost.


Extractor went into the bulkhead, ceiling skimmed, walls re-skimmed and the we lined everything to ensure a smooth finish, and to hide and potential cracks that might appear where the new skim met the old.


We're now at a stage where the ceiling is about to have its final coat, and the walls are ready for their first coat. Tiles will be going down next weekend once we've picked them, and then its onto fitting the kitchen.

The only issue we have at the moment is that we've lost the measurements for the downlights in the dining part, so we can't cut the holes at the moment. Whoops!

[PREM]

Nice prep who's kitchen are you putting in?

Going to look good, keep the pic's coming. Shame about that internal soil pipe.

[Evostance]

Nice prep who's kitchen are you putting in?

Going to look good, keep the pic's coming. Shame about that internal soil pipe.

Thanks

Oh good point, I missed out the key piece of information
It's a Crown Imperial Rialto in White, with Light Grey cornice etc to frame it. You can just about make the grey out in the render.

We did look at trying to locate the soil pipe outside, however it would have added a fair bit more work and we'd just like to have the kitchen finished to be honest. I tried quite a few options to try and disguise it, but in the ended decided that having more workspace was a better use of the space.

[PREM]

Yes in a wider room you could get away with framing that wall out. Had a cust ask me to just put it outside When i told her no problem that will be around 3k extra at least she backed off.

[Evostance]

Possible delay now thanks to the council.

They've stated that as we've constructed a utility room within the kitchen, it needs to have extraction facilities. Could provide us with a bit of an issue, as if we have to put one in, it's going to delay everything.
However, the building regulation definition of a utility is

Utility Room is a room containing a sink, or other feature or equipment which may reasonably be expected to produce water vapour in significant quantities

We're not having a sink in the room, and the only 2 appliances in there are going to be the washer and the dryer. I've never seen a washer produce water vapour, and the dryer will be a condensing dryer.
Having a bit of an argument with them now, should be interesting. Hopefully I can get around this, maybe I can try and change the application by calling it a store room

Anyone know if by plumbing in a new radiator, getting the boiler relocated and putting in a cold water supply also needs declaring to the council?

[Evostance]

Figured I should probably up date this..

The kitchen ceiling has come up extremely well, very happy with it:



We finished adding the doors, skirting and architrave. Not shown in the photo is the wood is primed now




Bit annoyed though. Some how 2 part wood filler got onto some of the tiles. We got a bit of turps, a soft sponge and a lightly edged it off with a sharp chisel. Some how, the tile seems to have some patches of slight discolouration on them. Washed the turps off immediately with a bit of warm soapy water.

Literally haven't got a clue why, the tiles aren't scratched and I threw all sorts of stuff at the sample tile (turps included) and it didn't mark or discolour. The only thing that touched it was diamond.

Going to get a steam cleaner on it just to make sure it's not something on the surface.

Things are taking longer than expected, yet again, with unforeseen setbacks and family events - Leak in the stud wall, council deciding an extractor is needed in utility, tile delivery been a balls up, birthdays, illness, and now a possible tile issue.

Kitchen was supposed to have been going in this week, but these things can't be helped! Hopefully this weekend we can get some undercoat on the wood, and get a first coat on the walls. We went for LG French Grey Pale in the end ;)

[Jaymo]

Looks brilliant so far Evostance. Keep the pictures coming

[Evostance]

Just thought i'd give a quick update

Theres only one person working, at the weekends on the kitchen at the moment. Other rooms in the house are being done at the same time so it's not moving as slowly as it looks, and everything is being completely stripped back

For example - Master Bedroom:
From

to


Anyway, as far as the kitchen goes, since the last update:

1. Door frames have been filled as the bottoms were cut due to previous owners having the house laminated
   
2. Main kitchen door has been hung
   
3. Doors, skirting and architrave have all been primed, undercoated and glossed
   
4. Walls have had a first coat of paint - Little Green French Grey Pale - Thanks CR, looks awesome
   

Next steps in the kitchen are:

1. Give doors, skirting and architrave a second gloss
   
2. Give walls a second coat
   
3. Wallpaper the end wall in the kitchen
   
4. Refit radiators and fix TV bracket & sockets
   
5. Cut holes in utility wall for washing machine waste and dryer vent (managed to convince the council that we don't have to have an extractor if we have a dryer vent)
   
6. Paint up the utility
   
7. Fit the kitchen
   

Everything kitchen wise is pretty much ready to go apart from the larder and corner innards. Hailo Euro bins came this week, as well as the tap (Franke Coxy). Insinkerator is should be here on Monday and appliances are in the basket ready to be purchased.

My little project until the kitchen goes in:


So if anyone knows where I can get a nice wooden looking, floating vanity unit with a worktop for surface mounted bowl, let me know!

[Evostance]

Room complete! Finally got the wallpaper on at the weekend. It's John Lewis Gala in Storm

Kitchen is finally going in next weekend



On a side note, does anyone know where I can get the following Hafele item?
547.20.505

It's a 300mm wide, 1900-2500mm tall pull out larder with saphir mesh chrome baskets. Can't find it anywhere