Different day, different attitude. The shoulder was still very sore but the pain in my thumb had gone completely.
I started with a proper tidy-up and tool sorting session. After the previous day’s disasters tools had tended to get put everywhere and there was loads of cardboard, polythene and polystyrene packaging everywhere. After clearing the detritus I can see that I am definitely going to have to hire a skip when this is all done. That’ll have to be a work from home day on a Friday, (Oh no! Hee Hee!), for the delivery then fill it over a weekend.
The leaking tap turned out to be where I had bent the sink slightly with the blunted arbour so the water was not coming from the pipe but from the top of the sink and running down the pipe underneath. I was so thankful not to have to go back to Ikea and buy another tap. A cheeky squirt of silicon sealant and it leaks no more! I also got the waste pipe to get rid of the water without leaking. Voila! I finally had a sink with running hot and cold water!
The gas hob was a lot easier than the sink to secure in position, especially using the clamps that Brian left behind for me which are a lot more useful than the three-inch g-clamps that I used for the wall cabinets.
Next up was the oven which took two goes to adjust to the right height, slid in on the rails and secured with just a couple of screws. It was the moment of truth once I had made the electrical connections for the hob and oven. I reset the fuse with my heart in my mouth. No loud bangs meant that I hadn’t shorted anything but would it work?
I tried the hob first and got that really satisfying ki-ki-ki-ki from the ignition. Then I tried the oven and it all worked perfectly. Phew!
So at this point I had a sink, an oven and a hob. A home cooked dinner was on the cards!
The worktops still needed securing to each other which was a bit of a messy job. On the first one I put the wood glue in before pulling them together with the special bolts and it rained down on me while I was on my back in the cupboard tightening the bolt! Yeuch! All of the sawdust in the bottom of the cabinet then stuck to the glue making me a human collage! I stuck a strip of masking tape under the counter for the other two joins and that saved me from further sticky nastiness.
There are discrepancies in the joins and by the time they all came together there is a huge gap on the right hand wall. The tiles will take a lot of that out but it is going to need some quadrant around the base to hide it completely. The good news is that because the counters are solid wood I can sand down and fill the small discrepancies to make them almost invisible. The important thing is that they are all in place and more or less level. I decided to let the wood glue and silicon sealant set before screwing the counters down to the cupboards. This is going to be a pretty academic exercise because they certainly don’t move now that they are all joined together.
While I was doing the joins I had taken the cutlery and some crockery from the boxes in the front room and had them in the dishwasher so when I finished I would be able to cook dinner. After a quick shower I bunged a pie in the oven and waited. Home cooked dinner with veggies on a proper plate with real cutlery – Magic!
On reflection I think I’ll save the contract on my soul. I’m glad I didn’t sell it to have the old kitchen back yesterday. What a difference a day makes :-))
Tomorrow is lots of fiddly finishing jobs before I can start cleaning everything and stocking the new kitchen.
I started with a proper tidy-up and tool sorting session. After the previous day’s disasters tools had tended to get put everywhere and there was loads of cardboard, polythene and polystyrene packaging everywhere. After clearing the detritus I can see that I am definitely going to have to hire a skip when this is all done. That’ll have to be a work from home day on a Friday, (Oh no! Hee Hee!), for the delivery then fill it over a weekend.
The leaking tap turned out to be where I had bent the sink slightly with the blunted arbour so the water was not coming from the pipe but from the top of the sink and running down the pipe underneath. I was so thankful not to have to go back to Ikea and buy another tap. A cheeky squirt of silicon sealant and it leaks no more! I also got the waste pipe to get rid of the water without leaking. Voila! I finally had a sink with running hot and cold water!
The gas hob was a lot easier than the sink to secure in position, especially using the clamps that Brian left behind for me which are a lot more useful than the three-inch g-clamps that I used for the wall cabinets.
Next up was the oven which took two goes to adjust to the right height, slid in on the rails and secured with just a couple of screws. It was the moment of truth once I had made the electrical connections for the hob and oven. I reset the fuse with my heart in my mouth. No loud bangs meant that I hadn’t shorted anything but would it work?
I tried the hob first and got that really satisfying ki-ki-ki-ki from the ignition. Then I tried the oven and it all worked perfectly. Phew!
So at this point I had a sink, an oven and a hob. A home cooked dinner was on the cards!
The worktops still needed securing to each other which was a bit of a messy job. On the first one I put the wood glue in before pulling them together with the special bolts and it rained down on me while I was on my back in the cupboard tightening the bolt! Yeuch! All of the sawdust in the bottom of the cabinet then stuck to the glue making me a human collage! I stuck a strip of masking tape under the counter for the other two joins and that saved me from further sticky nastiness.
There are discrepancies in the joins and by the time they all came together there is a huge gap on the right hand wall. The tiles will take a lot of that out but it is going to need some quadrant around the base to hide it completely. The good news is that because the counters are solid wood I can sand down and fill the small discrepancies to make them almost invisible. The important thing is that they are all in place and more or less level. I decided to let the wood glue and silicon sealant set before screwing the counters down to the cupboards. This is going to be a pretty academic exercise because they certainly don’t move now that they are all joined together.
While I was doing the joins I had taken the cutlery and some crockery from the boxes in the front room and had them in the dishwasher so when I finished I would be able to cook dinner. After a quick shower I bunged a pie in the oven and waited. Home cooked dinner with veggies on a proper plate with real cutlery – Magic!
On reflection I think I’ll save the contract on my soul. I’m glad I didn’t sell it to have the old kitchen back yesterday. What a difference a day makes :-))
Tomorrow is lots of fiddly finishing jobs before I can start cleaning everything and stocking the new kitchen.
