It is now gone nine in the evening and I know I wouldn’t dare but for two pins now I’d sell my soul to get my old kitchen back after kicking the s**t out of what is there at the moment. I have got to say at this point that I’m never given to fits of pique like this so let me tell you how it all happened...
I got back from the hire shop with a router and a new blade for Brian’s circular saw which was struggling a bit yesterday although it was only for rough cuts. I was also a bit of a thank you for giving up his time as he had. The router was a heavy duty Makita one which should make short thrift of the worktops.
Brian took over as the router expert and then asked me where the boss was. Well I was there wasn’t I? What he meant was the collar that goes at the bottom of the router blade so it slid precisely against the jig. A call to HSS Hire and they said that it should have come with one and, really helpfully, said that they would get a driver to go to their Luton store to pick one up and deliver it to the door. We decided to cut out the hole in the counter for the sink while we waited for the arrival of the crucial bit. We were only halfway through doing that when there was a bang on the garage door. He had tried the door bell but over the sound of “duelling jigsaws” it stood no chance! Unfortunately what he had brought was a collet for the blade and not the boss that we needed. He had a look at what we were trying to do and explained that HSS also hire out the jig which has a built in boss for following the contours of the cutting blade. He was really helpful and said that as we hadn’t used the tool he would refund the hire in full. Top bloke! I’d like to plug HSS Hire Shops now for all your tool hire requirements!
So that left us in the same place as last night, except it was now eleven in the morning. We decided to persevere with Brian’s router and see what we could get done. It lasted less than an hour. Can you imagine how I felt when it sputtered and died? Not only has he come all the way from the far side of Essex to help me, he was due to go to North Wales this afternoon but was going to be very late, and now my solid wood counters had knackered his router! So off we went to B&Q again but they didn’t have a suitable one, but they did have the infamous cholesterol van outside so we had a bacon burger and a cup of tea each which did hit a spot! Screwfix is just around the corner so we went there and they had just the job for £70. Back home again we made the second of the cuts on the side counters and then realised that the long counter across the back wall was too short!
When I planned the kitchen they had allowed just about two centimetres play in the back counter but the female cuts were four or five centimetres deep so that left me well short. Thankfully we had the offcut from shortest side and had to make a fillet piece. It looks really obvious now in the photo because the colour is now the same but they all need oiling and once they are joined and prepared properly it shouldn’t look significantly different. I am disappointed with Ikea though.
Brian helped me cut the rest of the counters and at my insistence made him leave, at least two hours too late, to go for his weekend away in Wales. I sincerely hope that he has a good time and that his friend who was waiting for him at home wasn’t too pissed off with him.
That left me with the cooker hob hole to cut before Colm arrived. Of course, he turned up just as I was measuring it out! Luckily for me and not him rather than me he had left one of the vital fittings on his other van so he had to go home and pick it up. This did give me the time to cut the aperture and put the counter in place before he returned. It was relatively easy for him and, bless him, he did stay to give me a hand in cutting the tap hole in the new sink.
Unfortunately the arbour bit that I bought at B&Q that said it would cut through metal just made a lot of smoke and noise but didn’t actually cut through the steel. When Colm had gone I used a metal blade on the jigsaw and this finally made the hole I needed for the tap. I did want the tap in the worktop but the pipes from the boiler in the garage run well away from the wall so it had to be in the sink itself.
With the hole successfully cut, albeit with a bit of damage to the sink made by the ineffective arbor, which will be hidden by the tap itself, it was time to fit the taps before the sink was installed to save me from having to contort to tighten everything up. That went fine except when I removed the blade from the jigsaw, forgetting that it would be incredibly hot and now have a beautiful indented burn across the pad of my right thumb. Ouch!
I then removed the worktop and laid it between two chairs to fit the sink with the taps. The instructions say that you have to put a sticky gasket around the sink edge and then fit the straps that hold it to the worktop before slotting it in. Unfortunately I speed-read the instructions and slotted the sink in before fitting the straps to find out that they can’t be added with the worktop in the way. The sticky gasket also stopped me from removing the sink to fit the straps. It is stuck fast! I am now working on the basis that if it is stuck that well then it ain’t going to move about so the straps will remain in the box.
The counter went back and after a nifty bit of plumbing the tap was working with just the waste to add. It’s a funny old fitting but luckily I had some spare joints left over from fitting the waste pipes and worked out a way to connect the sink to the pipes.
The waste trap has two blanked off entries for the overflow on either side and you have to push through the one you are going to us with a screwdriver. Easy enough? Not today! I had to have a few stabs at the blanking plate, at one point missing the fitting and sticking the screwdriver into the base of my thumb, feeling it glance of something hard inside. It may have been bone or tendon, I don’t know, but I do know that it was bloody painful and I now have a perfect cross-head gouge in my right thumb! Dramas aside the rest of the waste was relatively easy and I got it all connected ready to test.
It leaked!
There was water coming from the bottom of the waste as it joined the waste pipes and a leak from the cold water supply as it met the tap. It looks as though the tap is knackered because I have over-tightened the cold supply pipe.
So at the end of the day I don’t have a sink, or a cooker, or a hob. I do have counters that don’t seem to fit and I have to go to Ikea in the morning to buy a new tap. I have spent well over £100 just to cut the worktops which would have been about the same amount to get a professional company to come in to do them, my right thumb has been burnt and stabbed and I’ve pulled something in my right shoulder.
Not willing or able to cook and sick of takeaway food, I am going to have a couple of Stellas, a long shower and a good night’s sleep. Hopefully things will be better in the morning...
I got back from the hire shop with a router and a new blade for Brian’s circular saw which was struggling a bit yesterday although it was only for rough cuts. I was also a bit of a thank you for giving up his time as he had. The router was a heavy duty Makita one which should make short thrift of the worktops.
Brian took over as the router expert and then asked me where the boss was. Well I was there wasn’t I? What he meant was the collar that goes at the bottom of the router blade so it slid precisely against the jig. A call to HSS Hire and they said that it should have come with one and, really helpfully, said that they would get a driver to go to their Luton store to pick one up and deliver it to the door. We decided to cut out the hole in the counter for the sink while we waited for the arrival of the crucial bit. We were only halfway through doing that when there was a bang on the garage door. He had tried the door bell but over the sound of “duelling jigsaws” it stood no chance! Unfortunately what he had brought was a collet for the blade and not the boss that we needed. He had a look at what we were trying to do and explained that HSS also hire out the jig which has a built in boss for following the contours of the cutting blade. He was really helpful and said that as we hadn’t used the tool he would refund the hire in full. Top bloke! I’d like to plug HSS Hire Shops now for all your tool hire requirements!
So that left us in the same place as last night, except it was now eleven in the morning. We decided to persevere with Brian’s router and see what we could get done. It lasted less than an hour. Can you imagine how I felt when it sputtered and died? Not only has he come all the way from the far side of Essex to help me, he was due to go to North Wales this afternoon but was going to be very late, and now my solid wood counters had knackered his router! So off we went to B&Q again but they didn’t have a suitable one, but they did have the infamous cholesterol van outside so we had a bacon burger and a cup of tea each which did hit a spot! Screwfix is just around the corner so we went there and they had just the job for £70. Back home again we made the second of the cuts on the side counters and then realised that the long counter across the back wall was too short!
When I planned the kitchen they had allowed just about two centimetres play in the back counter but the female cuts were four or five centimetres deep so that left me well short. Thankfully we had the offcut from shortest side and had to make a fillet piece. It looks really obvious now in the photo because the colour is now the same but they all need oiling and once they are joined and prepared properly it shouldn’t look significantly different. I am disappointed with Ikea though.
Brian helped me cut the rest of the counters and at my insistence made him leave, at least two hours too late, to go for his weekend away in Wales. I sincerely hope that he has a good time and that his friend who was waiting for him at home wasn’t too pissed off with him.
That left me with the cooker hob hole to cut before Colm arrived. Of course, he turned up just as I was measuring it out! Luckily for me and not him rather than me he had left one of the vital fittings on his other van so he had to go home and pick it up. This did give me the time to cut the aperture and put the counter in place before he returned. It was relatively easy for him and, bless him, he did stay to give me a hand in cutting the tap hole in the new sink.
Unfortunately the arbour bit that I bought at B&Q that said it would cut through metal just made a lot of smoke and noise but didn’t actually cut through the steel. When Colm had gone I used a metal blade on the jigsaw and this finally made the hole I needed for the tap. I did want the tap in the worktop but the pipes from the boiler in the garage run well away from the wall so it had to be in the sink itself.
With the hole successfully cut, albeit with a bit of damage to the sink made by the ineffective arbor, which will be hidden by the tap itself, it was time to fit the taps before the sink was installed to save me from having to contort to tighten everything up. That went fine except when I removed the blade from the jigsaw, forgetting that it would be incredibly hot and now have a beautiful indented burn across the pad of my right thumb. Ouch!
I then removed the worktop and laid it between two chairs to fit the sink with the taps. The instructions say that you have to put a sticky gasket around the sink edge and then fit the straps that hold it to the worktop before slotting it in. Unfortunately I speed-read the instructions and slotted the sink in before fitting the straps to find out that they can’t be added with the worktop in the way. The sticky gasket also stopped me from removing the sink to fit the straps. It is stuck fast! I am now working on the basis that if it is stuck that well then it ain’t going to move about so the straps will remain in the box.
The counter went back and after a nifty bit of plumbing the tap was working with just the waste to add. It’s a funny old fitting but luckily I had some spare joints left over from fitting the waste pipes and worked out a way to connect the sink to the pipes.
The waste trap has two blanked off entries for the overflow on either side and you have to push through the one you are going to us with a screwdriver. Easy enough? Not today! I had to have a few stabs at the blanking plate, at one point missing the fitting and sticking the screwdriver into the base of my thumb, feeling it glance of something hard inside. It may have been bone or tendon, I don’t know, but I do know that it was bloody painful and I now have a perfect cross-head gouge in my right thumb! Dramas aside the rest of the waste was relatively easy and I got it all connected ready to test.
It leaked!
There was water coming from the bottom of the waste as it joined the waste pipes and a leak from the cold water supply as it met the tap. It looks as though the tap is knackered because I have over-tightened the cold supply pipe.
So at the end of the day I don’t have a sink, or a cooker, or a hob. I do have counters that don’t seem to fit and I have to go to Ikea in the morning to buy a new tap. I have spent well over £100 just to cut the worktops which would have been about the same amount to get a professional company to come in to do them, my right thumb has been burnt and stabbed and I’ve pulled something in my right shoulder.
Not willing or able to cook and sick of takeaway food, I am going to have a couple of Stellas, a long shower and a good night’s sleep. Hopefully things will be better in the morning...
