The long awaited new kitchen
Its been a long time since I last wrote on the blog. Life has whizzed by and we've had some ups and downs but we are still here and Lanoy is still the dream.
So let me tell you about the kitchen.
We have now been resident at Lanoy for nearly 5 years. and during that time our kitchen has been a makeshift affair of a sink unit, a fifty quid electric cooker bought from a local auction, a fridge with no light inside it, an old base unit kitchen cabinet and a bit of work top about 4ft long. All of this is stuck at the far end of the house sharing it with my office. It is totally awful in design and just as awful to use. One drawer front is missing and a door keeps falling off its hinges. We walk circles around each other when trying to use the kitchen. If one person is at the sink then the other person is always in the way. If you try to make a cup of tea, whilst cooking dinner and filling the bowl with water, it creates a war zone and one of us is always huffing and puffing at the other because they are in the bloody way!
So... we've had some kitchen companies out to give us some ideas and price up for a new kitchen. It will be located in the middle of the house, as this is where the heart of the home is. The kitchen is the meeting place. The gathering place. The social hub. Everyone migrates to the kitchen. It's where you fill your belly, gossip over coffee and enjoy a gin whilst cooking dinner. It's where you go when your feeling sad to raid the fridge in that search for the bar of chocolate you hid last week. Only to find you ate it and hid the empty wrapper stuffed at the back. Its where his nibs opens his bottle of craft beer and then leaves a trail of debris behind him. It's where the clowder of cats sit patiently waiting for their dinner, which they promptly snuffle out of the bowl and leave all over the floor. Not great when you come down first thing in the morning bare footed and tread in the food. Many a time I have had to stop and remove GoCat from between my toes.
We have been saving our funds for this new kitchen, knowing it was going to be a fairly mammoth piece of work and careful planning would be needed. I know what I want it to look like. I can picture it in my mind. It's kind of country, but not twee. It's colorful but not garish. It's unique and not ordinary but one thing it definitely is, its going to cost a lot.
The first year we were here, we called on B&Q to come and do a design for us and give us a quote. I remember the young sales man standing in the room for 4 hours. The house was an absolute tip with partial working electrics. It was pouring with rain The house was still fully scaffolded and the roof being re constructed and he was drawing a design for kitchen units . He then announced the price! He was quickly ushered to the door.... 34 grand !! for a flat pack kitchen !!
I don't think so, sonny!!!
We shelved the kitchen for a couple of years, parked it. Then this year we seriously looked at getting it done. We called out several kitchen companies, some of the well know high street brands and some bespoke designers. Quotes ranged from 48 thousand pounds! excluding worktops or appliances to doing it 1 cabinet at a time on a daywork basis. Totally disheartened I approached a local cabinet maker, went to see his workshops and had several initial chats. He then planned a design base around my idea and now were are in the process of having our dream kitchen being hand built.
But being Lanoy...nothing is ever easy! In order to fit my beautiful new range cooker we need to make the inglenook larger to fit it in. and raise the height to install the extractor fan. So the first thing we had to consider was the weight of the huge chimney that sat above. If we want to raise the height of the inglenook, that means removing a fair few ton of stone and fitting a new steel beam to hold up the wall above. but protruding out of the roof line is a redundant chimney stack. over 4 meters tall. So a demolition job was in order ! Scaffolding was erected on the outside of the house towering up to the very top of the chimney stack with ornate Victorian pots sitting on the top. A tractor and large trailer sat beneath the scaffold tower with a chute attached at the top and finishing in the trailer at the bottom. This was for the stone to be slid down easily. Two builders took 2 days to demolish the chimney stack and then re slate the roof where the chimney once stood. We were then left with 2 massive trailer fulls of stone and rubble to get rid of. Once again our lovely farmer neighbor came to the rescue and used the rubble for filling gateways and holes in field entrances.
The next job was to open up the inglenook. This consisted of making an opening about 7feet up and fitting the beam to support the entire weight of the house above. The beam was fitted and held in place by 2 strong boys which are basically jacks bearing the weight until the beams were set in place. Once that was done the front of the opening could be removed exposing a huge deep chimney place. I could stand in the hearth and look up the chimney it was massive inside. Then a frame was made to hold the extractor hood. The back of the cavity was then blocked up and a large pipe fitted to extract the steam out through the wall to the outside. The insides of the hole were rendered and then the opening was ready to be tiled and the range cooker would be fitted.
The builders left and the next day when his Nibs was back home he stood back and looked at the new inglenook . I could see a perplexed frown starting to crinkle up his beardy face (did I mention he's grown a hipster style beard) we measured the opening, then measured it again, then scratched our heads and measured again. The flipping hole wasn't wide enough !!
Panic phone call to builder ensued, resulting in a emergency visit and remeasure ...
A new plan was promptly concocted...
Remove all the render. Cut the hole wider with a stone cutter. Re-render, then a plaster skim and tile. Then and only THEN can the range be fitted.
I am still optimistic that I will be cooking Christmas dinner in the new kitchen this year..
However, I don't think we should demolish the old kitchen quite yet ! ( just in case)
x happy days x
Jo
So let me tell you about the kitchen.
We have now been resident at Lanoy for nearly 5 years. and during that time our kitchen has been a makeshift affair of a sink unit, a fifty quid electric cooker bought from a local auction, a fridge with no light inside it, an old base unit kitchen cabinet and a bit of work top about 4ft long. All of this is stuck at the far end of the house sharing it with my office. It is totally awful in design and just as awful to use. One drawer front is missing and a door keeps falling off its hinges. We walk circles around each other when trying to use the kitchen. If one person is at the sink then the other person is always in the way. If you try to make a cup of tea, whilst cooking dinner and filling the bowl with water, it creates a war zone and one of us is always huffing and puffing at the other because they are in the bloody way!
So... we've had some kitchen companies out to give us some ideas and price up for a new kitchen. It will be located in the middle of the house, as this is where the heart of the home is. The kitchen is the meeting place. The gathering place. The social hub. Everyone migrates to the kitchen. It's where you fill your belly, gossip over coffee and enjoy a gin whilst cooking dinner. It's where you go when your feeling sad to raid the fridge in that search for the bar of chocolate you hid last week. Only to find you ate it and hid the empty wrapper stuffed at the back. Its where his nibs opens his bottle of craft beer and then leaves a trail of debris behind him. It's where the clowder of cats sit patiently waiting for their dinner, which they promptly snuffle out of the bowl and leave all over the floor. Not great when you come down first thing in the morning bare footed and tread in the food. Many a time I have had to stop and remove GoCat from between my toes.
We have been saving our funds for this new kitchen, knowing it was going to be a fairly mammoth piece of work and careful planning would be needed. I know what I want it to look like. I can picture it in my mind. It's kind of country, but not twee. It's colorful but not garish. It's unique and not ordinary but one thing it definitely is, its going to cost a lot.
The first year we were here, we called on B&Q to come and do a design for us and give us a quote. I remember the young sales man standing in the room for 4 hours. The house was an absolute tip with partial working electrics. It was pouring with rain The house was still fully scaffolded and the roof being re constructed and he was drawing a design for kitchen units . He then announced the price! He was quickly ushered to the door.... 34 grand !! for a flat pack kitchen !!
I don't think so, sonny!!!
We shelved the kitchen for a couple of years, parked it. Then this year we seriously looked at getting it done. We called out several kitchen companies, some of the well know high street brands and some bespoke designers. Quotes ranged from 48 thousand pounds! excluding worktops or appliances to doing it 1 cabinet at a time on a daywork basis. Totally disheartened I approached a local cabinet maker, went to see his workshops and had several initial chats. He then planned a design base around my idea and now were are in the process of having our dream kitchen being hand built.
But being Lanoy...nothing is ever easy! In order to fit my beautiful new range cooker we need to make the inglenook larger to fit it in. and raise the height to install the extractor fan. So the first thing we had to consider was the weight of the huge chimney that sat above. If we want to raise the height of the inglenook, that means removing a fair few ton of stone and fitting a new steel beam to hold up the wall above. but protruding out of the roof line is a redundant chimney stack. over 4 meters tall. So a demolition job was in order ! Scaffolding was erected on the outside of the house towering up to the very top of the chimney stack with ornate Victorian pots sitting on the top. A tractor and large trailer sat beneath the scaffold tower with a chute attached at the top and finishing in the trailer at the bottom. This was for the stone to be slid down easily. Two builders took 2 days to demolish the chimney stack and then re slate the roof where the chimney once stood. We were then left with 2 massive trailer fulls of stone and rubble to get rid of. Once again our lovely farmer neighbor came to the rescue and used the rubble for filling gateways and holes in field entrances.
The next job was to open up the inglenook. This consisted of making an opening about 7feet up and fitting the beam to support the entire weight of the house above. The beam was fitted and held in place by 2 strong boys which are basically jacks bearing the weight until the beams were set in place. Once that was done the front of the opening could be removed exposing a huge deep chimney place. I could stand in the hearth and look up the chimney it was massive inside. Then a frame was made to hold the extractor hood. The back of the cavity was then blocked up and a large pipe fitted to extract the steam out through the wall to the outside. The insides of the hole were rendered and then the opening was ready to be tiled and the range cooker would be fitted.
The builders left and the next day when his Nibs was back home he stood back and looked at the new inglenook . I could see a perplexed frown starting to crinkle up his beardy face (did I mention he's grown a hipster style beard) we measured the opening, then measured it again, then scratched our heads and measured again. The flipping hole wasn't wide enough !!
Panic phone call to builder ensued, resulting in a emergency visit and remeasure ...
A new plan was promptly concocted...
Remove all the render. Cut the hole wider with a stone cutter. Re-render, then a plaster skim and tile. Then and only THEN can the range be fitted.
I am still optimistic that I will be cooking Christmas dinner in the new kitchen this year..
However, I don't think we should demolish the old kitchen quite yet ! ( just in case)
x happy days x
Jo
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