House Rennovations: Kitchen Fitting

I have finally got round to fitting the kitchen. The base units are in
and the wall units are up. I got a joiner to come and mitre the
worktops so that it looks good.

The joiner came almost straight away (Monday last week) and said he
would be back tomorrow after lunch. I rang him Tuesday evening and then
again Wednesday morning, evening and Thursday morning and evening and
left a message. On Friday morning I said that I would be most obliged
if he could tell me if he was intending coming back, so that I could
make plans. He was back on Friday afternoon!

I have started tiling the floor, a friend came over to help me yesterday
evening (Trac). The tiling is made harder by the fact that the floor is
not level, but I started at the highest part of the floor and have
worked from there. It looks OK at the moment, I should finish tonight.

We cooked the first meal on the cooker last night. Hooray, no more
traipsing out to the caravan to make the kids porridge first thing in
the morning!

House Rennovations: Wiring

I have split the basement into two halves for the wiring. The kitchen
and dining room on one ring main and one lighting circuit and the
Playroom, Utility and entrance on another ring main and lighting circuit.

All the lighting for the wiring was put into junction boxes screwed to a
joist before the new plasterboard ceiling was put up. I was just hoping
that I had wired the lights correctly, because while the junction boxes
were easy to access from the basement when there was no ceiling, they
need floorboards removing to gain access from the ground floor above.

Neil came round last night and helped me with some lighting wiring. We
finished off the down lighters in the kitchen and dining room (all 24 of
them), then wired the circuit into the consumer unit. When we turned it
on all the lights worked, except a run of three in the dining area. I
remembered running two wires from the junction box, so one of those
wires must be wired incorrectly. In short that means that I have to
pull up the carpet in the study and pull up the floor boards in order to
find the junction box.

At least I have some light in the meantime!

Isaac and Alice sing “We wish you a merry christmas”

We were sat at the dinner table last night talking about the kind of day we had all had. Alice announced she had learned a new song today and started off singing “We wish you a merry Christmas”. Feeling fairly festive we all joined in and stopped just before “Good tidings we bring”.

Isaac was enjoying his sing so much he carried on:

We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
And a happy mew year.

Vikings we bring to you and your king
We wish you a merry Christmas
and a happy new year.

Louise and I collapsed into helpless laughter.

House Rennovations: Kitchen Units

We have finally got round to fitting the kitchen units, which we bought
through Howdens, at the trade price from our friendly plumber.

The difficulty is fitting the worktops. I want a nice mitred finish not
those metal strips that collect the dirt behind them. At Howdens
recommendation I have got a joiner called Kevin Wilson to come and to
the join. They have been working today. It is good to see it all
coming together at last.

I have finished wiring the kitchen ring main and am working on
installing the down lighters. There are 41 of them all together and 24
of those are in the kitchen/ dining area. I have done 14 of them so far
so only have 10 left. but they take for ages to do.

http://www.howdens.com/