Flutterbymama

Old shed, New room

I thought it was about time I got to posting some piccies of the work we had done last year. Yeah I know it’s been months since I promised anything, but to be honest my heart wasn’t in the taking of the pics at the time. There was just too much stress and anxiety surrounding the last leg of the build.

I love what we have and I’m not complaining, but, as I’m sure with anyone else who’s hired contractors to do the work, there are still little niggles that bug the hell out of me! Luckily most people don’t notice the annoying little things and are just amazed at the transformation. SO, without further ado, let me introduce to you our newest room in the house…

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Still SOOOO much to do!!!!!! (old unposted post!)7=

After some weeks I have finally got around to doing some updates on the old blogeroo…I’ve just re-read this post and remembered why I couldn’t post it at the time, it was a little raw let me tell you. I have deliberately taken a blog snooze as this whole process has been a lot to handle and I’m only just getting it all back together! Anyway have a read and I’ll get on with posting some ‘finished’ pics of the space. Here’s a little sneak peek…

How can there still be so much left to do? Well I’ll tell you…’damn you window company who shall not be named and shamed’, (until my windows and doors are in at least!)

Continue reading…

Oh for a place to cook…

Have you ever wondered how people manage without a kitchen? Well I have first hand experience of how hard this can be, especially having a toddler in the house. For the first two weeks of the build they worked solely outdoors but then they had to knock through which meant holes in walls and a big draught. Well at least we had a cooker, as ugly as it was, I also had a sink and dishwasher. Well that was a few weeks ago. Throughout this process we have been without a kitchen sink or dishwasher for 2 weeks, a hob for 4 weeks and an oven for over a week. Toasties don’t cut it 3 meals a day, 7 days a week…although mini me would disagree. We’ve been lucky enough to have great neighbours who’ve cooked for us and friends and family who have ‘loaned’ us their kitchen’s and houses. The odd takeaway and Pizza Express meal have been a lovely treat but all I want now is to make a lovely home cooked meal…at home!

Roll on my shiny new kitchen.

The base units were fitted a couple of weeks ago along with the oven and the top cabinets, from Ikea, arrived last week in time to be fitted with the arrival of the long awaited worktop. We wanted a white surface with a grey edging strip but the strip had to be ordered from Germany and took over 3 weeks to arrive. We also wanted grey boards behind and to the side of the cooker and hob. Not something they’d done before but they managed to manufacture it for us. I’m really happy with the overall look but at the moment it’s just a functioning kitchen. Everything needs finishing so we can put all the clutter away and have clear surfaces as the work surface is limited…well at least we don’t need a kettle!

The whole space is really taking shape and I so can’t wait to get it done so we can be living in it.

More progress shots on their way when we get a little nearer to finishing. I’ll be sure to take some detail shots.

Take care folks and be happy cooks!!!!!

Are you ready?!

So the previous post has got your juices flowing and now you want more!? Hell yeah…funnily enough so did we. I’ll explain as we go along.

We have spent so much time working on the details and finishes of this job it has meant spending a few extra pennies getting it just the way we want it. We’ve had to think about everything that would go in a kitchen like hoods, hobs and hooks, in and out lighting, paint colours and flooring. It’s been a hard shopping task but someone had to do it…lucky us!

We already had the David Trubridge pendant, which has been residing in our freshly painted bedroom for a few months

davidtrubridge.com/coral

but we had to choose lights for over the dining table and my wonderful hub found these Tom Dixon beauties.

Tom Dixon - Beat Shade Wide

We’ve also been searching for some time the perfect shelving, tv storage combo and found this Nisse Strinning combo on ebay. The wood is beautiful and we can’t wait to get it hung. It came from Germany and it was very reasonable considering one similar set went for over £800! Think we were lucky!

Ebaby...yeah!

The biggest difficulty was deciding what kind of extractor hood to go with. This was actually a really difficult decision. The hob and oven will span the opening so a wall fitting wouldn’t work, and to be honest I’m not a big fan of the wall hung type modern or not. Then we found one at Ikea that was just a long box but it was just too long. Arghhh this is just never going to happen…what about those Ikea ones that look like a lamp shade? Yeah but not sure of the design. Then I found those down draft exctractors which are just A-mazing! Fittings and space would be an issue…bugger am I ever going to find it? Hell yes, only would have to wait till next year as it’s not available over in the UK till 2011. Well if you search hard enough and the hub did just that and found the black version on ebay from Italy! SOLD! And it’s arrived in one piece and within the time they said it would…good old ebay…AGAIN.

You only get one for the money, two if you're loaded.

The kitchen base units are from a local company who buy German engineered kitchens and the lady herself is great and helped us no end to get exactly what we wanted. Her prices were reasonable and she managed to supply the appliances for less that I’d found on the internet. One of the main pieces of kit we wanted was a Quooker, a boiling hot water tap. It’s a beaut.

quooker.com/modern

Ok so that’s a little taster of what we’ve been longing for…

This is where we are now up to.. .in the garden. As you’ll remember from the sketchup drawing we had a ‘wrap around’ of decking from back to side. Thanks to the incompetent guy from the window company we had builders on site and raring to go but nowt they could really be doing, so…

…this is the plan I came up with for the garden design. We were planning on completing it all next year but decided to do it now so we didn’t have to suffer again with all the dirt and upheaval. Oh so glad we did it.

So we wanted more and got this…

Personally, we absolutely love it. I know it’s not quite finished. Bit of rendering, painting and sorting the wood for the brick seat, staining/painting the decking and wall, furniture, lights and plants and a swish new BBQ will make it everything we want it to be. We have a fridge and freezer in the new shed that used to be in the old outhouse building and we are thinking of getting a secure shed made for them so we can use them in the garden as a beer fridge and BBQ freezer?! Mad idea… we’ll see. Not bad for a novice eh? Ok I have to admit I took a lot of inspiration from a Southern based garden design company but did it on a much stricter budget with less fancy materials but I think it aint half bad.

UPDATE to kitchen knock through

Well it has been some time since I’ve been able to sit down and finally post some progress pictures but here they are…at last!

It’s a project that should have taken 6-8 weeks but due to a particularly rubbish supplier it is over running by about 3-4 weeks. The builders have been brilliant and are just filling their time with other ‘stuff’ we’ve asked them to do. Unfortunately there is only so much you can do without any windows or doors! F$%*ing window company!!!!! Arghhhhh. Don’t you just hate not having the control. The windows are to be made in aluminium and we were told 3 weeks…3 weeks came and went over 4 weeks ago now we are being told another 2 weeks. How can it take over 2 months?! Anyways I’m trying to stay calm but it’s difficult now that the summer has gone and we are p?*%ing money out the big hole in the back of the house through form of a heating bill. To top it off we don’t have a kitchen. We have base cabinets and an oven but no work surface, hob or sink and we are still waiting for some components from Ikea. Oh Joy! It’s just as well we can see how great it’s all going to be…

Take a look for yourself…

wall adjoining existing kitchen, lintel in!

original york stone flags lifted and new sub floor. Start of new inner skin wall.

Doors bricked up to window height.

Exterior wall. Prep for cutting of opening for bi-fold doors.

The opening for the bi-fold doors. Wow it's really taking shape!

Just a tad excited!!!!

Removing the existing kitchen units so my auntie could have them. Recycling is great.

The tasty wallpaper behing the original wall cabinets. MMMMMM

Removal of chimney breast in kitchen. This is not needed and gives more space.

The weird thing is, and it's not clear in this photo, but the hole goes through to next door!?

FINALLY! We have holes in our walls! Woohoo!!!

The space beyond the kitchen... formally known as the shed!

Old back door bricked up and frame for utility space going up.

The outside view of the old back door. We wanted to keep the arch and step so the history is still captured.

A new wall to be rendered and painted pink. It will have decking and seating and lights to make it cosy and funky.

So there you have it. The story so far…well actually no it isn’t. Because I’ve been busy chasing suppliers and project managing and looking after our boy and trying to prepare food in a microwave and camping stove for the last few weeks I just haven’t had time to update as much as I would’ve liked.

This is just the beginning but we are much further on. Check out the next post or two to come very soon and you will be amazed at the transformation of the space…

Kitchen layout programmes

So I’ve been trying to design the layout of our new kitchen/dining space which integrates with the garden room. After years of Ikea not being Mac friendly I finally discovered that they have done something about it. So without hesitation I got stuck in…yay this is great, I thought…not so bloody fast. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great for figuring out whether their kitchens will work in your space and even better it tots up the final cost of everything for you, so no nasty surprises when you order it but damn it’s fiddly. I just can’t seem to move anything anymore…arghhh and I thought sketchup was a pig! (I’ve actually got the hang of sketchup and by god it’s my preferred tool of choice. As it goes though I’m now confident that an Ikea kitchen WILL work in our house, the question now is…do I/we want an Ikea kitchen? I know of only one person who has one and says it’s ok but after 10/20 years will they still say the same? Anyone have any advice? On the other side I really don’t want to spend £15,000 + on a kitchen as we only want a simple looking one and nothing too now that screams I’m a shiny, bright, NEW, expensive kitchen. I want clean and new but character and lived in. In effect the units are secondary to everything else, if that makes any sense. These are my inspiration pics which show the feel I want.

This a screen grab of the Ikea self kitchen planner. I gave up in the end as I just couldn’t move anything…I may try again later.

These are my sketchup files…

Garden room, made from outhouses. Kitchen behind.

Kitchen area with existing table and addition of utility room.

The kitchen and dining table will still be in the old space just with new everything and we’ll have additional space beyond so we can actually see the garden from the end of the house. The house has a lovely long garden but it was just lacking in the view from the house. This is the reason we’ve gone to all this trouble and these were the conditions of buying the house. The garden will be transformed at a later stage but at least we can finally use the garden as intended. I have visions of watching Lucas play outside and I can be cooking and watching him. At the moment I have to be outside when he’s outside and it just means I can’t get on with ‘stuff’. It’ll be good for rainy days too as I can be with him inside whilst he plays but again I can be getting on with stuff and he won’t be in harms way when the oven is on and I’m cooking and washing. It really is going to transform the way we live in this house. I’m just so excited and can’t wait to start using it. Just another 4 weeks or so to go…

Outhouse knock through…

I’m a mixture of nerves and excitement at the moment. We are having our outhouse, which were used as a temporary shed for the last 2 1/2 years, knocked through so we can have a garden living room and a view to the garden from our kitchen. The previous post shows photos of our existing kitchen. Here are some photos of what the outhouses look like…

I will also post images of my sketchup model too, which will give an idea as to what we want to do.

Old fire in outhouse, formerly known as 'THE SHED'

Roof of old 'shed'. You can see the underside of the roof tiles.

Door & window of 'shed'.

Door to the 'garden toilet'. Not a nice place so mainly used as storage.

Very back end of house and outhouses. The opening was the coal store as far as I can gather.

The sloping roof on the outhouses and the very end of the rest of the 2 storey house.

The kitchen and rear of the 2 storey section of the house.

Kitchen inspiration

Ok with the deadline looming it is necessary to make some decisions…so many ideas…I can’t do it! Having a quick flick through living etc last night these are the things that we liked…

Love the kitsch colours.

Clean walls...no cabinets, nice lights!

Wood, metro tiles & industrial.

Liking the black walls but will leave that for the bedroom.

interesting cupboards but LOVING those tiles.

It's all about the shelving under the clock.

Rustic charm, ours is a Victorian house & love the chalkboard door.

Chalkboard again! Great fridge...want one.

Kitsch but too much clutter for me.

Metro tiles again. Very charming place to cook.

Love the clean look but with character.

hidden storage...love it!

funky little tiles behind sink...yum.

Cement floors are the way forward, also the way to an empty bank account!

Great idea to add texture & colour.

So there you have it. Now HOW do I put all that into one kitchen?!

There are a number of things we already acquired for the new kitchen, garden room. The main being the David Trubridge pendent, we got white rubber topped laminate flooring from Ikea (This was meant to go in son’s bedroom, but we decided to paint his boards instead as they were in good condition) and a table, bench (in storage in our attic and under our bed) and odd chairs…oh yeah and not to forget the mans artwork made with paint sample cards which is a representation of New York. So already something to work with. I’m just fearful of ending up with a cold, white boring space when I want warmth, character and love. Watch this space…

It’s been a while!

Well life has just been far too hectic but things have settled, for a short time anyway.

After saying, for the past two years, how much better this house would be if only we had the view to the garden from the kitchen. That does actually entail knocking through three walls, yes you saw correct, 3, into the existing outhouses and outside loo and coal store. It’s all happening as of Wednesday…this Wednesday, 21st July! Flippin eck how did that happen? We received 4 quotes on Monday, decided on the builder on Wednesday, he came on Friday and said he has just finished a job and can start our on Wednesday…jaw open and it’s hit the floor…gulp! That means we have to make some serious decisions and sharpish…what are we going to do? I’ll tell what we are going to do, pull ourselves together and do more research and just make some darn decisions…what could go wrong?…

Here are a few images of the kitchen as it is now…