Hoodless

Electricians - or at least the ones employed by our kitchen guy - do electrics. They don't do deconstruction. So following the first fix we were left with a disconnected cooker hood. Quite literally a "hang over" from the Days of the Old Kitchen.

Fortunately removal proved fairly simple. It was held up with two screws in those adjustable slots, and slid off easily once I'd loosened them.

Long term readers may spot another hang over - a remnant of the Days of the Flame Effect Ragroll - visible in the space vacated by the cooker hood. A telling clue that I didn't remove the hood when last I painted the kitchen. What can I say? Those few coats of Hint of Apple (or whatever it was) were always intended as a quick fix.

With the hood gone it was time to knock off the tiled splashback - another task completed in double-quick time. Endampened by years of boiling pans, the plaster behind the cooker came off with the tiles. Finding an "edge" in these situations is always tricky. If you're not careful you can end up stripping the plaster off the entire wall. Luckily this time I managed to detect the point at which the remaining plaster was secure enough to take a skim coat, and leave it at that.

Only two remaining "demolition-type" jobs before we can start building back up again.

Sparks fly

After a few days hiatus in between cupboard removal and arrival of the electricians, during which we prepared three not-quite-so-enormous-as-usual-on-account-of-some-neighbours-being-away salads for the annual neighbourhood barbecue, and attended said barbecue, and spent a day recovering from said barbecue... the first fix for the electrics got underway.

And after two days, we had a lot more holes in the ceiling than we're used to - 12 to be precise - along with copious amounts of trunked twin-with-earth and some scars in the plaster where the wall lights used to be. There were also some forlorn little dusty holes where the old power sockets lived, sharing wall space with some equally dusty holes in new positions which weren't quite so forlorn, being tightly packed with coils of more twin-with-earth eagerly awaiting their double socket covers.

Did I say it would get worse before it got better? There's a way to go yet in the "worse" direction.

The final cupboard

With the electricians booked in for the following week I decided to dedicate my last official day off work - Friday 15 July - as Cupboard Removal Day.

It didn't take anywhere near a day. What appeared to be a very substantial structure proved to be nothing more than a few bits of wood nailed together. Certainly no match for my trusty crowbar. Within a couple of hours the space was looking like a perfect match for the rest of the kitchen.

Behind the plywood carcase, several years of ancient damp wallpaper hung limply from the walls. Blown plaster fell off in chunks. And on the left of the space, the cupboard had offered sanctuary to a run of burglar alarm signal cable, which was the main reason for the demolition taking two hours rather than 45 minutes. I had to unpick it carefully from each shelf, saw it out of the bottom shelf, and avoid breaking any of its fragile core.

Demolition also revealed the strange light switch that had been sited inside the cupboard and for which we have never been able to discern a purpose. My decision to leave it dangling awaiting the services of a qualified electrician (read: someone with a multimeter) later turned out to be the right one, as the electrician discovered it was still live. It isolates the security light over the back door (whose bulb, long blown, has never been replaced).

Getting abreast of things

In preparation for the builders' arrival, we cleared everything movable out of the kitchen on the evening of July 8th, except for the cooker. Amazing how big a room it is when there's nothing in it!

The following day, we closed all possible doors to prevent egress of the inevitable dirt, dust and soot, and left them to it. After several hours of grinding and banging noises, and a couple of very worrying sounds of falling masonry, we were greeted with a beautifully remodelled kitchen:

The height of the hob space in the chimney breast has been raised to 1900mm and a new lintel installed, hearth tiles chiselled off and the entire structure of the largest cupboard removed including all the redundant central heating pipework from the old boiler. As you can see, things are looking a bit "industrial."

It's going to get worse before it gets better. I have the last remaining cupboard to strip out myself before the electricians come to do the first fix. In my naive way, I had hoped that the tradespeople could be scheduled to visit one after the other in quick succession, and immediately preceding the kitchen fit-out. No such luck. The builders first available date - 9 July - precedes the manufacture of the new kitchen units by a full 8 weeks, so we'll be camping out in the dining room until September, while the kitchen degrades even further towards a building site.

Putting the kit in kitchen

Without further ado - because at the time of writing we're already more than two weeks in to the project - here we go with the Story of The Kitchen. I can almost sense your excitement.

So here's our starting point.













On the left, the view towards the garden, showing an almost-original, traditional kitchen for this style of house, its old fashioned cupboards and drawers still in place, and the tiled hearth (where the old boiler used to live) pressed into service as a storage area for garden tools, plastic crates full of decorating materials, and other general bits of tat. That boiler has been gone for more than four years, but in the absence of any investment the space is just a space.

On the right, looking towards the front of the house, you can still see the cupboard, but now enjoy the view of the vast expanse of work surface (a couple of feet at most) that we've been preparing meals on for 4+ years, atop a very basic set of units, along with a tiny sink, the now-bricked-up side door, and the 5-burner gas range with cooker hood.

Space on the opposite side of the room occupied by, from left to right, tumble dryer with microwave atop, matching AEG fridge and freezer (the only appliances being retained), a butcher's block table carrying slow cooker, kettle and toaster, and a tile-topped kitchen table and four chairs.

I say "almost" original kitchen because the cooker end was at one time walled in to create the traditional Victorian/Edwardian scullery, with the remainder of the room being a "morning room." Those walls had been removed long before we moved in, leaving us with a rectangular space approximately 3metres by 7.

So here we go. Eyes down for a new kitchen, starting with stripping back the chimney breast to make space for a new hob, tearing out the old cupboards (with not even a nod to the traditionalists who would have kept and refurbished them), rewiring, replumbing, replacing the patio doors, installing a new floor and fitting several yards of new units with new integrated appliances. The builders arrived bright and early on the morning of Saturday 9 July...

Manchester calling...

*tap* *tap*
This thing on?
*cough*
Hello!
Welcome back. To me, that is. You've probably been here all along, wondering where I was. Turns out *I* was here all along too. Just not saying much. Shit happens, they say. And shit is pretty much what has been happening. I might even write about it one day, but not right now.

So, when last we spoke, Nikki & I were in Toronto. April 26. Good grief! Was that really the last entry? That's almost three months ago!! *slaps wrist* Well that pretty much puts the mockers on my usual "chronological" approach to blogging. As regular readers (if I have any left!) will know, I like to keep things in order. Even if I'm writing the entry two or three weeks behind the event, it'll still have the real date on it. The date it actually happened. That's not so bad if I'm only three weeks behind, but three months? No. I'd never catch up, and besides one of the reasons for blowing the dust off this cobwebby part of the Intertubes is a pointed request for pictures of our CURRENT project. If I wrote up everything (significant) that has happened in the interim then the kitchen would be finished before it even got started, if you see what I mean.

No the only way to do this is to package up the last three months into a little box and leave it over there in the corner. Over the next few months I might open up the box and take one or two choice pieces out for display purposes, but for the time being we need to get started with what's going on right now.

Although perhaps, before we get to that, I should tidy up the news from our Toronto trip. I wouldn't want to leave us hanging there, so to speak, having apparently only just been lunching in the distillery district and then magically transplanted three months into the future back in Manchester. Here, then, are the rudimentary details of the few draft entries I'd queued up covering the remainder of that trip, with their prospective titles drummed into service as headings:

Man-daRIN
(Family joke). Shirley & Neil took us for dinner at the Mandarin all-you-can-eat restaurant. Now, we have AYCE outlets in Manchester - the ones we visit most often being the No. 1 Chinese buffet, and the Nawaab Indian - but even though they are both firm favourites and very good value for money the quality is nothing like Mandarin. Wow. Absolutely fabulous Chinese food, lots of it, masses of choice, and everything tastes as fresh as if it had been cooked to order. This place became a firm favourite almost on the first mouthful. We'll definitely be back.

My fortune cookie for the evening: Accept no other definition of your life, accept only your own.

How apt.

Kensington
Shortly before our return, Paul took us for a wander around Kensington market. We lunched at Big Fat Burrito (delicious) and picked up some cool Christmas presents from the various shops and stalls.

That evening we had dinner at the Tulip steak house, which surprisingly (the place looks a little run-down and basic) proved by popular acclaim to be the best steak we had all holiday. And also, after a little persuasion, the best rack of lamb!! (*ahem*)

JB @ JB
After a last minute trudge around Walmarts to pick up those few essential items that just aren't available in the UK, we returned to Jawny Bakers for dinner. Hard to beat for atmosphere and quality (in my opinion - but I admit to being completely biased since this place holds very fond memories for me), it ran the Tulip a close second for steak quality but it's somewhere I couldn't imagine visiting Toronto without going.

Pack it in
Packing for the return trip became interesting, and a little Dickensian:

Suitcase #1: 25kgs

Suitcase #2: 20kgs

Allowance: 40kgs.
Result: misery.

Ah, but... at this stage, Carry on #1 weighed 2kgs and carry on #2: 2kgs, with a carry-on allowance of 10kgs. So after some judicious redistribution of contents...

Suitcase #1: 20kgs
Suitcase #2: 20kgs
Carry-on #1: 4.5kgs
Carry-on #2: 4.5kgs
Result: happiness.

I was also going to post something humorous about the pharma ads on Canadian/US TV. Honestly, if you haven't seen one check it out. Little beats them for unintentional black humour. I might still do a post on that at some stage. (Probably during our next trip, when I'll be exposed to them again :o))

And finally...

I just read this back and realised that I've waxed lyrical about all the wonderful meals we had OUT, but nary a mention of all the many wonderful meals we had IN. So many grateful thanks to Shirley for repeatedly proving that home cooking easily beats bought. Amongst numerous other successes, a roast turkey dinner to die for - or, at least, worth travelling 3,000 miles for!