20 Months in the making and its finally finished

[alferret]

In Jan 2006 the missus and myself decided to re-fit the kitchen. As were not of Lord Rothschild's family we had a tight'ish budget. All the units including doors were hand made by myself, the kitchen was designed by Helen, the only items we paid full price for were the worktops IKEA £63, Sink + fittings £85 from B&Q as were the floor tiles @ £6 sqr mtr & wall tiles from Wickes @ £7 sqr mtr.
The whole kitchen was re-wired with lots of additional sockets, re-plumbed the water & waste, we have a fitted filter & tap for drinking\cooking water (it tatse's disgusting round here) Under-unit lighting was scrounged and consists of 4x600mm 20w strip lights. We kept the washing machine and dishwasher as they were nearly new anyway and we brought a new cooker and tumble and the extractor hood was a pressie from my in-laws.
The kitchen has a max dimension of 2.3mtr (window end) x 3.4mtr.

As were well chuffed at the final result I thought I would share a few pics :)

If there are any questions comments I would love to see them (good or bad)

[alferret]

additional pics

[alferret]

some more pics

[MadGamer]

Nice! :)

[Ramrod]

All the units including doors were hand made by myselfGood effort! :tu:

[superbiatch]

Looks great :D

Was it a nightmare grouting all those mosaic tiles?:rolleyes:

[Cobbydaler]

Nice looking kitchen... :tu:

Love the old scales! ;)

[Delta Whiskey]

Love the old scales! ;)

OMG! I used to use scales like that in my first Saturday job...

I suddenly feel very, very old.

Nice kitchen BTW. I wish I could be that good at DIY, but I've got two right hands and as I'm left handed that's not very useful.

[alferret]

Looks great :D

Was it a nightmare grouting all those mosaic tiles?:rolleyes:

Nope they are 400 x 300 mosaic effect, so a little bit of cheating but have a great look, Helen found those in wickes, end of line I think thats why so cheap.

---------- Post added at 19:59 ---------- Previous post was at 19:56 ----------

The scales belonged to Helens Great Uncle Roo who owned a bakers in Hucknall and very old :)

[Hugh]

al, well done - very impressive.

You must be chuffed.

What next?

[superbiatch]

Nope they are 400 x 300 mosaic effect, so a little bit of cheating but have a great look, Helen found those in wickes, end of line I think thats why so cheap.

I so wish my friend had done that, he's got me lined up to grout his whole bathroom of them :rolleyes:

[Maggy]

Great stuff!

My only question is, when are you coming to do mine? ;)

[SMHarman]

I so wish my friend had done that, he's got me lined up to grout his whole bathroom of them :rolleyes:Mosaic grouting is a smear (with a soft grout spreader) and wipe down (with a sponge) job rather than the cleaner job you might do on larger tiles. Easier than you think.

[danielf]

I looked at the last pic in your first post and I thought: That's finished? :Yikes:

Then I saw you had posted a few more. Good stuff Looks great! :tu:

[joglynne]

The new kitchen looks great. I bet you both get a real kick out of seeing what you have achieved.

[Acathla]

20 months! crikey!

About to do the same to my kitchen and hope to have it complete start to end in under 3 weeks!!!

[lauzjp]

ooh! The kitchen looks lovely - great idea to take photos as you were progressing. :tu:

[Tinky]

A lot of hard graft for you, but in the end what a result, it looks absolutely stunning, and very professionally finished.:tu: What's your next project Al?

[The Hitman]

Great stuff!

My only question is, when are you coming to do mine? ;)

I think we all know what the next project will be. :disturbd::LOL:

[Mr_love_monkey]

Is your kitchen quite small? - I don't mean that in a rude way - it looks about the same size as ours, and we had no end of trouble trying to design it in a really useable way, when we had it redone - part of our problem was that at the end where you have your window (and then the sink and everything) the previous drongos that owned our house decided to put a door and a window there - so we couldn't place the sink there so we essentially lost one wall - and when the kitchen is quite small losing one wall makes it very hard.

Looks like you've done a really good job

[alferret]

Just to add a few bits about the kitchen. All the board material was @ cost price (I work for a furniture manufacturer which helps I also run the CNC and Saws so getting stuff cut & machined was no problem) that came in at about £180, hardware was as end of line as we could find, we will be replacing all sockets\switches with aged copper effect ones if we can find them. Helen worked out all the wiring and plumbing and she done most of that, leaving me to do all the chasing out etc. All the woowork is finished in hammerite copper inc radiator and we have a hammered copper effect coving, all knobs are copper and the cooker backsplash is an aged copper effect laminate that came from the B&Q fire surround back panel stuff.
The total cost for the kitchen excluding white goods was less than £600





Great stuff!

My only question is, when are you coming to do mine? ;)

We'll be round at the weekend coggy :D have your cheque book handy :p:

---------- Post added at 18:06 ---------- Previous post was at 18:05 ----------

The new kitchen looks great. I bet you both get a real kick out of seeing what you have achieved.

Yea we really do get a kick out of it, I have done some kitchens in my time but this one has far surpassed any before, mainly due to Helens design & planning :)

---------- Post added at 18:10 ---------- Previous post was at 18:06 ----------

20 months! crikey!

About to do the same to my kitchen and hope to have it complete start to end in under 3 weeks!!!


I know 20 months seems like a long time but we originally started with the dining room and when it came to the flooring we then decided to start the kitchen and run the flooring through into the dining room and we have decorated the dining room and Sammi's room along with tileing the hall floor and doing the front and back garden (well doing bits to the garden) Everything is on the go at the same time and its all a project, and the kitchen got finished first :)

---------- Post added at 18:12 ---------- Previous post was at 18:10 ----------

ooh! The kitchen looks lovely - great idea to take photos as you were progressing. :tu:

It means we can look back and argue over who grafted the most lol ;) think we must have around 75 pics of the progress.

---------- Post added at 18:16 ---------- Previous post was at 18:12 ----------

A lot of hard graft for you, but in the end what a result, it looks absolutely stunning, and very professionally finished.:tu: What's your next project Al?

Next project, well there's 2. First is to finish the dining room which shouldnt take to long, around 20hrs of work and that will be done and the hallway needs decorating, the floorings done and new skirting has been fitted so its mostly painting.

Next year we will be tackling the lounge and our bedroom along with the garden to be finished.

Its making me dizzy thinking about all the work were going to be doing :D

---------- Post added at 18:19 ---------- Previous post was at 18:16 ----------

Is your kitchen quite small? - I don't mean that in a rude way - it looks about the same size as ours, and we had no end of trouble trying to design it in a really useable way, when we had it redone - part of our problem was that at the end where you have your window (and then the sink and everything) the previous drongos that owned our house decided to put a door and a window there - so we couldn't place the sink there so we essentially lost one wall - and when the kitchen is quite small losing one wall makes it very hard.

Looks like you've done a really good job

Nope your not being rude m8, the kitchen is quite small. Prior to starting the kitchen we had about half the storage space we have now, Helen has a really good eye for designing and she has got the most usage out of the space we have.