Action line for our kitchen:
Go to a local 'Home Show'and get the idea to make some changes to the kitchen.
Make a rough plan of our idea, discuss it with eveyone we can to get ideas, get kitchen people in to give their ideas. Keep going until we found an idea that reasonates with what we wanted. This took us about a month.
Visit tradespeople with our rough plan and get some estimated pricing
Prepare a budget and decide it's a go
Choose our tradesmen and sort out a timeline.
Start pulling out the old kitchen. After this point there is no going back!
Advertise the old kitchen units and appliances for sale and sell it all for $100 just so you don't have to organise disposal
Get in the plumber, electrician and a concrete man to cut a hole in the wall for the rangehood.
Visit appliance shops in Auckland and Rotorua, tried to keep our sights low but heck we are only going to do this once and in the end it is going to increase the value of our home so ended up spending slightly more than planned, budget adjusted as paying off interest free over 5 years (another hook).
Get the builder in and while he is working make some more adjustments to the plan and the budget. We are only going to do this once so may as well get it right. We were going to put in a window between the kitchen and dining room but realised it would be better to take out the wall and make it all open.
Realise that the changes we are going to make actually include the dining room so we may as well do that up as well
Revisit the budget in our minds as we make the decision and adjust.
Spend every evening pulling wallpaper off the walls, fun at first and realy annoying after a while, some bits stick like they've been put up with Gorrilla glue, Took .... ages!
Get the painter in who helps us decide on the colour for the kitchen, our whole house inside is grey we hadn't thought of another colour but since the kitchen and dining room are seperate we are going with a lighter almost cream. He also gave us an idea to use that colour on the wall between the lounge and dining room.
Thinking about the wall between the lounge and the dining room we figure that since it has to be done we might as well put in some cavity slider doors which will mean we can close off one side of the house in winter and concentrate the heat in the lounge and bedrooms.
Think vaguely about the budget, ring around and order the doors.
Find out your builder has other work on so visit a friend who is a builder who can do it and only charges $25/hour, feel happy.
Realise after he arrives and starts working that he is not as efficient or as tidy as the other builder, the rate may be less but the time will be longer so no savings there.
The painter has supplied a plasterer, Peehi, he is a great guy and we really enjoy his company. He is reliable and in each day and even on weekends to plaster, sand, plaster, sand, put up coving. Put on the undercoat as the painter is busy even though we gave him plenty of notice. Peehi is heading to Australia at the end of October so happy to do the work.
Somewhere in the middle of this we made a decision about the bench tops, there are 3 choices - fomica, engineered stone, granite. The last two are really the only options for us and they are fairly equal in price. After talking with lots of tradies and getting info off the internet we decide to go with engineered stone but after visiting the stone shop we don't like the uniformity of it and fall in love with one of the more expensive granites from Brazil called Titanium Gold. - what budget,,,
I was off to Oz also to visit my youngest daughter and granddaughter, I tried hard to tee everything up so that it would continue to flow whilst I was gone. We have an empty kitchen and stuff stowed everywhere covered with sheets. Cooking on top of a bookcase with no preparation area and washing up in the laundry sink.
I was hopeful that I may return to an almost completed kitchen but when I returned yesterday nothing had changed sadly. Thank goodness for meditation or I would be really pissed off. Everyone has excuses of course, the kitchen man is a man down and has a more urgent job to work on - a shop that is opening on Monday... The sink still hasn't arrived. The doors are in they meet at the top and bottom but they don't meet in the middle. The plastering is done and Peehi is in Oz, one top coat on and another to do after the kitchen is in. Haven't heard from the stone man.
So here we are, I think this started a month ago, the kitchen and dining rooms are still empty and looking unfinished, I know there will be an end to this and am looking forward to getting to it!
