DIY Kitchen to Die for :0( (Kitchen)

Member Name: Scooobydooo

Product:	Kitchen
Date:	09/03/04 (1228 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: working kitchen

Disadvantages: the mess

I suppose that one of our main projects was the bathroom when we moved house and there was no way we could clean in a dirty room. With all over and done with. It is now time to go onto the next nightmare.

What is it? The Kitchen. The kitchen is my pride and joy and let me describe it to you at the moment. turquoise with glossed over tiles, no units, the worst lino in the world that always looks mucky even when you have cleaned it. One unit over the sink. Washing machine pipes that are blocked and will not allow hot water to flow, so we have to put the external waste pipe taped to the tap when it is wash day. No storage space, we cut a book shelf in half to store the food in, that sits under the worktop that we got hold of.

A colony of spiders who lives in the non existing skirting boards who quite frequently pop out to say Hello Karen and nearly make me wet myself when they creep out with out any warning. Yellow, white and blue and green ceiling. One half with strip light, another with a gross old white lampshade. A door storage cupboard with another family of spiders and a door handle that does not work and does not open and shut and is a nightmare. A back door that lets more cold heat through it when it is shut rather than when it is open.

So there you go, that is my kitchen at the moment. Now money in our house is not abundant and we have to set a budget on what we spend. The budget is £1,000 for all the units and the work and decor and tiles and new appliances to compliment the kitchen. Our lovely oak dining table that cost us £600 will be going to live in their but at the moment, we know if we leave it in there it will get badly damaged.

So this is what we are doing and how on earth can we come under budget for everything when the average people spend around £5,000 alone on the kitchen.

As we have two main windows in the kitchen and a main glass plate in the back door, there is plent of light in there affording me to
have a darker terrocotta paint colour to add the warmth that it is so desperatley in need of at the moment.

I have bought 6 rolls of Bubble paper that have cost me £30. I large tub of Terrocotta paint that was £15. One tin of white emulsion paint for the ceiling £5 and 1 tin of gloss for the door £5. 2 chrome light fittings with electrician to fit will cost us £100. 5 packs of tiles to replace the old ones and grout, cost £50. So that has already cost us around £200 and so far so good, well on budget. This work will be done in the next month after we have had the draftproofing done in the kitchen on Friday.

So we are left with £800 for the flooring, appliances and kitchen units and fitting. We have ordered the units at a cost of £200 and the floor tiles were an amazing £30. so this leaves us now with around £550 for appliances. We will fit the units and repair anything that needs to be done as they will be going where the original ones once went before the last owners smashed the kitchen to smitherines. Well the appliances are reconditioned and in mint condition and for a fridge/freezer/cooker/dryer has only cost us £300. We have still got around £250 left from our budget and everything is ready and raring to go. What we do with the spare cash, I haven't got a clue but there is surely bound to be problems along the way with the electrics there fore the money will be used either for that or to put up the outside lights that are linked into the kitchen for the back garden and also for the front of house one which is linked to the hall way.

I really cannot wait to get my kitchen done as I have lived the last 6 months in a dump but rather than get a loan, we wanted to save for it. It will be a luxury to be able to turn on the cooker of sit in the kitchen eating a meal where it is nice and warm and I am really looking forward to it.

Karen :0)

Summary: