Kitchen Refurb

[Moh]

My grandma had a range like that including the Staffordshire dogs (Floss & Flo), the best yorkshire puddings and parkin ever came out of the oven.

[Stanley]

Lovely memory Moh and yes, I have similar. In terms of a focus and cooking centre we never made anything more impressive. Labour-saving perhaps but not as memorable.

[PanBiker]

I will shortly be embarking on another kitchen refurb. All of our Jack's kitchen units, worktops, sink and built in oven and hob were delivered today. My invigilation stint will be finishing this Friday and then I will be ready to make a start.

Saturday is going to be game plan day, the job is a total rework with all the current customised but not very versatile units to come out. Plaster will have to come off as it will be easier for rewiring, the kitchen needs a new ring main and feeds for the electric oven and gas for the new hob. The room could do with being 1" wider if we can pinch a bit with a new skim. I may knock the ceiling out depending on its current composition, I don't know yet if it is original lath and plaster or already on boards. Replacing it will make the lighting options a lot easier, new cabling here as well as all the switches will need moving. I may be able to get a vent in for the cooker hood at the same time. The kitchen is about half the size of mine so not as many units but we should be able to make it a lot more functional than it is now.

[Stanley]

Makes me feel poorly just reading that Ian. I think it must be an age thing......

[Wendyf]

Brave man...

[Stanley]

Lucky Jack!

[PanBiker]

Brave man...

No, just a dad.

Picking some step ladders up from a mate after work today, let the dog see the rabbit.

[Big Kev]

Sounds like great fun, Ian. I love doing those type of jobs. Decorating my cellar is next on my list, it's been dry lined so most is just a lick of paint

[PanBiker]

My cellar needs doing Kev its only a small cellar but it needs some ventilation and the walls tanking, bit of a big job but will get to it sometime. Previous owner cut off the the through ventilation when they built the kitchen extension across the back of the property.

Started on Jacks kitchen today. A bit about that property, it was built in 1905 and comprises of three floors two bedrooms with a sectioned off bathroom (bath, toilet and washbasin) and a separate shower in a landing alcove and stairs to a third floor attic. Bottom floor is a front room with the back kitchen full width of the property the stairs run up the side out of the kitchen and there is an under stairs pantry with integral stone and wooden shelves. The electric meter and fuse box is under the stairs. The kitchen floor is sound, and it looks like it has been bitumen sealed, it currently has some good quality vinyl down which will need replacing after the new units go in.

Back kitchen was fitted with original wide shelves to the party wall with the living room. These have been modified with joiner built doors to provide cupboard space a single modern (1960's) base unit cupboard supported a worktop which ran from the door into the living room back to the party wall with next door. To provide more cupboard space a custom built corner cupboard ran from floor to ceiling, this had three doors on, one below the worktop, one above and a small top one just below the ceiling. The front wall of the kitchen has a single 1960's style sink unit cupboard with a worktop that runs from the door but only to the end of the sink which is set below the window, (there will be more of this arrangement later).

We have started by removing all the shelves and joiner built cupboards from the back wall. I can tell that these, apart from possibly the doors are original to the 1905 build as all the shelves and the corner cupboard were fitted directly to the brickwork and then plastered up between the shelves. The plaster is original lime plaster and is at different levels between all the shelves. The entire structure was put together with 3" nails directly into wooden plugs driven into the brickwork. Here is the party wall with the living room with the shelves and cupboards removed.



This is the corner once the floor to ceiling unit has been removed.



Sorry about the quality, I took these on my mobile, I'll do the rest on my camera so they should be better.

There are a couple of shelves to take down yet on the side wall.

I will knock all the plaster back to the brickwork, all the old original architraves and skirting's are coming off and I'm going to put a new ceiling up. There is room to under draw the ceiling without taking the old one down with 2" x 2" studding. We will then get the whole lot re plastered and have a straight start before fitting any of the new units.

Ultimately the whole property will be rewired, to a new consumer unit. It needs it as all the cables are old imperial sized and I have come across some rubber sheathed cables on the lighting side. There are only two singles and one double socket in the kitchen the singles are set in the skirting and are no good to man nor beast. Most of the sockets downstairs seem to be wired radially. In the 7 way fuse box there are only 3 fuses that actually feed anything. One 5A for the lights and two 30A, one of which only feeds one socket, everything else is run off the other fuse and may or may not be on a ring, hard to tell without stripping the fuse box down. There was a cooker control point which I have decommissioned and removed today along with the electric cooker and hob, there was also and old feed to an electric shower which was replaced when Jack got the new boiler and alcove shower.

I will cable the ceiling for new down lights before the plasterboards go up. All the existing switch positions will need to be moved. This isn't really a problem as I can run all new lighting cables independently to the existing. I will put a separate ring in for the new sockets in the kitchen. I will make way to run all the cables back into the pantry for when the consumer unit goes in.

[Big Kev]

A grand start, Ian. I had a similar wiring job with my kitchen extension, I shortened the original downstairs ring to isolate the kitchen and, fortunately, had enough room in the existing consumer unit to install a new ring, cooker point and a radial for the lighting. I do need to update the CU to a split load unit as, only having one RCD did cause some concern when I had a fault. It was very dark until I found the source of the neutral to earth fault

[Stanley]

Makes me feel tired just reading it. Thank God we re-wired and re-plumbed this house when I moved in 20 years ago......

[Sue]

I like my down lights in the bathroom. It sounds like it is going to look good

[Wendyf]

Looking forward to seeing the progress Ian.... (sitting smugly, warm and comfortable in my lovely room).
I like the ceiling lights in our kitchen. We have 3 rows with the inner row switched separately, and it's rare that we need more than the three central ones plus the lights over the worktops.

[Big Kev]

I would highly recommend under cabinet lighting, I bought some led strips in Boundary Mill, they're not as bright as some of the under cabinet spotlights that are available so give a comfortable work light.

[PanBiker]

Yes, LED downlights are a good way to go in a new installation, more light for less cost, a win win. I put them in at the business end of our new kitchen and then back lighted the other end with a LED spotlight bar, the arrangement works very well. Jack's kitchen is about half the size of ours it's just 3M wide between the stairs and next door party wall and 2.4M from front to back.

His full height fridge freezer and microwave is currently int he living room and needs to be in the kitchen. The plan is to get as many functional units in as we can. We used the CAD guy at B&Q to shuffle all the options. We have to compromise in one corner as the room is just not deep enough to have two fully accessible corner units. His washer dryer has to fit on the window wall with the services as well. I may have to utilise the service gap on the back of the units on the living room side to shoehorn them all in.

New worktop will go all the way round from the left of the back door as you enter to a point 650mm short of the door to the living room. A 1000mm base will support a 1.5 sink under the window, not sure whether to fit this RH or LH drainer yet, I will offer it up dry when the base unit goes in. The Combi boiler sits high on the outside wall here in the corner so no scope for much cupboard space on the party wall. This will have a centrally fixed oven housing for the new electric oven, a new gas hob will sit in the worktop above with an extractor / recycler hood above. There will be a 925 x 925 corner unit to get us onto the living room wall then a 500 x 3 drawer unit, I think we have an odd 400 base cupboard in the mix somewhere. Wall cupboards will run above back from the freezer position into the corner.

This will give him about three times as much storage as he had before. The corner base cupboard has quite a bit of scope. We have a carousel in ours which works for us. Jack has a pantry so it might be better to put some kind of fold out storage in there, the unit comes with a shelf which can be used from the get go until he gets the feel of the new layout. Options can be fitted later if required.

We will have to get our plasterer to put as thin a skim on the living room wall as he can but still allow for burying the new cabling which will have to be 2.5 UPVC twin and earth to meet the regs for buried cables. From what I can see so far we may be working predominantly on red brick which may lend itself to setting the cable below capping in some areas.

Plenty to keep me occupied for a bit anyway.

Just seen Kevs post re under cabinet lighting. I fitted LED strips in my installation and Jacks will get the same, the cooker hood is lit but on the main work surfaces you will have your back to the window so it will need the fill in under the cupboards where the down lights don't go.

[Tizer]

I too agree about the under-cabinet strip lights. Couldn't do without them now.

[Big Kev]

I have a 25kg bag of Gyproc plasterboard adhesive (makes very good filler) if want it, Ian. I used it to skim the plasterboards around the atairs to my loft.

[PanBiker]

Thanks Kev, the only boards I will be using will be on the ceiling which needs to be dropped by the depth of the studding framework. It will make cabling easier and hide all the bumps and repairs in the old ceiling (the original doesn't look level either). It looks like it had a ceiling airing rack in at one time as I can see all the old fixing points for the pulleys.

I suppose I could tack plasterboards on the short wall, it may solve a small problem with the boilers proximity to the side wall. I will see what our plasterer says when he comes for a look. I will certainly shout if I need it. It's the depth of the room where we need to save as much as possible. 1905 kitchens were not built to multiples of euro sizes.

You don't happen to have a rotating laser level do you?

[Big Kev]

Not rotating, no. Just a fixed, it gives a plumb and level cross on the wall. You're welcome to borrow it.

It's this one here It comes with a clamp you can fix to a camera tripod, it's self levelling so just rotate the tripod a wall at a time and mark up with a pencil.

[PanBiker]

Thanks Kev, the scanning ones are amazing and can draw a perfectly level trace around the whole room. The suspended ceiling installation lads used them at one of the schools I worked in when refurbishing the reception area.

Jacks kitchen is small enough to level it out with each stringer as I fit them, if I get the first one right the rest should follow. A bob on series of markers in relation to the floor (which is level) would be a bonus though. I may take you up on that offer when I am ready for it, thanks.

[Big Kev]

No worries, it does make life easier, it has the clamp with it that's pictured in the link. I used it to set the floor levels when I did the kitchen extension as well as all the units. It'll project a 12ft line on the wall if you get it far enough away

[Tizer]

You don't happen to have a rotating laser level do you?

That made me chuckle, it could have come from one of Ken Dodd's stories....
There I was walking down the street and this bloke came up to me and said "You don't happen to have a rotating laser level do you?" I patted my pockets and had to admit, no, I didn't have one on me at the time. I could offer him a pencil sharpener, a penknife and a mint humbug, but no, not a rotating laser level. Now if he'd asked me yesterday...

I looked at Kev's link and saw the magic machine. Isn't science wonderful, a rotating laser level for only £50, I almost bought one just for the chance of playing with it!

[PanBiker]

Just looked at the link Kev, I didn't realise it did a wide horizontal and vertical line,looks just the job for leveling out the ceiling, I'll give you a bell when I'm ready.

Got the rest of the shelves down today which brought a decent amount of the old plaster with them. Have found an old redundant lead pipe embedded diagonally in the wall, it's half inch so looks like an old water feed. I cant knock any more plaster back as I have no suitable sacks for the waste at the moment. No bother, my Inert Waste pass has expired so I cant get rid of it until my replacement arrives which should be sometime next week. I will nip on to B&Q on Wednesday for supplies and the materials for the replacement ceiling. Wednesdays will be my incidentals buying days as I get my senior discount.

Glenn our plasterer has been for a look and can attend whenever with a bit of notice. He is one of Jacks old college friends dad and is retired but on grandad duties, (a bit like us actually when required). He will put back anything we decide to do, he did my ceiling and did a right proper job.

I had a look at the electrical requirements for the cooker hood, gas hob and electric oven, nothing to worry about here. We will get the gas for the hob sorted out when Jack's friendly plumber and gas man visits to plumb the sink in.

I will be engaging my joiner Alan to router the worktops in and do the cutouts for the sink and hob, two corners to do so discretion here well worth it, £350 of worktops so I would rather have it done right first time.

Because of the position of the top of the window in relation to the ceiling I may not be able to vent the cooker hood to the outside wall. It needs a 5" flexi pipe but I cant drop the ceiling enough to accommodate it. I might take part of the existing ceiling down above where the hood will go to see which way the joists above run, there may be room if they run the right way, a bit of drunken men and idiots luck required here I think. The hood will run in recycling mode if required but I would like to vent it outside if I can. There may also be an issue with the proximity to the boiler flue, I shall take advice from our pool of certified tradesmen.

[Big Kev]

Just a thought on the extractor trunking, B&Q do a 'flat' trunking specifically for that and a round to oblong coupling (I used it to vent my cellar out of the roof of my extension). It is 4in x 2in which is slightly smaller than your 5 inch vent pipe off of the cooker hood but, in my experience, is ample. My extractor is 5 inch out of the unit but is reduced to 4 inch for the long run to outside, there have been no issues. The 5 inch flexi from the top of the extractor will easily reduce to the 4 inch adaptor with the provided jubilee clip and a bit of duct tape . I do believe a 90 degree round to oblong adapter is available so as long as you're using 2x2 sawn timber for your studwork it'll fit and you have the added advantage of being able to cut a rectangular hole to outside (no need to rent a core cutter). I trust my ramblings make sense?

[PanBiker]

Sounds interesting Kev I'll have a furtle. I don't have a problem with core cutting if needed my son in law has the necessary. If I can take it out flat though that would be good. I will look at all the options. I have plenty of time before I get to the hood fitting but it will impact slightly on the studding design. I will have a 300mm gap which I have already decided to put at the cooker end. I'm going to use 1.2 x 900 boards as doubled they make the exact depth of the kitchen one way and are easy to handle at that size on your own. Larger boards are a bit cheaper but not by much and I cant fit them in the car. I have plenty of Spax plasterboard screws and self adhesive scrim so good to go in that department.