Day 2 of kitchen renovation.
Keith was shattered this morning so I told him to go back to bed for an hour, but at 7.30am the first of the builders arrived! I hurriedly woke him up and by 8am work had started. We had three men, two of them at the house to take down the dividing wall between the kitchen and the old dining room, and an electrician who was preparing all the lights and sockets.
The noise was incredible as they banged away but very soon our wall was just a heap of rubble and there were six metal props holding up the ceiling! These were removed when the men returned with an RSJ beam that will hold the ceiling up permanently.
We decided to escape the noise and mess and went over to Tesco, where we wandered about in a daze, trying to work out what to have for dinner for the rest of the week! The only options were meals we could cook in the slow cooker, or on the barbecue, or cold salads. Keith looked pained the whole way around - I think he's finding the mess and the inconvenience hard to take already! Even though we bought food for really just one night (Friday) and salads, tinned vegetables and chilled foods to microwave, we still managed to spend £80 in Tesco. I was shocked. We bought a washing up bowl and a drying rack so we could wash the dishes on a makeshift decorating table - this along with the slow cooker and the dual hob we've ordered will be our kitchen!
Back home I parked outside temporarily (the skip is blocking the drive completely) while we unloaded all the shopping and then tried to find room for it all. Thank goodness we still have two fridges!
Keith went and checked the gas for our barbecue and said that it was really low. We called B&Q but of the ten nearest stores to us, not one had any available. Apparently, there is a nationwide shortage of Calor gas! Wonderful!
Luckily, a local supplier in Brixworth had some so we sped over there, paid about £20 for a new bottle and sped back where Keith connected it to the barbecue. Phew! At least we have this to fall back on now!
I managed to do a wash this afternoon in the bath. After I had let it soak, and then rinsed all the clothes I took them into the garage and used our little twin tub to spin them. It did a marvellous job of getting them dry, and then I pegged them out on the line. At least we can do this if we can't get the washing machine re-connected tomorrow!
The electrician stayed all day and did lots of preparation work. The pendant lights we ordered to go over the island weren't suitable at all, so we've had to return them. They were on a bracket but the best ones are two separate lights so we'll have to start the search all over again!
When Sophie returned home she was amazed at the transformation and we all agreed that we had so much more space and it was lighter, exactly what we were after. Once the new window is in it should be lovely to have more sunlight.
Dinner tonight was difficult! We had put the mince for the cottage pie (that we should have eaten on Tuesday) in the slow cooker, and we cooked the potatoes first and mashed them to go on top of the meat. We then had to keep this warm and cook the other vegetables on the hob. It was then my job to grill the cottage pie in our microwave, but we had never used the grill, so I think it was a shock to its system as we had quite a bit of burning, to begin with! After an extraordinarily long time, the cheese and potato topping changed colour a bit, and we all sat down to eat.
But the real fun was washing up! We put the bowl on the makeshift table and Sophie washed up while I dried. Keith and Mike were given the task of putting everything away, in various areas of the house and garage! Over the weekend I'm going to try and get sorted out a bit more and bring things we need regularly into the conservatory!
It was bliss to finally relax and watch Baptiste. We just have the electrician coming tomorrow, and then the plasterers at some point next week!
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