We get plastered!

Day 8 of kitchen renovation.

Another Wednesday, another day of building works! Pete, the electrician, arrived just before 8am and two plasterers arrived shortly afterwards. They asked us to move our makeshift kitchen into the conservatory as they were going to be working in the whole of the kitchen today. We hurriedly moved everything, and the conservatory looked a complete mess!

Keith amid the clutter!

Pete also had to dig a trench from the wall to the middle of the room for the electrics to go onto the island, so there was a lot of noise and dust today! The plasterers also built the stud wall between the kitchen and the hallway so that entailed a lot of banging!

Keith and I took my car to the garage at Moulton first thing, to try and get the knocking sorted out. It's also due for its MOT at the end of this month, so that had to be done as well. Neither of us were looking forward to the bill, and we were dreading how much it would be. We left the car with him and headed home to see what was happening. The two plasterers had already taken out the coving from the top of the wall, and all the skirting boards had been removed. They then started on preparation work for the real plastering tomorrow. 

We went and collected the newspaper and we were amazed to see lots of building and gardening work going on around the estate. Another house looked like it was undergoing a kitchen renovation, and we could see a skip at yet another house!

Towards the late morning, the garage phoned to say that my car had failed its MOT, and the cost to put everything right, including a new indicator and headlamp, would be £390, a lot less than we were expecting to be honest! We told them to go ahead, feeling very relieved!

The noise and mess were incredible, so we escaped at lunchtime to meet Sophie in Cafe 900. We enjoyed sandwiches and mugs of tea, and it was lovely to escape the mayhem and chaos for a while! Back home I sat upstairs in the bedroom and watched a programme on kitchens and bathrooms (I could empathise!), and Keith caught up with the Olympics.

My phone rang at about 3pm to say the car was ready so we drove to collect it. The weather today has been gorgeous with blue skies and sunshine and warm temperatures, and the views from the garage over the countryside were stunning.

I drove my car home and it was silent! I was very pleased indeed! It now has its MOT for a year so that is a relief! The plasterers had almost finished when we got back and the floor was covered in dust and dollops of plaster. There were also dusty footprints all over the driveway but they did hose it all down before they left.

As soon as they had gone, we set to and tried to clean up as much as we could. We didn't want to tread dust and dirt all through the house so I hoovered and mopped, and did a bowlful of washing up. We also tidied the conservatory and cleared the table so we could sit down to dinner this evening! There was no way we could move the paste table back into the kitchen as all of the plasterers' stuff was piled up by the wall!

The new stud wall between the kitchen and hallway

Our washing machine, nicely shrouded!

The rough edges have been boxed in.

Sophie arrived home and was very bemused to find she could no longer walk straight into the hallway from the kitchen. We rarely use this door anyway, but it is going to take some getting used to!

As it was such a beautiful evening we sat in the garden with drinks and then Keith lit the barbecue while Sophie and I took care of the new potatoes and stir-fried vegetables. The dinner was delicious as ever, and I'm really proud that we're all pitching in and eating so well!