After over a year of planning (and going through multiple versions of the plan, I might add) the time has finally come for our kitchen transformation to take place. It feels like the last year has been gearing up to this moment.
Three and a half years ago we moved into our four bed semi by the sea. When we bought it, we were slightly naive in thinking that all the house would need was a lick of paint but the new shutters and new deep pile carpet were covering up a multiple of issues. It feels like for the past few years we’ve been on one treadmill of fixing it. We’ve fixed the roof, re-pointed the chimney, fixed damp, decorated, landscaped the garden, fixed damp again, installed new gas pipes for the gas fire, insulated the loft, rewired, decorated again, installed a solid roof to the conservatory, added built-in bookcases in the lounge, decorated again, fixed yet more damp…But, despite all it’s issues and being a virtual money pit we love the house. It’s spacious, has a good-sized garden, is two minutes from the beach and station. We knew anything we did do to it would add value. Redoing the kitchen, though, was always a long-term goal and something we didn’t think we’d do for several years.
Our original plan was to build an extension which would contain one huge open plan space plus a study- the house already had come with planning permission to build an L-shaped extension, so we knew that what we wanted to do would be granted. However, the more I looked in to the more I came to realise how expensive that would be. It would mean remortgaging the house if we were to that, something, that realistically wouldn’t be possible for a long while. So we decided to put it on hold but our conversations always turned back to that dream kitchen.
Then in 2018 I became ill and was pretty much housebound for several weeks trying to fight a cellulitis infection. To fight the boredom I started sketching out plans for the kitchen and worked out that maybe we didn’t need an extension after all – perhaps we had enough space in the existing house to achieve what we wanted. To get me out of the house and ‘cheer me up’ Ben took me to a kitchen showroom and on a whim we booked them to measure up and create a design for us. It was clear we definitely couldn’t make much improvement on the kitchen in the space it was. We were fighting two massive windows and an awkward doorway. That’s when the manager suggested we move the kitchen to the adjacent room and knock the wall down between the two rooms.
Moving the kitchen to the adjacent room (which was open plan to the conservatory) was something we’d thought about before but we’d dismissed it as that would mean moving the drainage supply, which we thought would be costly. The manager did a good sales job on us though and convinced us that this was the only way to go.
On a whim we put a deposit down on a kitchen and booked in fitting for September 2019. However, We obtained a quote through their builder and were shocked at the price. The wall that needed knocking down was a supporting wall so would need an RSJ. It wasn’t the few hundred pounds which the kitchen designer had told us but would be tens of thousands. Therein ensued months of obtaining further building quotes, and visits to an alternative kitchen supplier to try and understand if that was a reasonable price. Another quote came in and it was even more than the original one, possibly even double! I remember crying when I opened that email! Back to the drawing board. Luckily we were able to get our deposit back. The September start date would need to be delayed, which was just as well as we were due to get married six weeks before.
Ben then suggested that maybe we didn’t need to actually knock the wall down – perhaps we could still have our kitchen diner, although not as big. We’d still move the kitchen but then the old kitchen could become a study/snug. This would mean sacrificing the massive kitchen island and breakfast bar that I’d been fantasising about since I was about 12 but it would mean we could do the work in the next couple of years rather than in the next twenty.
With this in mind we asked our kitchen designer to draw up a new plan and ploughed on looking for builders. The new plan would solve all our storage and worktop dilemmas and would still be semi open-plan and I even managed to squeeze in a peninsular which was a compromise to not having an island. Finally we managed to find a builder, through recommendations of friends and it looked like it might be possible! By this point though, we were hurtling towards our wedding and we knew we had to focus on the plans for that, so we made the choice to delay until 2020. A February 2020 start date was secured.
