Too Many Cooks Spoil The Kitchen

And so it came to pass, that the hour of destruction was past and the time for rebuilding had arrived.

Ed was very lucky with the floor. The way the tiles were laid out, there ended up being only a few tiles that needed to be cut. We had already removed the loose floor tiles, so there was some work to do, but it all went together very well indeed.

Ed and I had put the kitchen units together ourselves in the garage, which was fine, but for the recontruction of the kitchen, we called in a friend. He put plasterboard on 3 of the walls for us, and fixed the ceiling, where the patry had been before. He was a dab hand with a saw and screwdriver, and soon made a big difference. Thankfully, he was very respectful of my wishes, and queried everything with me, before he did anything. He had some good ideas, but some of them I had already considered, and they didn't work for reasons that he wasn't aware of, but others I was happy to take on board.

He had obviously done this type of work before and was a pleasure to have around. Measure twice and cut once wasn't his thing - he measured everything several times and everything he cut fitted perfectly.

He and Ed soon had the framework together, then Ed and I lived in it for a while, before we called him back to finish some jobs. There was a funny design issue that needed to be resolved, and the archway to finish off.

Then we got into a muddle. I didn't realise that Ed had asked him to do the tiling too and I aked Paco to do it. Thankfully, he was fine with this, but it created other problems.

Different people work in different ways, and Paco had his own ideas. I managed to convince him that I wanted the tiles horizontal, not vertical, and he was sure I wanted the border at the top, even though I told him several times, it was to go in the middle, but finally we got there!

Afte that, little Paco came back and fitted the sockets, and connected the extractor hob. There was some confusion with the hidden socket for the dishwasher, which was finally resolved, and then... after 5 years, I have a fully functioning kitchen. No extention leads across the floor, and doors to hide everything!

I've finished painting it now too, so it looks lovely and clean. It still needs 'dressing', but I will take my time with that. I have some ideas, but I'm in no hurry.