The next project

As many of you know we moved from a low maintenance modern house to this rural cottage with lots of potential. So as one project comes to a close another gets going. But what next???

Well maybe it will be the kitchen... This is a photo from when we bought it two years ago.

Now at a first glance and even for a short time after moving in all seemed well. But living in a house you begin to notice things like the worktop and door fronts seem new but not the actual units.

The kitchen started to unravel like  a lose thread on an outfit. The kickboards at the bottom started to show dark bits on the floor. This turned out to be rot. So I took them off after getting sick of cleaning up after them.

Lighting keeps blowing bulbs, and we have a light in a glass cupboard that has no electrics. One spot light isn't even a light as it just has glass in it, as if a mistake has been made.

Next the only drawer unit rotted away and had to be removed.

One thing had bugged me from moving in. The wall units on the window wall had appeared to be tiled over. So we took down the wall unit and took a hammer to the wall.

 

We were most surprised to find wooden shelf brackets and an alcove that goes floor to ceiling. The original ceiling exposed as being 15cm higher than the current one.

Then we explored the walls to see what we were dealing with. After 101 years who knows what we might find. Tiles tiled on three layers of wallpaper, some from the sixties, and the famous "wood chip" and plaster work that in the main fell off showing beautiful brickwork.

So would we have another alcove the other side of the fireplace?

My youngest son was keen to help. We chipped away at the plaster at the side of the larder unit, which goes floor to almost ceiling. It revealed an arch from the floor to over halfway up the wall.

Keen to use the tools we peeled off plasterboard off the fireplace. My son very good with a crowbar. The left a clean side of sooted black bricks.

The right side a mess of plaster, filler and assorted plaster board. A mesh mash of plasterboard facing both horizontal and vertical lines. Missing bricks and a disused water pipe. Something to be repointed with some of the weathered bricks out of the garden.

 

 

With grease lined tops to the units and ever worsening bases we will have no choice soon but to refit the kitchen.