OK - so it wasn't really working for me any more - that is true.
But on Saturday I cleaned the house from top to bottom (as I do on Saturday's because I know how to party) and finished by mopping the floors. The blue tiles in the kitchen were mopped and sparkling by Saturday night. If I had know that within 24 hours they would be at the local tip, I probably wouldn't have bothered mopping them at all!
So here's how it all came about:
We had bought a new fridge and a new oven, neither of which fitted in to our existing kitchen. As you do. So we figured we were going to completely remodel the kitchen to accommodate these new appliances. It seemed logical at the time, just go with it...
The ultimate plan is to completely redo the kitchen and knock out the wall which currently seperates the kitchen and the bathroom. The bathroom will be relocated and the kitchen will double in size. This will be tied in with installing bi-fold windows across the back wall to open the new kitchen on to the entertaining area. This stage of the renovation will happen when we redo the roof, which will involve the creation of 9-foot ceilings throughout the dining and new kitchen areas. This will probably happen next year. For now, we simply wanted to redo the existing space, install a new sink, rip up the tiles and polish the floorboards in the kitchen, replace the doors to all the kitchen cupboards, reconfigure the cupboards to create an island bench, create a space for the new fridge, take out the existing electric cooktop and rangehood, remove existing fridge cavity, install new rangehood, install new freestanding cooker and get the gas connected.
Because that's what you do for a temporary fix to a hideous kitchen, isn't it? Hmmm.
Here are some shots of the kitchen in the process of being dismantled:
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| Love those baby blue doors! |
We then cut off the return of the bench, which effectively created an island but as we tried to move it we found that the tiles on the kitchen floor were that fraction higher than the timber floor of the dinig room which meant we couldn't get the bench to sit evenly and therefore wouldn't be able to get the fridge to sit evenly in its new home.
It was at about this time that we came to the conclusion that we'd have to remove the tiles from the floor.
The first few came up quite easily which gave us a false sense of simplicity. It wasn't until we had gone beyond the point of no return that we realised someone with a much heavier application of adhesive had done the bulk of the work and we were on our hands and knees chiselling the pieces of tile off the floor for several hours.
Here's some action shots:
After broken nails and several cuts and bruises we managed to get them all off. The clean up from this job was pretty massive, as breaking glazed terracotta tiles is really messy work. We managed to get most of it up and got the rubbish down to the tip.
We then had to collect our new fridge and washer and dryer so didn't finish working until late on Sunday night. The fridge is currently in the garage as we haven't finished making room for it yet, but it will be coming inside on the weekend.
Another update after next weekend!
