Early Retirement Plans

Well now the snow has gone, it is full steam ahead with my plans for a new kitchen. As you may have guessed I have spent quite a lot of time planning layout and requirements in terms of pipes, electrical points, appliance, wall and door positions, but now it is time to get cracking!

First the room needed emptying so we can see what we’re dealing with, so I mentioned to Dan that we’d have to live with the mess for a little while, his response?! “What another 4 years?” Ha ha, how we laughed…

So the chest freezer is now in the lounge (how this is more strange than it being in the bedroom I’m not sure), the large sofa is in the dining room, the bed and mattress are in the next door’s barn (thank you Neil) and I have yet to find a home for the large wooden chest full of goodies…if all else fails it might have to be squeezed into the “Box Room from Hell” – there must be room for one more thing in there…surely!?

Next the ceiling needs to be removed, this is going to be a dusty, dirty, rat poo-infested, bitch of a job. Can you tell I’m looking forward to this…also I’ll be (conveniently for Dan) doing it on my own too as he has a number of van jobs that have been stacking up waiting for the weather to clear.

In fact, except for situations where I need two pairs of hands, I am going to try to complete the whole thing by myself, that way we split our resources and more things get done…

Just to give you an idea of what I am taking on here, here is an overview; I have to brick up 2 doors, make 3 new ones, take out half a wall, put in an RSJ, remove the ceiling, plumb in a sink, washing machine and re-route the central heating, put up 2 boilers, board and insulate the rafters, move and add sockets and lights, gut the little wet room, render the walls and put up shelves and then…and only then can I start to build my own kitchen.

I will take lots of pictures as I go along, but something tells me I need a timeline plan as I am fitting all this in between teaching, freelancing for a couple of guys in California, gardening and feeding us all…so glad I took early retirement!