Stoneworks and Stoves

I have been dying for the fireplace/stove area to be finished so I could post the progression of the sitting room.  It still is a work in progress but there's enough done to justify a dedicated before and after posting!

So remember again, our living space area developed from knocking through a hallway between an original bedroom and sitting room.

Original bedroom

Original sitting room

Bedroom and hallway walls knocked out

Working space for the living room

We closed up the access to the 'study/office' on the left side of the fireplace and ripped out that awful built-in unit storage unit to the right of it, as well as the fireplace surround.  The brickwork around the fireplace doesn't look so bad in pictures but TRUST ME, it was not a pretty sight.

Creating a blank space and opening up the right wall to access the kitchen/diner
(above and below) 

Now with all the walls that came down there was A LOT of rubble and stone that was taken out and just sitting outside, so we thought we could use some of it to create a bit of a feature!  At first we thought maybe we would stone the whole fireplace/mantle but then thought it would be a bit too imposing.  The room is open but it's not huge so we thought a touch of the stone on either side of the fireplace would be a better option.

And we really love that all the stone came from the original house!

A new pedestal was created for our little black stove (it looks really little here doesn't it!).  And as you can see the floors are poured and we're waiting on them drying out.  Walls are painted a base white but they'll soon be ready for their final coat of 'French White'.

An off-white on the walls will warm up the space a bit and flooring is to go down next Tuesday, so I think that will help remove the current 'clinical' look of the place.  The fireplace is a bit sparse at the moment but I think we're going finish it off with a simple wood beam or shelf just to dress it up a bit.

It sounds crazy to think that we're aiming to be moved in in 2-3 weeks time!  Now baby ... where are you???

Getting a Handle of the Situation

Sorry for the cheesy title.  I feel like I'm working at The Mirror or The Sun and it's my job to try to find terrible titles that work off puns and plays on words.  That drives me nuts about those papers (well, just one of several things) but it's actually a lot harder to make up the ridiculous titles than it looks.  I know a lot of very witty people: if you come up w/ a catchy title, I will change this title just for you.

So this post is about HANDLES. heh heh heh

Remember how all over the place I was about floors.  Well, I didn't fare any better with kitchen handles and knobs.  Such a small part of the kitchen but seriously, it really makes a big difference to the look of the whole kitchen, no?  Now, I'm very lucky in that Stephen doesn't really care what I choose.  He'll be honest and say, 'No, I really don't like those' or 'Those are kinda old-fashioned' but as long as the doors open and close, the rest is up to me.

So my idea of kitchen love is a painted wood look, country style but classic too.  Not too country bumpkin like.  You've seen some of my favourite kitchens when I've talked about floors.  But here's a re-visit to my favourite kitchen:

Actually, I have another absolute favourite but I can't actually find a copy on-line that allows me to reproduce it (and I will be super respectful of that copyright and NOT scan the picture) but if you somehow have access to The Best of Irish Kitchens magazine, Issue 24, Oct/Nov 2011 -- It's on the cover!  Solid wood tops.  Light grey painted wood.  Cup and knob handles.  Belfast sink.  Really simple clean lines.  DROOL!

So getting back to handles, I really like the brushed nickel type of finish and a cup-handle style fitting for drawers, simple knobs for cupboards.  Like this:

These are the kind of handles that Stephen doesn't like.  But hey, we've already gotten over that.  So thinking that this should be a fairly easy decision, I went to my kitchen guy only to find that he doesn't have any cup handles in stock.  To stay open minded, I bring 3 different handle options home just to mull them over and they still don't really take my fancy and I figure I'll look around.  Stephen's comment, 'How can you go to a kitchen place and not find a single handle that you like the look of'.  If you can hear his tone, this is not a judgement on the kitchen place but rather yours truly of course.

Let me tell you.  Ireland is not a big fan of cup handles.  Woodies has one option, that looks a little small as it doesn't have the pretend screws incorporated into the face.  Homebase had another option that looked ... alright.  So I was holding out for Ikea ... which fell flat and seriously disappointed as the Fagleboda cup handle only came in a flat black or shiny chrome and had a much more semi-circular shape than crescent moon.  (ok, yes I see I am starting to sound a little crazy).  They also had a Fintorp handle, that looked really lovely on a kitchen in last month's House and Home magazine ... but those were much larger than I expected and I came home last weekend with still no solution to my handle search.  And in frustration I went back to the handle options that are in the same catalogue as our kitchen doors and do you want to see the only cup handle they offer?

Ugh!  It's a little too medieval and reminds me of a knight's armour or something.

So feeling 'ok' about the DIY store options, I picked up a sample from Woodies and Homebase and went out to the kitchen place to have a look at how the handles would actually look like on the model kitchen.  And after about 20 minutes of humming and hawing, and Colin (kitchen guy) looking through 4 different catalogue for similar cup handles, we made a decision on a lovely satin nickel cup handle, with a slim edge that doesn't have pretend screw features.  Very similar to the Woodies one.

Job done .... you'd think.

Guess what presented an even bigger problem?  Finding a simple oval or round knob, with just the right nubbiness (or is that knubbiness) in the same finish!!!!!!  I'm serious.  NONE of the cup handle options in ANY of the catalogues had a corresponding simple round or oval knob in the same finish.  Finally, there was a compromise of a knob in silver nickel finish from the same catalogue.  It was a bit too flat for my tastes, as opposed to 'knubby', but atleast it was a match (though it didn't look exactly like the same finish in the catalogue, it was described as the same ... and apparently we're not meant to trust picture reproductions.  So job done .... you'd think.

Colin had a sample of the flat knob in stock so I put it up to a door painted in the same colour 'Stone' as our kitchen will be.  And after all of the decision making, would you believe that it looked absolutely terrible!  Seriously.  The colours were just  too similar so it did nothing to 'lift the door' or make the handle or knob stand out as a feature.  I was gutted.  And perplexed.  And confused.  It worked on my dream Best of Irish Kitchens kitchen.  It works on the cream and beige kitchens on the pictures in this post.  Does the search for the handle continue or ....

Should I change the kitchen colour?

It did cross my mind.  I put the handle up to some more sample colours.  I put it on the model kitchen 'Country White' doors.  I ignored the 'What are you doing?' look that Colin was giving me.  And I internally was VERY grateful that Stephen was not there.  But then I realized I had to choose ... do I want my grey kitchen or do I want my brushed nickel cup handles?

I could tell you.  But wouldn't it be more fun to wait until everything is in place?

A Taste of Progress II

Following on from yesterday's post, here's the kitchen again.

In the corner, the previous owners located the water heater/boiler.  We toyed with the idea of moving it, or atleast changing the access to it from the other direction (from the living room instead of the kitchen) but that would have involved moving a lot of plumbing.  A LOT OF PLUMBING.  Which was far more trouble than it was worth.  So leaving it as is, it initially created a bit of an obstacle in the kitchen design but in the end, it actually doesn't really impact on the kitchen too much.  We hope that once the door goes on it, it'll just look like another cupboard or pantry type door.

As you can see in the original picture, there's another chimney breast to be knocked out behind that wall.  And the sofa is just odd.  We couldn't move it out of the kitchen until the walls/door were knocked out to make enough room for it to fit through.  How they got it in there to begin with is beyond me!  Speculation is that it came in through the windows when they got replaced ... but why into the kitchen????

Central opening knocked through and steel joist and concrete in place for support

Wall knocked and chimney out.  See all the plumbing off the boiler.  That was going nowhere!

A bit of stonework going up on one side of the central opening.  All the stone
came from the thick walls that were knocked down!

And again ... TA DA!

A Taste of Progress

As I mentioned yesterday, there has been so much going on at the house while I've been 'away' from the blogging.  Just like when you haven't met up w/ a friend in ages ... where do you begin?  Essentially here's what's been happening:

• walls have been knocked
• we've re-lined the walls to improve insulation (and you know when I say 'we', it wasn't really 'ME' doing it)
• walls are plastered
• 'we've' done stonework on either side of the fireplace and a bit on the part of the central opening
• some of the floors needed to be dug up and relaid to get in a waterproof & insulation layer
• and radiators installed

But that's so BORING.  I know you want pictures!  So again, where to begin .... ahhhh, remember my dining room/play room door dilemma  ... YES, let's start there.

So in the beginning, here's the kitchen/bathroom.  And the central wall is still intact (yellow/peach wall on left)

Central wall knocked out and supported. Tiles gone. Decision made to NOT knock through that blue wall centrally to view into the playroom

Central opening and walls plastered.  Lateral door knocked wider to make way for my 'barn door' 

As you can see it's shaping up!  Now, we just got word a quote for my barn door track came in at over £600 for just the metal track system from a company in the North.  WHAT???!!!!  So I think that plan will be on hold for the moment (because even I recognize that's nuts!) and we'll just 'live in the space for a bit' and see what happens in the future.  Sad? Maybe ... but I got over not having pocket doors pretty quickly so I'm pretty sure I'll be ok with this too.

And from the other direction, I've gotten even newer pics so you can really see that we're ready for floors, painting, and kitchen installation soon soon soon!

Remember the old kitchen ... and those great curtains

Walls gone and kitchen units out

Plastered and pipes in for the radiators.  Thankfully, these floors didn't need to be dug up!

And voila!  Ready for the fun stuff!

House Plans: Old and New

Sorry to anyone checking in for news and updates to find I haven't updated the blog in weeks.  It's been a bit busy but now that I've started maternity leave (and baby hasn't come yet), I can do a bit of catch up!

As you can imagine, lots has happened at the house which hopefully I'll update over the next few posts (well, depending on baby's arrival).  Things are really coming together and we can really see how the rooms are laid out.  After talking to my sister, she asked me to post some pics of the layout so she could actually visualise what walls were where and what we've changed.

So the original house plan looked like this.  As you can see there are a lot of pokey little rooms and some pretty thick walls in the original house layout.

This whole area is converted to living space and there is a new build extension for the utility and bedrooms that goes out off the hall at the top of the picture.  The new plans essentially follow as below with a few changes to exact position & length of the remaining walls:

As I said before, there won't be an island as the kitchen is a bit too narrow and the dining room table will be positioned in the other direction to fill the space a bit more. Knocking down the centre wall and making the larger opening was such a good idea.  Walking around the space it really feels so much more spacious but as there are some internal walls, it still has a cozy feel to it.  We're really excited about how it's coming out!