Overheard: our six year old giving his friend the tour of the house
- ‘My Dad built this house from scrap’
- ‘What does that mean?’
- ‘He built it from stuff he found lying around’
: )
Archive for November, 2008
And there was light…
We’re all wired up. We’ve been walking around the house flicking light switches and giggling. It’s the small pleasures…
We can now make a cup of tea in our new kitchen without having to traipse up and down the stairs. We would be christening the induction hob this evening but y’know, it’s been a long week, and we’re tired – it’s take-out tonight. Will keep you posted.
Of course we installed only energy efficent lightbulbs. It’s been interesting to see how dramatically they’ve come down in price. When we bought our first one, about 12 years ago, it cost nearly a tenner. It’s still going strong – we’ve brought it with us through four house moves (well, at that price it’s an investment piece). Recently, we thought we were doing well with Morrisson’s selling four Phillip’s bulbs for £1. Then Tesco had an offer on their own-brand eco bulbs – 5 for 40p! Then our electricity supplier sent us a couple in the post – for nowt.
It’ll be interesting to see if our electricity usage will go up now that we have power in both halves of the house. We’ll be keeping a close eye on our energy monitor. But tonight, we’re just happy we don’t have to pee in the dark anymore : )
Our nearly kitchen
We managed to get the kitchen finished (sort of) in time for our son’s sixth birthday party. In fact, having a house full of stampeding six year olds is a pretty good way to test its structural integrity. It is, I’m happy to report, still standing.
As you can see, our Ikea units are installed - minus a few door fronts because they made some mistakes with the order. Which we would have rectified sooner if we’d been ready to put the kitchen in when it was delivered. But we weren’t, so we didn’t. That meant that by the time we realised they had given us extra drawers instead of doors, the kitchen we had chosen had in fact been discontinued. While Ikea are more than happy to replace them, they will have to be custom made to match the existing ones so it will take another four weeks before our kitchen is complete. Oh well, we’ve waited this long.
There was a positive to come out of the door debacle - Ikea had given us so many extra bits that I was given a big fat refund voucher to spend. And spend I did. It meant we were able to get our temporary worktop for nought. How’s that for low cost? And by temporary I mean it’s going to be a long time before we’re in a position to order the custom recycled glass counter top of our eco dreams. In the meantime, we can live with free.
One other thing we are without at the moment is electricity. By the time we were all fixed up and ready to go, our electricians were in the middle of another job. Tomorrow is the big day though. I am so looking forward to having all my kitchen in the same place. At the moment, the new bit is plumbed and has the sink in it. But no power, so I have to run up the stairs to the old bit to cook. Then down to wash. And up to put away. It’s a tad annoying but it’s keeping me fit. We have light via a precarious network of extension cords. Hopefully, this will all be a thing of the past very shortly.
The heating issue has become less pressing as the new kitchen gets lived in more. Honestly, the herd of six year olds made a big difference. Now the air has warmed up, the walls are keeping the heat in and we can sit comfortably in the kitchen with no heat. Not quite ready to forgo the cardy though.
Well, here it is – our almost-finished kitchen. Our ‘kitche’, as it were.
