Twas the night of the Evil Jester and the Mad Hatter

We were invited to Erins for a Halloween party and so decided to try and get a decent costume and I saw the Evil Jester one on a website, which as you know dressing up as a jester has been a theme for me off and on over the years, so thought it was a good fit. So I actually bought my first costume ever, as it was about the same price as hiring it and I'm sure I'll get to use it again.

And getting close to the day Janice wasn't sure what to wear so went out on a hunt around the second-hand shops and found a hat! So the hat grew into a full blown outfit of the mad hatter, of course!

Then add my mask as the final touch and you have a deadly duo......

Meet Oink!

Oink, the pig, who of course is a money(Piggy) bank! Well what else did you expect us to have as the first "decorative" purchase in a kitchen....And before you think I've finally lost the plot, it was actually Janice who got it and proud of the fact.

And yes this does mean that the kitchen is mostly complete :) Just the tiles to go now, which we believe we have chosen, a green and white checked pattern?! But that could change by the time we actually get to it.

So I have updated the picasa site with more pictures. But here is a "nearly complete" one!

How NOT to design your kitchen

Don't use drawers, unless you have thought about it VERY carefully! If you take nothing else away from this post, that's the key bit.

Especially after we thought we had been so careful in planning what cupboards (and drawers) to go in the right spots and had the Ikea designers out to review it with us, we discovered that the drawers at the end wouldn't open as the door frame was in the way, Doh! Then the drawer under the sink was a big choozer to store the bins in which covered the hole that the waste pipe from the sink was going to go in, double Doh! Good job Ikea kitchens are very modular and we could take back the drawer bits and change them for cupboard doors and shelves :)

Don't ask about the different colour white(off white) cover panels for the side of the cupboards that no-one noticed even as they installed them, that one and the some wonky handles mean that we're waiting for the Ikea supervisor to call us to get those changed.

AND, after the counter top was delivered (different company) and it was about 1.5cm too short %#$%##^#$, you can imagine I nearly lost the plot right then ;o) But that was fixed up very well and as of today we have some very nice counter tops on and it's starting to look like a real kitchen again, hurrah!!!!

A trip 'over east'

So here I am in Sydney after a few days over in Melbourne and then here last night. Discovered that arriving late at the hotel can be a good thing as I got upgraded to a three room suite, sweet! Means I had different rooms to iron my shirts in and then go to sleep.... oh party on is what I really meant!

After all the hard work I'm now sitting here in the pub enjoying a beer testing out blogging from my iPhone, looking forward to my third flight in three days, not!

But, apparently I will get home to mostly constructed kitchen as the cupboards are getting fitted today.

Anyway, gotta go as my food is ready. Salt and pepper squid, yum yum.

What happens when you get Janice, Ollie and a Lump Hammer together?

A lot of old kitchen cupboards getting SMASHED! Which is handy as we were ripping the whole thing out, which actually turned out to be easier than we thought and got it all out in a few hours.

Then thanks to Glynn and his trailer we were able to get all the old applicances and cupboards in one trip to the tip (which turned out to be Ollie's favourite part of the day :)



Its all about safety

 And just in case we didn't have enough to do we took a trailer full of mushroom mulch to spread around the garden, including the new vege patch (which will be another post).

The Kitchen is in the house!

After a 5 hour marathon in Ikea on thursday night (with a break for meatballs, of course) we managed to load the 3 trolley loads (Yes 3) of boxes into the two cars (good job they have fold down seats). Then the last haul to get them all into the spare bedroom, nobody welcome to stay over right now...unless you enjoy sleeping on boxes!

Thank god I'm not putting all THAT LOT together :)

Less is more (hopefully)

So the oven and stove top are disconnected and sitting in the back garden, thanks to the electrician. And we now have a big hole in the wall where the one used to be, hopefully the rats won't "drop-in" for a visit! Well, I haven't heard one in the loft for a while, so hopefully they are all dead or done a runner...

Janice on guard duty, where the oven used to be...

And so the exodus of the kitchen continues, with most of the cupboards are now emptied into the spare room and the big smash happens on the weekend, with Marc and Glynn coming round to help with a powertool or two.

Say goodbye to the oven and HUGE sink

Stove top used to live here

Warmer evenings and sunsets

Now the evenings are warming up it's the perfect time of the year to wander along the beach front walkways, especially between Trigg and Hillary's. So to escape the paint and house chaos we took a walk the other night which was a cloudy evening so not expecting much but cleared up at the end and got a cool sunset

Slow sync flash in action

Just to prove I do still exist (yes, I'm wearing my painting clothes)

The last guy in the water

Painting party, without the fun!

So the painting is in full swing with the ceiling done in the kitchen and hallway and after many decisions the paint colours for the kitchen have been chosen and colour number one is done!

And just for a laugh, we decided to paint the doorframes and then of course the doors of all the rooms (except kitchen/laundry) just to keep us a bit busier...So been painting and flipping doors after work and getting them back on one at a time, with only two to finish on one side.

Yes, its Janice doing the work again...

So why does EVERY door have to have a different type of handle to take off

Yup, 80's yellow door frames

Nice and white, that'll do for the next 20 years

Kitchen shennanigans

So after many debates and discussions the kitchen "reno" is starting! We now own a new sink(one and three quarters for you sink junkies out there) and a swan neck mixer tap (so I can fit all those big pans under there that I have to wash - feels like back working at the hotel kitchens....). Also, decided on the electric hob with the wall mount oven which meet J's requirements (although they are still at the warehouse until we need them).

So time to get the contractor guys sorted for plumbing, electrician and a bloke to help cut a hole in the wall to fit the new oven and cupboard. Got 2 out of 3 sorted yesterday and went to good old Ikea to get the cupboards ordered, so the main bit still to source is the counter top although we've decided on the type of it, just need a place to buy it now!

Better get going as we want it finished by the time I leave for the UK in November.