In the beginning, long time ago...dammit, I'm really a fair bit behind with blogging...when I moved in a year ago, I decided that the kitchen would have to go eventually.

That was the long-term plan. The short-term plan came next. Well, more precisely, first came the problem: a kitchen smelling rotten. That was two months ago or so. Then there came a plan or three, being my parents' son, lots of stuff being bought and some tile color trials.

Eventually about three weeks ago, I had everything (sort of) ready. Tuesday: lots of destructive work, tile removal and the removal of the silly bulkheads.

Wednesday, Rob came to help me with the new cornices and to do the tiling (I haven't ever tiled myself). First we ripped out the final few pieces: the oven and the sink. The cause for the stink became apparent when disconnecting the oven.

Rob did a super job on the tiles, especially the one that needed a round hole for the wastewater pipe: that hole he cut with the anglegrinder and a diamond disk. He got it perfectly round and didn't break a single tile.

Thursday I did the grouting, not too badly I say for doing it the very first time in my life, and some painting of the area around the new cornices.

Friday saw me finishing the paint, mounting the skirting boards, doing the lower cabinets on the right side, the oven and the ceramic hotplate - and a fair bit of improvisation, too: as always things don't work out exactly the way expected: the oven power cable exited the wall in the wrong spot (fixable with a stanley knife and some patience) and the oven didn't fit at all as it was too high for the cabinet by a good 1.5cm, for whatever silly reasons. Cutting the benchtop also took a fair while, the board being thick and the laminate very hard.

Saturday I did the (simple) left side, the complicated center with all the plumbing and the fitting of the benchtops. Putting the kitchen on feet worked out about as nicely as I hoped.

When I ordered the benchtops I was almost too exact for my own good: I had to guess the tile thickness on the sides and managed to underestimate the amount of slack. Joining the benchtop pieces together was a slightly tense time, I can tell you.

The left side was easy, the center parts less so: in order to fix the cabinet side-wise I had to get the waste pipe glued into the floor drainage exit, of course after cutting the hole into the cabinet. Height-wise the plumbing holes would need attention, but the final height wouldn't become obvious before the sink and the benchtop were in place. A bit of a chicken-egg problem.

Note to self: using Citronella lamp oil to lube the drill for cutting through the sink steel was a Good Idea, worked well and left a nice smell.

In the evening I mounted most wall cabinets, and discovered a stupid measurement glitch: a 10cm hole in the wall left by the original builders which I had expected to vanish behind wall cabinets ended up fully exposed at the bottom of the range hood :-( Lots of plaster, backing material and filling later...

Sunday I mounted the last two wall cabinets, all the doors and then made the necessary spacer and blind boards to measure. I was very happy about putting the saw aside after that...

A week later I had bought the door handles (which I had forgotten to buy in the first place) and now most is done: I'm still to get tiles for the splashbacks, but that's not too urgent. Eventually the opening left of the sink cabinet is going to house a dishwasher, but again that's not important right now. (Yes, I know about "temporary" setups being most permanent in practice.)