work in progress Archives - Hello! Hooray!

Kitchen progress: part 3

Clare Albans — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 11:07:18 +0000

This week was week 8 on our kitchen build – and what a week it was! Thankfully, our windows and door arrived as scheduled on Tuesday, which meant that the old kitchen wall could be knocked through. I worked from home on Tuesday afternoon and by the time I got home at lunchtime, the windows and door were in and the wall had gone! The photo above is what I managed to snap through the window of the door to the living room. I can’t tell you how exciting it was to get to this point!

There were so many people working on our kitchen that day – the plasterers and electricians were here in addition to the usual team working on it. The tiler came over to discuss what we’re having and the cooker was delivered too. And in the middle of that I was doing my marking…crazy!

We took some photos on Tuesday after the builders had gone and it was brilliant to see the size of the new kitchen. I’m fairly good at imagining things, but the space feels much bigger than I thought it would. It’s so light with the big windows too – our front window is 182cm wide!

Since then it has been all go – the plasterers and electricians were even here yesterday (Saturday)! Our kitchen was delivered yesterday too, so that is going to be fitted this week. There are so many boxes in the kitchen now! We also have lights, which is just amazing – it means I can take better photos after they have finished for the day too haha

I spotted this on the box of handles – this is a musician’s joke, haha!

The rendering has been finished outside too. Pebble dash isn’t the prettiest thing in the world, but we had to have it so that it matched the rest of the house. As much as I’d like to paint it, I know that once we do it’s a job we’ll have to do every other year or so and I’d rather spend the money on something else to be quite honest! So this matches the house perfectly.

So, all of the construction side of things is complete now and there’s just a week to go! Can you believe it?! The kitchen will be fitted from tomorrow and the decorator is coming on Thursday. There’s just one thing that will have to wait until the week after, and that’s the tiling (because the tiler was fully booked this week). We’ve decided that we’re just going to have tiles for a splash back now, so it’s a small-ish job for the week after. I can’t actually believe we’ve got to this point! I’ll share some more photos with you next week…exciting!

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Kitchen progress: Part 1

Clare Albans — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 14:06:11 +0000

Our kitchen rebuild is in full swing and now that the builders have finished for the Christmas holidays, I thought that it was about time that I shared a little update with you! At first, it didn’t look like a lot was happening from the front – the roof and garage door were still there and so anyone walking past was probably wondering what all the noise was about! That’s because inside, the floor was being dug up in preparation for new foundations. This was quite a noisy process, so we were glad to be mostly out at work when this was happening…

The builders discovered that our garage didn’t have any foundations (!!) so extra calculations and building control approval were required before they could go in. For a while it felt like we had bought a big hole! But then the happy day came when everything was approved and the concrete arrived!

Now it felt like this was really happening! The foundations and part of the floor went in last week, and the walls have been going up this week. It’s good to get to this point, and now we’re really able to picture the size a bit more easily.

In January our new roof will be going on, and then once the windows are in the old kitchen wall will be knocked down to make a big L-shaped kitchen. Exciting!

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Work in progress: Tom’s trousers

Clare Albans — Sat, 24 May 2014 09:30:24 +0000

I recently asked Tom if he would like me to make him something, as I haven’t made him anything since the wedding waistcoats and I seem to have lots of things for me planned! Anyway, he said that he’d quite like some trousers. Hmm, trousers. From what I knew about trousers, they’re quite tricky – but I like a challenge, so I said ok!

The pattern I’m using is from Burda Style No.7022, which is ‘average difficulty’ apparently! I’ve made quite a few notes to myself on the pattern so far, and it definitely seems like a pattern that would be easier the second time around. That’s assuming I make these again after I’ve finished! I am actually really pleased with them so far. I’ve had to learn quite a few skills quite quickly! This is the first time I’ve made pockets, as I avoided doing them for the waistcoats!

The back pocket took me ages – mainly because I was trying to work out what the pattern meant at this point! After a long, long time I finally got it put together, but it didn’t turn out quite as I thought it should…but it looks ok (I think!).

I think what I found most frustrating was that this is actually a fake pocket – all that effort for it to be sewn up!

The next job is to baste the legs and stitch them before I can start to put them together. Helen very kindly sent me a link to some amazing trousers on the tomofholland blog – if I can make mine to look half as good as his, I’ll be really pleased! Wish me luck!

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