Kitchen/Craft room Revamp Diary (pic heavy)

[bushbaby]

So this week I (along with my Husband and my Dad) have started my biggest craft project yet - re-doing my kitchen/craft space. I thought I would keep a diary here as we go along. I hope you dont mind me sharing.

I have a good-sized kitchen dinning room, the dinning end of which is my craft space. The previous house owner badly pine cladded the whole room making it very dark feeling. We are taking all the wood down, replacing the lights and painting the whole space a nice bright magnolia or white.

Silly me forgot to take a good 'before' shot but here is an old shot of my craft area (excuse the mess) - the wood panelling continues all over the walls and ceiling :

I have been packing up & boxing my craft stuff for the last two weeks. Yesterday we started by removing all the wood panels. Turns out the previous owner was really bad at DIY which is a good thing for us as the wood came off really easy. Here's a few quick shots:

That's the old eighties brass spotlights hanging down. There are three of those to get rid off. And here's a shot of all the wood once we had taken it down:

We made a couple of nasty discoveries. Turns out there must have been a water leak so we have a rather large section of ceiling to fix too - but hey, it's not as bad as we thought it might have been.

and also there is a really big gap around two of our sockets in one corner:

Today Dad & I fitted the new light fittings and patched the extra hole in the ceiling the 3rd spotlight made. We both worked on these wich included screwing wood above the plasterboard to brace the plasterboard patch onto and cutting the holes & plasterboard patches to fit. Tada:

Meanwhile my Hubbie (with a little help from me when Dad didn't need me) broke all the long planks into lenths short enough to get in the car and take to the Coup.

Tomorrow we will polyfiller the holes and patch the other bits needing fixed. We also hope to get the a thin coat of white emulsion on the walls to highlight all the bits needing filled.

night night  

[Azura]

You sure won't be getting bored for a while! good luck with the whole revamping

[jezebel_1982]

looks awesome! Keep us updated

The panelling made everything so dark, it looked like a basement, just ripping that down really brightened the space & opened things up!

[Indecisive Monkey]

Wow this sounds like such an excitingly large project!!!! I find it hard to believe that someone would panel an entire room like that. Wall and ceiling?!?! Were the floors hardwood too?

Things are looking great already. I'm sorry that the ceiling appears to be damaged, but what you said is right: it could be worse! I'm excited to see more progress

[bushbaby]

Wow this sounds like such an excitingly large project!!!! I find it hard to believe that someone would panel an entire room like that. Wall and ceiling?!?! Were the floors hardwood too?

Things are looking great already. I'm sorry that the ceiling appears to be damaged, but what you said is right: it could be worse! I'm excited to see more progress

Yeah - pine panelling was all the rage for a while in the 80's. Unfortunately the floor is kind of 'dead-mouse-brown' coloured lino floor tiles  The wall panels were so badly put up that if you hit one end of the wall it would ripple like water away from you!

Have to add, last night when it was totally dark we tried the new kitchen lights  They are so bright!!  I cant wait to craft in there again - no more using an anglepoise lamp to prevent peering and eye strain!

[Indecisive Monkey]

Wow this sounds like such an excitingly large project!!!! I find it hard to believe that someone would panel an entire room like that. Wall and ceiling?!?! Were the floors hardwood too?

Things are looking great already. I'm sorry that the ceiling appears to be damaged, but what you said is right: it could be worse! I'm excited to see more progress

Yeah - pine panelling was all the rage for a while in the 80's. Unfortunately the floor is kind of 'dead-mouse-brown' coloured lino floor tiles  The wall panels were so badly put up that if you hit one end of the wall it would ripple like water away from you!

That floors sounds ugly as sin, and while the rippling wall might have made a fun game for a while, I'm sure it got annoying! When you're finished it sounds like the room will be at LEAST five times better

[bushbaby]

Todays update.

Another good day   My dad fixed two of the 4 wall socksts needing repaired, so that only leaves the two in the big hole pictured above.

We have painted a white-wash coat on the two big walls to highlight any holes needing filled. Dad then filled most of the holes.

Meanwhile my DH & I loaded almost half the wood in to Dad's car.

My DH is a little camera shy but he did agree to show how we trundled the wood from our back yard to the car (about 20 yards).... our glass recycling weelie bin!

Dad & I then took it the wood round to the local Coup where they have a wood recycling point - let me tell you, it was so carthartic throwing that wood down the 10 foot hole!  

And then to round the day off my amazing Father fitted a skirting board to the painted walls!

DH & I also bought a new microwave as I realised our old one was starting to rust on the inside of the door.

Tomorrows plan is to fix the last holes in the ceiling (including the gaping water damage hole) and to patch the few remaining holes in the walls.

After that the work will probably slow for a bit as DH and I are back at work next week (holidays are always too short!) but I will still keep updating you all as this progresses.

xx

[lelila]

whaaat, I wish my recycle bin was bright purple 

I LOVE that big window, and half-glass door! love love natural light. and even though it's just white-washed it already looks tons better in there!! can't wait to watch the transformation 

[bushbaby]

whaaat, I wish my recycle bin was bright purple 

I LOVE that big window, and half-glass door! love love natural light. and even though it's just white-washed it already looks tons better in there!! can't wait to watch the transformation 

hehe  we have 3 bins at the moment - green (houshold waste) Brown (garden waste) and the purple (glass waste). We should also be getting a bright blue one for paper waste too sometime. Only downside is they are only emptied every fortnight so the green fills up really fast!

Yeah, that window is why my craft space is there and not in the upstairs study (well that and it puts me closer to my DH's computer in the living room) When it's out the sun is on that side of the house all afternoon

[fifilaru]

I love looking at these pictures, so much fun to watch the transformation.