DIY Project – week 25

Kitchen remodeling

This week I finished the painting. I had to use at least three coats of paint of the emulsion that supposedly only needs one coat. The old yellow paint kept showing through, not to mention the marks of the ex-dado-rail. I now think that the whole walls should have been plastered, not just over the dados & skirting. There is one lesson to be learnt here: never glue dado or picture rail onto plasterboard!..

Whilst I was doing the painting, my other half was building a low, Japanese style shelf along one of the walls. This will be used to sit on and to display artefacts etc. The space underneath will be lit with the rope light that runs along the walls, behind the skirting.  The shelf had to be built in three pieces. I decided to tackle the veneer.

Veneering is a pain in the butt.   It took us about four days to do it – and it was only one shelf! People had said that it was easy but it wasn’t easy at all. The fact that the shelf was made of two pieces didn’t help, nor that the shelf was not entirely straight – actually it’s the wall that isn’t true so the shelf had to be cut at a slight angle to run along it. Also, the shelf had a front cover to look like a thick piece of solid wood – veneering this in situ required patience which is not one of my strengths, so I ended up screaming and swearing. Veneering over the joints was also a challenge, but the worst part was to cut the veneer in an angle – because of the grain of the wood, pieces kept tearing off, which I had to glue back together on the surface. Then I varnished the shelf and bubbles kept appearing. These went down when the veneer dried, but it was a worrying sight.  Anyhow, veneering is not something I want to do in the near future, that’s for sure.

Basically most of our week was spent on this bloody shelf. This weekend I’ll paint the woodwork and clean the windows. Then I’ll have to get on with the hallway because the carpet layers are still waiting (since March!) do the staircase. The solid beech worktop should arrive next week together with the cabinet doors – I can’t wait! We’ll need to cut and install it. We’ll still need to cover the zones with the thinner solid beech, but I want to do this when the doors are installed. Then we’ll only need to put up a couple of utensil rails – and that’s it. The kitchen will be done!

We have also spent a few hours on clearing out the garden – it was full of junk. We sold off the old bath & sink, the oven & hob. We’re trying to sell the doors – they are good quality fireproof-doors, yet no-one wants them. The old sofa has to go too.