Friday, January 20, 2012

Before and after

I am one of those people who LOVES a before and after. I like beauty makeovers (except the one in New Idea where my friend Pippa went from being a stunner to someone I've never seen before), home rebuilds on Grand Designs and those tacky weight loss shows where people start the show "weighing in" at 300kgs and finish the show at 60kgs and scoring covers of New Idea.

I just love seeing the transformation. Am I alone?

So, I thought I'd share with you the before (well it's the during really) of my kitchen reno.

Apologies those who don't know me, (a big shout out to my new followers from the Ukraine!) this is going to be a rather dull post.

We live in a 3 bedroom terrace house which desperately needed a new kitchen. The old one was tiny, dark, impossible to cook in, had a crappy old Chef cooker with a non functioning grill and no dishwasher. It also had those incredibly annoying corner cupboards where the only way one can reach into them to grab that punch bowl would be to physically fold oneself in half and be placed in there by someone else. ANNOYINGx10. It also had salmon glossy tiles. The salmon gloss tiles were enough to warrant a full renovation in my book but I digress.

So we've hung onto the bathroom which we renovated a year or so back and moved the entrance to it so that it doesn't open directly into the new kitchen/dining. We've also widened the width of the new area right out to the boundary to give us about another 1.5m. We've put in a row of huge square sky lights running the length of the room down the boundary wall and knocked down the wall between the old kitchen and dining room. We've also widened the entrance way from the existing Family Room into the new kitchen/dining. So, here's how it's looking! Of course I will show you the "after" shots just as soon as I can (in about 6 weeks).


My version of the floor plan. Note: not to scale.
View to the courtyard from kitchen/dining
Looking out to the courtyard

Entrance from existing family room to new kitchen/dining.
New bathroom entrance.
View facing back towards the family room.