Our new kitchen Thurrock Council and Keepmoat

[emmily121]

We are lucky to be part of Thurrock Council's Transforming Homes scheme (which many councils have done or are doing) with Keepmoat contractors. Work started on Wednesday 9th September, and came to a standstill on Monday 14th September. After more than a week of frustration with no work being done on our home we were finally informed that the sub-contractors, who were working on our, and 29 other homes had 'walked off the job'. Work has now re-started with new sub-contractors and progressing well.
Below are photos of the progression of new kitchen, partly for my own record. If anyone wants to comment, feel free.



Our old kitchen



Getting it ready



Kitchen gutted



Electric sockets and new strip light, and that is how it stayed from Monday 14th September until Friday 25th September

More photos to follow shortly...

[madelaine]

What a pain to have to do without a kitchen for so long! The council should be paying for take-aways!

[emmily121]

With new sub-contractors work is progressing well.



Friday 25th and Saturday 26th, Gas cooker moved to it's new position, and connected with new pipework. Walls plastered and leveling compound on floor.(Ignore the garden table, that was very useful as the only flat surface in kitchen, I should have taken photo before bringing it back in)



Monday 28th, new cabinets delivered and some fitted. The colour is called 'apple'.



Tuesday 29th, cabinets fitted. If you're observant you'll notice a small cabinet is missing a piece of worktop on top, waiting for them to come back to put that on.



and today, 30th September, was tiling day. The green, 'peppermint' tiles gives a clue as to the colour that will be on the walls.

[emmily121]

It was a pain Madelaine, but at least we could use our cooker and washing machine. Did have takeaways for a couple of the days, that was nice not having to cook, though OH takes turn in cooking too.

[Gill]

The kitchen looks a lot bigger with the new layout em. I don't know what colour the worktop is but if you are going for peppermint green on the walls my suggestion would be to go for white or black accents in the kitchen e:g toasters etc.

Good luck and I look forward to the final pics.

[emmily121]

Yes, Gill, makes a big difference with the pantry gone, though I had to beg and plead with the contractors to have pantry removed, they were going to leave it.
When I was thinking of colours for new kitchen I decided on nature's colours, wood, grass and stone, translates as wood colour cabinets, green walls and grey worktops and grey floor.
I was happy that the colours I wanted were available from the very limited colours council offered (they are funding it all).
The wood colour of cabinets is 'Apple', the non white tiles are 'Peppermint' and the wall paint will be 'Alpine' I'm hoping that will look ok when it is done with the tiles and rest of room.

[countryfeedback87]

Looks good! Can't believe they left it like that for so long though that's terrible!

[emmily121]

Thanks Ash, it wouldn't have been so bad if the council or Keepmoat had let us know sooner why no work was being done, it was the not knowing that was causing stress.

Thursday 1st October, we would not let decorators (correction, men with brushes) in as the walls in all 3 rooms, kitchen, bathroom and toilet are not ready to be painted, they all need some plastering, and/or plastering cleaned from where it shouldn't be before being painted. The ceilings could have been painted, but as the decorators don't speak English we couldn't ask what painting they were intending to do today.
We're not letting them do shoddy painting with all the new stuff that has been fitted and installed.

[emmily121]

Saturday 3rd October, plasterer finished plastering in kitchen and bathroom, did a little not very good filling holes and plastering where high level pull chain cistern was removed in toilet. Once plaster has dried it will be ready to be painted, so I can let the painters in next time they come.

Hope the weather doesn't turn too cold in the next couple of days as we are currently without heating. Two of the radiators have been temporary disconnected, and the gas fitter appears to have done something to disconnect gas to our gas fire as it's not working. Reported Friday, so should be fixed soon.

Below are a couple of photos of kitchen taken from opposite end others have been taken from, will be getting nice new door within next few weeks.

[HerMajesty]

That looks really nice!! Good colors choices, I'd say!!