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The new kitchen

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chrismpw

chrismpw

Player Valuation: £70m
Thought I'd start a thread to chronicle my endeavours in keeping a happy wife by "freshening up" the kitchen. I'll add to this thread as and when.

It started when we looked for a house 8 years ago. With our budget we had a choice of a tiny ramshackle cottage that needed doing up, with no land, in a tiny village, or a larger 1960s build with large garden and workshop where the house was nicely fitted out and needed nothing doing to it. Even though I enjoy DIY and have gutted and fitted out 3 boats in my time, since I was still working full time as a teacher of science to the great unwashed we went for the house that needed absolutely nothing doing to it. Nothing. Nada.

I had to start decorating almost straight away. ?

Since then I've refitted a bathroom ("no Mrs Chrismpw one does not simply move a toilet to the opposite wall") dividing it to give a laundry room, built cupboards in alcoves, windowsills, rebuilt the asbestos roofed garage and extended it, rebuilt a perfectly good 5m x 5m raised deck with "a nicer looking wood" built a chicken coop, built a veg area with raised beds and meshed it off to protect the wife's efforts from pigeons and built a bbq hut. I've also dismantled the chicken coop when that particular fad waned.

All of these jobs could have been pleasurable of course, but I'm working with Mrs Chrismpw who simply has the dreams and thinks these dreams are designs. It takes a long long time to get a sketch and almost impossible to get a scaled engineering diagram from her. I mean - I could just crack on and do stuff my own way to my own aesthetic - but whereas she has difficulty expressing or knowing what she wants, she is very quick and vocal in saying what she doesn't like - which is practically everything. So ... you know ... Happy wife happy life.

Some time in March 2021 she said, over a cup of tea, that she wanted the kitchen freshening up. My blood ran cold.

More to come.
 

chrismpw said:
Thought I'd start a thread to chronicle my endeavours in keeping a happy wife by "freshening up" the kitchen. I'll add to this thread as and when.

It started when we looked for a house 8 years ago. With our budget we had a choice of a tiny ramshackle cottage that needed doing up, with no land, in a tiny village, or a larger 1960s build with large garden and workshop where the house was nicely fitted out and needed nothing doing to it. Even though I enjoy DIY and have gutted and fitted out 3 boats in my time, since I was still working full time as a teacher of science to the great unwashed we went for the house that needed absolutely nothing doing to it. Nothing. Nada.

I had to start decorating almost straight away. ?

Since then I've refitted a bathroom ("no Mrs Chrismpw one does not simply move a toilet to the opposite wall") dividing it to give a laundry room, built cupboards in alcoves, windowsills, rebuilt the asbestos roofed garage and extended it, rebuilt a perfectly good 5m x 5m raised deck with "a nicer looking wood" built a chicken coop, built a veg area with raised beds and meshed it off to protect the wife's efforts from pigeons and built a bbq hut. I've also dismantled the chicken coop when that particular fad waned.

All of these jobs could have been pleasurable of course, but I'm working with Mrs Chrismpw who simply has the dreams and thinks these dreams are designs. It takes a long long time to get a sketch and almost impossible to get a scaled engineering diagram from her. I mean - I could just crack on and do stuff my own way to my own aesthetic - but whereas she has difficulty expressing or knowing what she wants, she is very quick and vocal in saying what she doesn't like - which is practically everything. So ... you know ... Happy wife happy life.

Some time in March 2021 she said, over a cup of tea, that she wanted the kitchen freshening up. My blood ran cold.

More to come.
Click to expand...
good luck, my sister has just spent a lot of money on an extension and (admittedly very nice) new kitchen and now Mrs S has made noises. We moved in to a 1980s house that needed complete internal renovation, I'm still popped from doing that. Anyway, we don't have the layout for a big posh open plan kitchen without a big extension. That isn't happening.
 
chrismpw said:
Thought I'd start a thread to chronicle my endeavours in keeping a happy wife by "freshening up" the kitchen. I'll add to this thread as and when.

It started when we looked for a house 8 years ago. With our budget we had a choice of a tiny ramshackle cottage that needed doing up, with no land, in a tiny village, or a larger 1960s build with large garden and workshop where the house was nicely fitted out and needed nothing doing to it. Even though I enjoy DIY and have gutted and fitted out 3 boats in my time, since I was still working full time as a teacher of science to the great unwashed we went for the house that needed absolutely nothing doing to it. Nothing. Nada.

I had to start decorating almost straight away. ?

Since then I've refitted a bathroom ("no Mrs Chrismpw one does not simply move a toilet to the opposite wall") dividing it to give a laundry room, built cupboards in alcoves, windowsills, rebuilt the asbestos roofed garage and extended it, rebuilt a perfectly good 5m x 5m raised deck with "a nicer looking wood" built a chicken coop, built a veg area with raised beds and meshed it off to protect the wife's efforts from pigeons and built a bbq hut. I've also dismantled the chicken coop when that particular fad waned.

All of these jobs could have been pleasurable of course, but I'm working with Mrs Chrismpw who simply has the dreams and thinks these dreams are designs. It takes a long long time to get a sketch and almost impossible to get a scaled engineering diagram from her. I mean - I could just crack on and do stuff my own way to my own aesthetic - but whereas she has difficulty expressing or knowing what she wants, she is very quick and vocal in saying what she doesn't like - which is practically everything. So ... you know ... Happy wife happy life.

Some time in March 2021 she said, over a cup of tea, that she wanted the kitchen freshening up. My blood ran cold.

More to come.
Click to expand...

Is this just a lengthy rant about your wife?
 
"We* could just paint the cupboard doors" she said.

"I'm in the middle of rebuilding the decking"

Despite having no replacement in mind, she had asked me to tear the decking up in March to turn into raised beds, even though nobody has timber stocks and prices were sky high. When she'd finally made up her mind as to the exact type and colour of wood she wanted it was May. The Swedish wood finally turned up in August, we were told, via the blocked suez canal and we'd had 5 months of having to negotiate a quagmire and building site where the decking had been to access the back garden.

I managed to defer the kitchen project to "early next summer" ie 2022 - so that we could at least cook and wash up outside or eat salads.

*the word we is frequently misused when it comes to doing DIY- as "we have made a new bathroom." Its not "we" unless you want to include an unasked for and DIY incapable "foreman" as part of the labouring team.
 

chrismpw said:
"We* could just paint the cupboard doors" she said.

"I'm in the middle of rebuilding the decking"

Despite having no replacement in mind, she had asked me to tear the decking up in March to turn into raised beds, even though nobody has timber stocks and prices were sky high. When she'd finally made up her mind as to the exact type and colour of wood she wanted it was May. The Swedish wood finally turned up in August, we were told, via the blocked suez canal and we'd had 5 months of having to negotiate a quagmire and building site where the decking had been to access the back garden.

I managed to defer the kitchen project to "early next summer" ie 2022 - so that we could at least cook and wash up outside or eat salads.

*the word we is frequently misused when it comes to doing DIY- as "we have made a new bathroom." Its not "we" unless you want to include an unasked for and DIY incapable "foreman" as part of the labouring team.
Click to expand...

Could you not just say no?
 
chrismpw said:
"We* could just paint the cupboard doors" she said.

"I'm in the middle of rebuilding the decking"

Despite having no replacement in mind, she had asked me to tear the decking up in March to turn into raised beds, even though nobody has timber stocks and prices were sky high. When she'd finally made up her mind as to the exact type and colour of wood she wanted it was May. The Swedish wood finally turned up in August, we were told, via the blocked suez canal and we'd had 5 months of having to negotiate a quagmire and building site where the decking had been to access the back garden.

I managed to defer the kitchen project to "early next summer" ie 2022 - so that we could at least cook and wash up outside or eat salads.

*the word we is frequently misused when it comes to doing DIY- as "we have made a new bathroom." Its not "we" unless you want to include an unasked for and DIY incapable "foreman" as part of the labouring team.
Click to expand...
which way round the globe did they sail?
 
chrismpw said:
"We* could just paint the cupboard doors" she said.

"I'm in the middle of rebuilding the decking"

Despite having no replacement in mind, she had asked me to tear the decking up in March to turn into raised beds, even though nobody has timber stocks and prices were sky high. When she'd finally made up her mind as to the exact type and colour of wood she wanted it was May. The Swedish wood finally turned up in August, we were told, via the blocked suez canal and we'd had 5 months of having to negotiate a quagmire and building site where the decking had been to access the back garden.

I managed to defer the kitchen project to "early next summer" ie 2022 - so that we could at least cook and wash up outside or eat salads.

*the word we is frequently misused when it comes to doing DIY- as "we have made a new bathroom." Its not "we" unless you want to include an unasked for and DIY incapable "foreman" as part of the labouring team.
Click to expand...
A man's work is never done....
 

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