The new kitchen

[cronullasharks]

I want to hear more about Derek and his girthy manhood, not kitchens.

 

[Rita_Poon]

I said it last year ... 2021 ... so "early next year" would be 2022. I wasn't particularly clear, I admit.

I keep telling her what it would cost to replace me. I'm supposed to be retired ffs. Fortunately though, I enjoy a good project and working with my hands. The deal is she pays for all the materials and I provide the labour. I think she has the better part of this deal however it rarely manifests itself in any overt gratitude. Oh wait.... she makes a cup of tea occasionally.

Is my second reply for you...

 

[COYBL25]

Just bury her under the patio and tell everyone, that she‘d had enough and ran off with a travelling troupe of mandingos ?

 

[Rita_Poon]

I want to hear more about Derek and his girthy manhood, not kitchens.

Get the lurpak out Des, Cronulla wants an earful...

 

[Moomin]

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.

Was Meghan her inspiration for wanting a new kitchen?

 

[cronullasharks]

Get the lurpak out Des, Cronulla wants an earful...

Reckon Chris would knock Derek's teeth out, Derek is a slimy git.

 

[Rita_Poon]

Reckon Chris would knock Derek's teeth out, Derek is a slimy git.

Heavy handed with that lurpak weren't you?

 

[chrismpw]

Just bury her under the patio and tell everyone, that she‘d had enough and ran off with a travelling troupe of mandingos ?

Firstly, dear boy, we don't have patios in North Wiltshire we have terraces and decks. And secondly I'm not lifting the effing decking again!

 

[cronullasharks]

Heavy handed with that lurpak weren't you?

Don't bring me into this sordid love triangle, this is between Chris and Big Dekk.

 

[Rita_Poon]

Don't bring me into this sordid love triangle, this is between Chris and Big Dekk.

Can't butter me up like that... you're in until you're done...

 

[chrismpw]

Bugger all. Just moan and winge about how the patriarchy hogs all the diy and has denied women the encouragement to buy tools because the female editors of female magazines don't advertise tools in them.

 

[Jimishorts]

secondly I'm not lifting the effing decking again!

Is that not what you said about the kitchen floor?

 

[Rita_Poon]

I said it last year ... 2021 ... so "early next year" would be 2022. I wasn't particularly clear, I admit.

I keep telling her what it would cost to replace me. I'm supposed to be retired ffs. Fortunately though, I enjoy a good project and working with my hands. The deal is she pays for all the materials and I provide the labour. I think she has the better part of this deal however it rarely manifests itself in any overt gratitude. Oh wait.... she makes a cup of tea occasionally.

Microwaving earth would kill the useful bacteria and fungi so essential in making soil healthy.... I'm not doing that!

Raised beds from decking placed at the farthest end of the back garden ... filled by 3 tonnes of loam she ordered, which had to be transported by wheelbarrow from the front of the house .... a round trip if about 100m.

Then it was all meshed out with a cage of chicken wire to keep pigeons off. It worked well until the protected beds were discovered this summer by moles ffs.

Sorry, I got wrong end of the stick as you started the thread today. Raw materials have increased in cost substantially. I'm unsure microwaves kill all bacteria and fungi, and the two will find their home when out in the elements anyhow. Whos got the horticulturist thread here? @him someone please.
Ah raised beds were only raised so far, earth is earth to moles, keep diggin. Apparently burying a few empty glass bottles with the necks protruding is a humane way to ward off moles as they resonate in the breeze and the noise is a put off. again, apparently.

 

[chrismpw]

To be fair to Mrs chrismpw, by this stage I'm on board with the improvements. Our kitchen was badly laid out and involved a lot of walking between cooker, sink and fridge. The dining area floor was an old laminate and badly faded by the light from the south facing window. It could have been sanded and refinished but at the end of the day it was still laminate and looked like laminate.

Back in February I spotted a fella flogging off his solid oak flooring. 70 square metres of it. It wasn't going cheap exactly, but was much cheaper than buying new. It took me a week to sort it, quality check it and pass all of it through my planer thicknesser to remove the finish once. It took three passes and at least a fortnight just to get a uniform surface that had removed varnish, sanding marks, new varnish, wear marks and stiletto damage.

All this wood filled my workshop. Every 5 minute job from then on meant half an hour of moving timber to get to a tool I needed for the job. Not to worry I thought. Soon there will be a design, I can lay the floor, free the workshop and get on with the kitchen.

As if.

By this stage it had been decided that .*we* may as well replace all the kitchen cabinets too. Oh and the range cooker. And the fridge.

So dreams turned into more dreams. I had nothing to go on - nowhere to start. I drew a scale plan of the ground floor and encouraged her to sketch her ideas.

February turned into May. I was finally shown a plan. "One cannot simply move a sink to the opposite wall of the kitchen" was my first comment. My second was along the lines of not being qualified or licenced to move the central heating boiler to the adjacent wall to make space for a cupboard. My third was we actually need the back door to get access to the bins. When I pointed out that to open the clever spice cupboard she had designed one would first have to remove a pan from the stove and possibly extinguish the burner, things started to get terse.*

*Mrs Chrismpw does not handle even gentle, constructive criticism very well but on the flip side in her time she has provided me with a welcome series of opportunities to improve my diplomacy skills.

 

[Alan Whittle]

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.

You are married to Mrs Whittle.