Home made kitchen.

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pren

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13 Feb 2008
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Location
Gogledd Cymru / North wales.
Last year, the mother in law was in a distraught state. She'd been ripped off by a dodgy roofer (some obscure relative) who left her with a leaking roof over her lean-to kitchen for 4 years. Water had got in and run down the walls, rotting the old kitchen carcasses. She'd tried the insurance company, but they wouldn't do anything as they had already paid the roofer to do the original job on the roof. Being family, she didn't want to take roofer to court so just resigned her self to 'putting up with it' as he wouldn't come back to fix the work.

Anyway. In steps I, Master Bodger, extraordinaire. Sort out the leaky roof with a roll of flashing and a swift squirt of expandy foam. Not a brilliant job but it stopped the leaks! Replaced the soggy ceiling and stripped off mouldy tiles that had roots growing behind them! The more work I did, the more rubbish i discovered and the more p****d off with Buffalo bill, the roofer.

After the first 3 months or so of the roof leaking, the whole family noticed they had developed breathing problems (asthma etc..). As i ripped out the tiles and ceiling, I discovered a shed load of mould. Coincidence?

As her son's fiancee was expecting a kid, she asked me to find out how much it would be to replace the rotten carcasses and put the whole mess right so as to prevent the wee bairn from getting ill. After a bit of research, (B&Q, Howdens etc..) i came up with an estimate (without fitting or appliances) of around £850. She said she could only find £500 at the most and went away a glum plum.

Anyhoo, veeeery long story short, I decided to have a bash at building the units and doors myself. Have done a couple of joinery projects before with limited success so I thought I could handle making what is basically a bunch of open topped and fronted boxes. Easy...

MIL had liked the look of some units she'd seen in Ikea and asked if I could copy them. 'Suuure' said I. 'Eeeeasy!'

Trawled around the building merchants and timber yard to try and find materials that would do the job without breaking the budget. Opted for 12mm shuttering ply from TravisPerkins (an obvious first choice for a kitchen. I do believe the Queen has a ply kitchen... :lol: ) for the sides and backs and 2x3" par from B&Q for the main frame. Decided to make the doors from 90x18mm smooth planed planking and 90x7mm T&G. Handles were made from 40x40mm smooth planned from B&Q using a woefully underpowered router and various bits. Varnished the whole shebang with oodles of B&Q interior wood gloss. All held together with about a million brads, an equal amount of screws and lashings of glue.


So, spent £300ish altogether on the wood + £10 on hinges from eBay. Worktops were from TP and cost £25 each. Built-in oven & hob were a gift from her mother and came from Argos and cost around £170 for the two (decided against making them out of wood... :lol: ). Took about 4 months of most weekends and 2 hours most evenings after work. Much longer than I'd anticpated but there you go! :roll:


Soooo, a fair few rough bits but whadaya think? For a first time effort?

sink3.jpg

wt1.jpg

sink2.jpg

sink1.jpg

hob1.jpg

cooker2.jpg

cooker1.jpg

cup1.jpg

Doors are straight - wierd camera angle! Note the roots behind the tiles!



PS; the black and white tilling was my own work.

:D
 
pren

I think thats excellent! A kitchen to be proud of. I hope your Mother-in-Law is suitably impressed. Its terrible when people get ripped off, but worse when its by a member of the family. Looks like there is still work to do to finish the repair (roots behind the tiles). Are you going to have to excavate much of the wall to get rid of them or will you rely on weedkiller? They may just die back now the moisture has gone.

Bob
 
That is just excellent, I mean the Kitchen build not the cowboy who in my opinion wants bloody shooting, I hope your Mother in law and yourself are very proud
 
Fungus spores can be deadly Pren. The so called 'Curse of the Pharoahs' is probably from disturbing fungus spores that have lain dormant for years.
Dry rot fungus spores are not good either.

Roy.
 
Nice looking kitchen, well done. It is amazing what you can do on a tight budget. The "roots" behind the tiles sound more like fungal hyphae to me, was there any sign of wet rot in the joists when you pulled down the ceiling?
 
you can be very proud of the job you have done well done and think of all the brownie points you will get from swmbo
 
I hate to say this, but it looks to me like dry rot, and that can very serious, certainly it requires investigation, now!

Roy.
 
Again, many thanks for all the kind words! Really, really means alot! :D

The roots/fungus/dry rot behind the tiles have all gone now. I bleached the rubbish out of them and left the tiles off for a few months to let the wall dry out.

As far as I can tell, there was no sign of dry rot in the roof. All the roof timbers looked sound when I was bodgering away at them. I will mention all this to MIL next time I speak to her to see if she wants to take it further (inspector). I've only fixed new plasterboard over the roof joists (lazy son-in-law; never got round to plastering the roof.... :roll: :lol: ) so opening up wont be too much of a headache.

Thanks for the heads-up. :D
 
Believe it or not but dry rot can exist in brickwork and behind plaster.
Even if it's not DR it best be sorted, if every where is dry now the fungus may simply die out.
Keep on eye on it for a while, then you'll know if anything needs doing or not.

Roy.
 
I like it, good work it's nice to see someone doing things their own way and not just following the crowd.

I'm a little bit worried about the roots though, are you sure it's not dry rot, not trying to worry you I couldn't see enough to be sure.
 
Hi Pren,

Looks good especially given the budget. I particularly like the handles you made.

Cheers
David
 
Thanks again (again) everybody! :D

Oryx: having seen (and salivated over) pics of your work, I take the fact that you like my work to be a huge compliment!

I've spoken to the MIL about the possible dry-rot. She's going to speak to the council's enviro health section about it to get some further advice or an inspection. I'll let you know what they say.

Cheers! :D
 

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