Tales From the Box

Yes – we are back – more on that later…..

One of the problems with a reno that isn’t discussed (publically at least) is the casualties that stack up for every day of the reno.

For us it started with the usual. Our blinds were broken when we took them off the wall. We broke three glasses packing away the kitchen (what can i say – the wife is clumsy…) and numerous things were damaged from the bucket loads of rain that fell when all of our stuff was sitting wrapped in tarp on our front deck.

Fast forward five months of reno. The wife and I are enjoying are first morning in our new house, and I, being the model husband, rise early to make the wife some breaky. The breakfast would include toast with a smattering of butter and a milky coffee, experted brewed by yours truly. I approached the machine, turned it on and….nothing. Again, turned it on….and nothing. The constant pressing of buttons did nothing to alleviate the situation…

Yes the coffee machine is dead….the reno claims another one…

Now its personal..

The design of our kitchen was something that we mulled over for many a night and day – because we tend to be the sort of people who live around our kitchen. The arrangement of our kitchen was the first thing we designed in our reno process, but was one of the areas that was constantly being changed as it was being built. The island bench was important, and the position of the cooktop in the middle was a stroke of genius, but the alignment of the bench with the rest of the kitchen and room (roof beams in particular) was causing hurty brain issues. It wasn’t until we changed the design of the kitchen – moving the floor to ceiling cupboards so that two of them were at the oven end of the kitchen rather than the sink end. This smoothed things out quite nicely and thus our kitchen felt much more balanced.

We added to the same IKEA kitchen that we bought in 2004 and used it to build off for our new space. We had customize the kitchen a far bit to make it fit and look integrated with the design of the house. A few people have asked what appliances we used – our cooktop is a Fisher and Paykel CT560X, oven is a Fisher and Paykel BI603E .

We still have the little matter of a dining table – size and where to put it….

Originally we decided that a rangehood was something that we didn’t need. We didn’t have one in our old kitchen…so why in our new one? I admit their was occasions I was lulled and seduced by those sexy showrooms which feature kitchens so sleek you would feel out of place cooking in it. In particular, the large expanses of stainless steel made me drool homer style. But I had resisted, simply because I couldn’t visualise this big (albeit beautiful) thing hanging down in a space I wanted to keep open and uncluttered because the of the low roof.

However one dry January afternoon, our builder Ben, while discussing the layout of the kitchen kept at me.
“So you’re not having a rangehood?”
“And the rangehood…oh you aren’t having one are you?”
“You are sure you don’t want to duct over your hotplate – perhaps a rangehood…?”

These subtle questions kept at me and shortly after this conversation, while flipping through an old copy of InsideOut I saw a picture of boxy looking kitchen, with a shallow, undermount rangehood set into a box which only hung slightly lower than the kitchen. This box was clad with a oak panelling like the featured kitchen, but I liked the idea, thinking that something like that set into gyprock (you know how I love my gyprock) and set about trying to find something that fit. We looked around at a few brands, and it was hard to find what we were after. Most were the usual pull out types or giant stainless steel ones I had sworn off. We finally found ‘the one’ in Harvey Norman – pretty much sitting above the same cooktop we purchased 6 months earlier. It was interesting because we were quizzed far more asutely by sales assisstant about how we ‘use’ the stove so he could gauge whether the rangehood would be powerful enought to suck out what we wanted. Luckily, this on the beefier side of suction, but other, more expensive brands promised to suck the paint off the wall if needed.

So we purchased the Smeg p52/2 model. A tidy unit that has some nice halogen lighting which will work a treat with the copious wok based dishes I will cook.

For those wondering how we are ducting the rangehood. We boxed in the beam with gyprock and a duct runs along the beam and outside. You can see the end of it in the top right of the first picture.

The kitchen is starting to come together with the island bench (aptly named ‘Straya’) installed over the weekend. Indeed much like our fair continent – the middle of the bench will be a great source of heat when properly warmed- where a fisher & paykel ceramic cooktop will be installed.

I would indulge in a metaphoric comparison of the rest of our kitchen with our northern continental neighbours (Fridge being north western Russia, Oven being the Gobi, Cupboards being the eastern bloc and so on) but I can’t be bothered….

For slideshow -click on image

…nobody is home? Well it does feel that way. Jo and I have been relative strangers in our own house over the past few weeks as we have feasted and rested in other venues (parents house and local restaurants before politely being told to go home) before returning to The Box to sleep and bathe. We have no bananas – nor do we have any food for that matter. No fridge, no cupboard, in fact no kitchen equals no food. So lights have been on (more of them recently)- but the builders have been home.

And busy they have been. Plastering was completed today with a fine mist of power over everything (and the two days of drizzle has turned it into a fine mud – awesome!). The kitchen is taking shape too. More on the design later – but Bryan and co have successfully put the upstairs kitchen back together downstairs in a far more strengthened and one might say, square way.

Halogens were installed downstairs today too – which certainly sheds new light on our downstairs area.

Go Team!

Some previous box history. Here is the living room as we bought it – fireplace and enclosed – Dec2003;

and shortly after, open and emtpy Dec2003

with stuff but no kitchen… Feb2004

with kitchen and wife—Dec2005