Kitchen Update 3

When I last wrote about the kitchen two weeks ago, the builders had left and we had an empty, freshly plastered room, ready to paint. We were really keen to get at least the kitchen half of the room painted before the units and worktops were fitted. 

We started with the "mist coat" (half water, half white emulsion), then gave all the walls a couple of coats of pure white paint. Previously we had painted the dining room an off-white colour, but didn't think this would work with the white kitchen cupboards. White is an easy choice for now and we can add more colour later.

Already we're getting a sense of what a bright room this will be, even without the glass window from the old kitchen door. 

The kitchen fitters arrived and the room started to take shape very quickly.

 The doors went on.

Then door handles, spotlights in the ceiling and under cupboard lighting. I know it looks really stark and cold at the moment but the flooring will really help soften all that white. 

This space between the cupboards below is where the cooker will go when it arrives next week.

The worktops have been measured and were fitted yesterday, although I haven't had a chance to take any decent photos yet. 

The dining room half of the room feels a lot less finished. The channel is still in the middle of the dining room floor, although the plumber has now sorted the radiator pipe issue. It now needs to be filled in with concrete then we have to wait a couple of weeks - at least - for the concrete to dry out before we can lay the floor. This is by far the most annoying thing about the whole project. We'll be lucky if we have flooring before June at this rate.

We chose Empirical Grey by Valspar on the one big wall in the dining room. It looks darker here than it actually is, but this is a bright room and it can take it and I think our dining chairs and new white lamp will look fabulous against it. 

Here it is drying after a first coat. It needs a second and the radiator needs painting too. 

I can imagine that it's really hard for you to tell how that grey is going to look just from this one photo. You need to see other colours against it so you have a point of reference. Trust me, it looks amazing. We chose a grey with slight brown tones, rather than blue, so it's very warm even though it's quite dark. I didn't have a moment's wobble with this colour - we just chose it, started painting it, and loved it. I like it when that happens. 

The dust in the house at the moment is spectacular - like, we leave footprints in it when we walk - but tomorrow I'm going to blitz the house before I go to work. The temporary kitchen is really depressing.  I miss cooking so badly. But when I look at the photos above I start to get a feel of how it's all going to look when it's finished and it's so exciting!