If You Can't Stand the Heat...

I haven't reported on kitchen progress for a while.  We are crawling, crawling towards the finish line.  By Friday of last week, we couldn't bear it anymore.  We cleared up, moved in the bar stools, lit candles (still no power other than the one socket that feeds the wonderful Aga) and sat drinking a glass of wine in our almost finished kitchen. (Excuse the blurred photos - I'd like to claim a deliberate soft focus for romantic effect but it's actually just hopeless photography!)

The black quartz work tops were fitted on Monday.  Needless to say, it wasn't straightforward.  The sections either side of the aga wouldn't fit. Either a) the measurements were wrong; b) the weight of the pretend chimney had moved everything down; or c) the heat of the aga had caused everything to swell. The worktop fitters wanted to sort it but I persuaded them to contact Toby, our kitchen fitter.

He came out on Wednesday and sorted it all out.  Shaving a bare millimetre of wood off the cabinets in order to enable the quartz slab to slide in.

Gary has been painting like a mad thing and now there is just a section of ceiling that needs repainting because the touch up paint was a slightly different shade to the original. (You'd think brilliant white would be brilliant white whatever the make, but obviously not!)

So, jobs to do: the lining of the original cupboards and fitting of new shelves, including glass shelves for the open cupboard; the lighting; the electrics.  And some odd bits of painting.  My fingers are firmly crossed that we will be moving in next week.  But for now, this is how it looks in the daylight.

Loving the cutlery drawers - brown velvet! (Well, brown felt.)