---
layout: ../../layouts/LayoutMdx.astro
title: Works 5
date: 2021-11-25
dir: work5
image: kitchen
description: things dragon 🐉
---

import { generateImageHyrdationFunction } from "../../utils";
export const s = generateImageHyrdationFunction("work5");
import Cards from "../../components/Cards.astro";
import Solocard from "../../components/Solocard.astro";
import NextPrev from "../../components/NextPrev.astro";
import Progress from "../../components/Progress.astro";
import YTVideo from "../../components/YTVideo.astro";

Hmmm! It's been two weeks since the last update. I was kind of hoping that this would be the last major update for the kitchen and bathroom, but it looks like things are going to 🐉 drag on 🐉 a bit more. This seems to happen for every project - it always takes a completely disproportionate amount of time to get the last 5% done.

We're now at the stage where people are asking for us to sign off work done, so we are having to look at everything with a critical eye. It's making us feel slightly less happy with things as we're hyper-focused on the bad bits. Nevertheless, when we step back and see it altogether (especially compared to before the work started), it's all looking amazing! 😄

## The Bathroom

Most of the bathroom is complete now. It's certainly very usable, even with the wimpy water pressure. You just have to wait a while for the water to catch up!

At the time of writing, the plumbers (who have pushed back their arrival many times) have been upgrading our system to use mains pressure, but they brought the wrong parts and we are left without hot water and heating for the night. 🥶 We are not particularly impressed with them. Only 50% of our toilets work - how are we going to cope with only one toilet per person!?

<Solocard
  title="Toilet, sink, and mirror are now complete"
  src={s("bathroom1")}
/>

<Cards
  images={[
    {
      title: "The support for the monolith and the lovely warm towel rail",
      src: s("bathroom2"),
    },
    {
      title:
        "Stop trying to run underfloor heating and a towel rail on a lighting circuit",
      src: s("rewiring"),
    },
  ]}
/>

There's a few bits left to do here but they're fairly minor. We need the bit of glass between the shower and the toilet (it was ordered ages ago but still no known delivery date), the monolith is getting a hat to hide the metal support, and there's one more coat of paint to be done.

We're also organising a set of shelves to be installed in the alcove beside the fireplace. Can never have too much storage!

It's already our favourite bathroom to use. 😄 Nikki's favourite bit is having some of the lights come on automatically as you enter the room. Very space age. The electric towel radiator is another highlight for boring old us. In any case, it's nice to just walk around with our elbows out (something not possible anywhere in the basement bathroom).

## The Kitchen

The kitchen has come along a lot since the last update. It's been a bit hectic with the kitchen fitters, plumbers, electricians, flooring people, worktop people and Simon all popping in and out and all wanting something from the other people (or bad-mouthing each other). But the upside of that is that lots of things are being done.

<Cards
  images={[
    { title: "First meal cooked in the new kitchen", src: s("yum") },
    { title: "More load testing", src: s("loadtesting") },
    { title: "Picking the floor colour", src: s("floorcolours") },
    { title: "🔊 Speakers and lights 💡", src: s("speakersandlights") },
    { title: "Half a worktop", src: s("worktop1") },
    { title: "Lining up the other half", src: s("worktop2") },
  ]}
/>

The lights have been a particularly great milestone. However, as the pendant holes had been made before the island was in place, we didn't notice that they weren't aligned correctly until after they had been installed. 😲 Luckily the electrician was able to move them, with much less trouble and mess than we feared! The spotlights and pendants are both dimmable for cooking moodily.

<Solocard title="Neeeeearly complete island #grammable" src={s("kitchen")} />

We had a couple of people over from Shaker & May to touch things up and sign things off, and as a result two of the cupboard doors are being sent back for imperfections that they spotted rather than we did. The dishwasher door still needs adjustment so that it can open fully.

The electrics have all been fitted now that the worktop is in place. We tried out our new hob (see future updates for episodes of our new cookery channel 'Ozzy Cooks Food' 😋) and the extraction is so much more effective than we thought it would be. Very space age too! I'm still surprised/concerned that the hob is only supported by the glass around the rim - our last hob was the same, but this one is so chunky that it feels wrong.

<Cards
  images={[
    {
      title: "Sluuurrrrpp",
      src: {
        optimise: false,
        name: "/images/work5/hobextraction.gif",
      },
    },
    { title: "😋 Ozzy Cooks Food! 😋", src: s("ozzycooksfood", "png") },
  ]}
/>

Simon mentioned at the beginning that you can get clear sockets that are designed to be "see-through" which seemed really cool, so we got them for the island in the hope that they'd disappear into the island colour.

<Cards
  images={[
    { title: "Socket with card to be painted", src: s("socket1") },
    { title: "Socket with card painted", src: s("socket2") },
    { title: "Nearly invisible socket", src: s("socket3") },
    { title: "Super shiny socket 😞", src: s("socket4") },
  ]}
/>

Everyone else seems to think that it looks better than I do, and I'm sure I'll get used to it soon enough. Maybe it'll improve with fingerprints.

The speakers are another thing that are a bit of a mixed bag. They project sound reasonably enough into the kitchen, but they also send enough sound upwards into the lounge to be annoying. It's a great reminder for how unbearable Harrow could be for noise pollution 🤣 At least here we can just tell each other to keep it down - or play the same thing in the lounge!

All in all, we recognise that we sound grumpy about things because we're so focused on the bad bits pending sign-off. These things are unlikely to annoy us once we're using the kitchen fully and if we'd bought the house with them already there we'd hardly notice them.

We're still waiting on the sink and dishwasher to be plumbed in, but everything's so nearly finished that we might move the rest of our stuff into the new kitchen anyway. 😄

## Other things

What with everything being nearly completed and Simon no longer coming in every day, I've been looking forward to moving back into our proper bedroom...

<Solocard title="Oh wait..." src={s("bedroom")} />

It turns out that the best time to paint a room is when you aren't using it - so it'll be at least a few more nights before we manage to escape the spare room. We're having to fit painting in around work and weekends away, so it's taking longer than it might otherwise.

On the whole, it's been a mixed couple of weeks. Everything is so tantalisingly close to being done, but we keep hitting delays on the last little bits.

Not long now though! 😆 🤞

<NextPrev prev="work4" next="work6" />
