Homes for a £ Scene 8. Abstract Concepts

If the brain had a clitoris, where would yours be?

Find mine near the Pituitary Gland.

Right, abstract concepts and the wonders of my house build.

By Maxine Sharples

A kitchen was an abstract concept for so long at Webster Rd.

It began life as a back bedroom at the top of the stairs. Fairly small and cramped it could house a double bed and not much else, the window had been bricked up the blue and purple walls made my headache. The pictures below were taken on a mobile phone with no natural light in 2019 when I was first allowed to enter the house. If that back bedroom was destined to become my kitchen, the first job was to remove all the internal walls and ceiling and shine a light on it.

I then began the filthy process of smashing walls in and bagging up the remains, hauling it down the stairs, emptying it into the skip, reusing the bags, smash, sweep, skip repeat.

After 9 months, my nephew and I had cleared the upstairs and filled 4 skips. With the ceiling removed, I was now basking in the light from the sky lights installed in the roof. A decent enough milestone reached, and only about £1000 spent on skips, I was naïvely optimistic. Then I began removing all the chimney breasts filling another few skips. Now with most of the structural work out the way It was time to get the professionals in for first fix electric and plumbing.

After struggling to find a trade that would timber frame me a party wall and having been given a load of free rockwool insulation, Jimmy ‘rockwool’ my world, knocked it up for me. This alone deserves a post, dubbed ‘the great wall of China’ it took us about 3 months to complete. Working what little time he could spare he diligently and scrupulously designed and executed the wonder of my world.

It needed the timber frame because brick had bowed about 4 inches in the middle, so dot an dab would be a little tricky, besides I had all this insulation that building control had forbade me to use anywhere else. The total timber costs were £480 from total timber down in Formby.

James introduced me to a fantastic team of plasterers and we proceeded to get absolutely plastered. By December 2021, I could start to see a room take shape.

By the time my nephew and I had finished painting in March, I was ready to kitchen shop.

At this stage I was about 45k into the build. I’d been offered a free kitchen from a friend but as the space opened up I could see this room becoming a focal point of the house. I was dissuaded from the second hand kitchen I had in mind and thought about a new L shape kitchen with the kitchen sink under the window and an island.

I would recommend Ikea as a first port of call, book an appointment with one of their kitchen designers. Such a great way to visualise and actually figure out what works in the space even if you don’t buy from them.

All kitchen cupboards are created equally on the inside. Cupboard units are a standard 600mm width. The price difference comes with the style of cupboard door you want. As it turns out IKEA had everything I wanted, push to open mechanism, bold colours and interest free credit. In my excitement about the kitchen becoming a reality I had overlooked that I would need flooring before I bought the kitchen.

I bought my kitchen for £3000 from IKEA, I was sad to realise I would not be able to afford any natural stone worktops so I bought my copper effect laminate worktops from worktop express for another £500. I had been recommended a kitchen fitter from a car salesman in Warrington. He came round to quote up the job and was the most affable man you could imagine, very smarmy and ever so complimentary of the project. After telling me he could start in two weeks and it would cost me £1600 I decided to agree. Half way through laying the flooring I realised the joists beneath had warped and in my despair, Ian the helpful kitchen fitter, lent me his air pressurised nail gun as a solution to the flappy floor. I should of known a man with a goatee and nail gun = a psycho. Needless to say Ian Galley began the kitchen fit two weeks late, sent his step daughter to assemble the units, then gave up the day after I paid him £800.

Needless to say I was really upset as I had half a kitchen fitted and had lost half of my money.

I had to wait 3 more weeks before I could get a new fitter to complete the job, he had to completely re do the work of Ian because the fat bastard had done it all wrong.

The kitchen came in at £3500 for worktops, cupboards, a gas hob extractor fan and a sink, from IKEA. The fitting ended up costing me £2100.

The only silver lining from being ripped off by old McDonalds breath, was in the three weeks I was waiting for a new kitchen fitter, I was offered a second hand, free standing Island with a natural stone worktop. The whole unit cost me £1000 and came with an integrated dishwasher, two mini fridges, a fancy tap and this gorgeous stone worktop. I was lucky my brother in law was able to retrospectively plumb the waste and water to the island as the sink was originally destined under the window.

It took 5 of us to lift the worktop up the stairs and the kitchen fitter sealed it in place. I was buzzing, turns out if treble chin hadn’t of ripped me off I would never have my own private island in the sun. It was also in dark blue so matches quite nicely I think.