Kitchen Dining Room Conversion with AV tbd

[andyman2]

What we are intending to do is knock down the wall between our kitchen and dining room and create a much larger kitchen/living space. This is a tenuous thread on the forum at the moment, since the AV side has yet to be decided, but the aim is to include a plasma in what was the dining room. I have enjoyed so many of the threads in this section, that I thought it only fair to start one myself on this (largely) DIY project.

This was the dining room



And this was the kitchen

[andyman2]

Well I'm not sure how to get inline photos, so will make do with these attachments for the time being. <edit, have now altered to embedded images as these seem much more agreeable>
Progress to date.
In preperation for the builder to remove the wall, we have removed all the plasterboard from the joining wall, moved electrics out of the way, completely taken out a radiator and removed some of the kitchen units. Its amazing how long it takes just to trash a room. This was the views this morning.





and this is the RSJ waiting to go in

[andyman2]

Since we disappeared most of the day, still trying to decide on flooring, radiators, kitchen worktops and more, I didn't get many pictures of the boys at work, but I've got one of them nearly complete.
So now its time to start making good.....

[kev.]

Cant believe this thread,exactly what I am going to be doing in January,

Keep it going,with loads of pictures please

Best of luck


Cheers

Kev

[andyman2]

Can't believe you dont want to start it just before Xmas!! I've made a little more progress, but not much due to work comittments. Will post some more pictures soon. I've still not had much time to think about the AV side as so many kithen bits to finalise. We are trying to make up our mind on the work top at the moment. Currently undecided between Granite, Granite transformation (thin layer of granite on top of existing worksurface) or a product called Smartstone. The latter is the only DIY option, but cant find many retaillers selling it, except Travis Perkins who are rediculously expensive and an online company (onefitappliances) who are much cheaper but don't have all the bits I want. Moral of the story is do all the research before you lift a screwdriver (but I dont practive that myself)

Cheers

Andy

[andyman2]

Back from the dead, or that's how I've largely felt over the last few weeks, sometimes working until the wee hours trying to get things ready for the electrician or plasterer who is coming the following day. My intention was to keep regular updates on the progress of this project, but I've just not found the time to do so. So here's a big dump of photos I've taken so far. The pictures are now embedded so that should make for easier reading.

I'll start with a couple of photos which I use to remind me that just occasionally luck is on your side. Some years ago I modified the old kitchen, moving units around rather than replacing them as they weren't really in that bad a condition. This was what I found whilst removing the plasterboard behind 1 wall unit!



and from below, it really doesn't get much closer than that



After the main wall was down, one of the first jobs was to remove the old tiling in the rest of the kitchen. Now, being dry lined, its fairly difficult to get the tiles off without destroying the platerboarding behind, so this time I didn't try, but just cut the the whole lot out.



What is left is the battening that I used last time I modified the kitchen tiles. Not a very elegant solution, but since I was just retiling, this seemed an OK way to do it.

There were some radiator pipes that needed dealing with, the old kitchen radiator that had been capped off last time and the dining room radiator that is no longer required. If you look at this picture, the return pipe has a compression end on and this will be used later to connect a new radiator in the dining room area, the flow will be taken from the capped off old kitchen radiator pipe.



The central lights were being replaced with downlighters. The elctrician was happy for me to do all the donkey work, cutting holes and running cables, whilst he just makes the final connections. I have to admit that I initially was a bit annoyed at the new regulations, but with hindsight they do make sense and ensure that the enthisiastic DIYer doesn't take any liberties!

Time to get one of the youngsters doing some work



Holes cut, cables run ready for electrician to come and do the lighting



And here the downlighters have been connected, still some repair work to be done on the ceiling, but I'm hoping to get away with replacing the plasterboard plugs that have been cut out and then skim over them and repaint. I've done this before with some degree of success.



and this will be the pendant light over the kitchen island. There are half a dozen individual lights that can be adjusted in lengths. Just one is connected so far to test it



Boxing day lunch calls, will continue with photos later

[albriscoe]

Hi Andy

I can`t decide if working on a boxing day is dedication or daftness but you seem to have it all in hand so keep it up and good luck with your project


cheers Allan

[andyman2]

Thanks Allan, though just to get the story straight, I'm not actually working today, just taking the time to update the thread with some pictures!

Next step was to build a temporary kitchen in the dining room area, just to allow us to cook until the new units arrived.



There were some problems with the levels between the 2 rooms and especially one big dip that I hope is now OK, since we intend to lay a kind of tiled laminate that will require everything to be pretty even.



And some more work involving filling a small "trench" where the wall was taken down



I'm really trying to avoid taking up all the tiles in the old kitchen area, so the difference in height should now be just 1 layer of underlay so I'm hoping that an extra layer in the old "dining" room area will then make everything level

[andyman2]

The old kitchen door needed to be closed up. So first some stud work was added



Then plasterboarded



Now an attempt to dab and dob (or is it dob and dab?). This was where things went a bit wrong. Never having tried this before, it was probably a bit ambitious to try a large horizontal area as a first try. This is the second attempt and although it looks OK in the picture, it is actually bowed, and later had to be removed



The first attempt was a bigger disaster, I used some old dry liner adhesive, which looked fine but went off in about 5 mins, before I even had time to get the plaster board on the wall!

So for the 3rd attempt, I used 3 vertical pieces and this was pretty much OK



Then a start on boxing in the RSJ and the pillar's at each end



Finished boxing



The dab and dob technique is not quite as hard as it seems, the adhesive is quite awesome stuff.

[andyman2]

This is now all that is left of the old kitchen



The plasterer came on the friday before Xmas and made a dramatic transformation but, do they make a mess, there was as much plaster on the floor as on the wall



Seems a shame that most of this will eventually be hidden

Ikea kitchen arrives, 145 pieces (all as ordered, well done Ikea). They scan each piece as it is unloaded and provide you with an itemised delivery note, which is just as well, as you otherwise wouldn't have a clue what was there.



Lounge taken up as an assembly area. Now I have so say that the installation instructions date back to the dark ages of flat pack contruction. No words at all, as the instructions are trying to cater for multiple languages. Also since many of the units can have more than 1 configuration, each "manual" caters for multiple possibilitities. Probably wasted more than a day putting this stuff together, although I think its good once assembled



Old plumbing



And the new plumbing once the base units were installed



We decided on smartstone worktop. It is a stone faced chipboard that can be transparently joined and sanded to a fine finish. I had thought on trying to do this myself, but am really glad I didn't. Not only is it 'kin heavy, it also requires specialist tools to join. Any mistake would have been very costly.



The join is glued with coloured resin



this is allowed to dry and then sanded smooth

Top units installed and some of the appliances



Now this is where we finished Xmas eve, the doors still have their protective covering on since once removed they need to be washed and are somewhat delicate for 24 hours afterwards



The island, still needs to be put in its final position, we intend to run the flooring underneath before securing



and finally the Xmas turkey cooking and time for a couple of days rest!



So long for now

[Paul-r1]

Superb stuff.....keep it coming !!

[Festerfly]

Great work!

My wife seems to like your kitchen and now i have to do one........

[sammy4499771]

Looks great. At first inspection I thought you had opted for a strange pattern on your kitchen cabinets but then realised it was the protective packaing

[andyman2]

Some more photos of the near finished project. Here's the floor going down. Its laminate with a tiled print. Sounds dodgy but the idea is to get a tiled affect along with a warmer feeling that comes from laminate.



Skirting gone in here



Some views of the finished room









OK so before starting any of this, I sort of thought that the back of the chimney breast here might be the location for a nice new plasma. However I seem to have met some resistance here. "God thats so American" (daughter) and "do we really need another TV" (guess who). So you'll notice the 2 chairs are now facing in the wrong direction.



I haven't given up on this idea yet, however I have initially decided to go for a different tack - I'm going to get a squeezebox/NAS/Amp and speakers to go in this area. Thats all for me - time for a bit of a rest

[apul]

Nice work. Didn't think I would like light worktops and units, but they seem to work well. For a moment there I thought you had some kind of floral pattern on the doors!