Kitchen, Wardrobe and Floors starting

Internally, we’ve basically handed over to our friends at Tulip Design to start installing the kitchen, bedroom wardrobes and flooring whilst Ross and the team finish the roof.

Kitchen

First to go into the house was the Kitchen, the more units that were brought in, the bigger the kitchen became, I’ve really missed my old Harrogate kitchen so I’m really looking forward to having a large island and lots of space. The sparkies had already fitted the lights tails so it was just left for Brian the fitter to start building it.

Now we have a stair case, we even brought in Zac and Gus to see the house for the first time.

One of the key features of the Kitchen is the “larder” unit which we decided needed a special piece of worktop to give it a marble look – I remember our larder with a marble worktop growing up in Bramhall so this is a little nod to that, although it’s not marble (for lots of reasons). Although we’d already chosen our main worktop, we headed off to a granite show room in Peterlee to look for some off-cut which we could use.

The off cuts … at the back of the warehouse

There were 100’s of off cuts, but we finally found a small piece which will be cut to size. It will be a couple of weeks before the Worktops and Doors are fitted but upstairs is really beginning to take shape.

Wardrobes

Wardrobes to our master bedroom were a last minute addition, but we decided to get them fitted as part of the build so we didn’t have to spend money on Ikea rubbish – we also get them VAT free if they are fitted as part of the build.

Flooring

The final bit of work we’d given to Tulip was the fitting of the floor, they outsourced this to Floorscope; given the open plan nature of the house, we wanted the same flooring throughout both upstairs and downstairs; we also wanted something which was maintenance free and hard wearing, we finally landed on Karndean LVT flooring in a simple Oak finish.

As with most things, the preparation is key, they started upstairs by laying 6mm plywood, and then a “feathered” finish before the “Oak” boards were laid. The upstairs is now finished and looks great (in our opinion)

Downstairs is more complex and still work in progress; first an additional damp proof course was painted onto the concrete, and then a self levelling screed was laid all that needed to dry and then they can lay the LVT.