Clearing the Kitchen

When one moves into a home, he expects to find certain things. Not canned food dating back to 2001 though. Here are some pictures of us cleaning out the Kitchen back in 2009. As well as making the work-top 'usable'.

A bit grubby.

This is a pleasant sight.

 

Packing the cleaned cupboards with our own products.

Out with the old.

In with the new!
The electric oven&hob unit was free from FreeCycle - Exeter.

The old one was taken to the tip as it was too grubby to pass on.

The worktop was covered with a vinyl sheet, making it usable.

 

Can't remember the price of the vinyl, but it was about £9.99.

THP Forum?

THP has launched it's own forum. Why? God knows. Why not! The general idea is for people on low budget/incomes to come gather and share information on house decoration/renovation/general DIY blabber and whatnot. It's a long shot on it's own, so why not help us out by signing up! Reccomend your friends too!

The link can be found on the right side of the page under the 'Links' section.

THP.

Kitchen Floor

THP decided to replace the flooring in the kitchen as most of it (near the garden door that was left open for quite some time before moving in) was rotten/damp.  The old floor was covered with linoleum of a wood floor effect.

Here are some pictures of the old floor, with random 'patch' repair work carried out previously.

The process started by removing the linoleum where applicable and then removing the rotten chipboard.

Unfortunately there was quite a lot of rotten chipboard and I did not take any images of when all of it was lifted. But below is the last picture taken of removing the chipboard.

After more removal (which cost £0.00) since the work was done by myself, it was time to place the new chipboard which was 18mm thick.

 

The floor was still rather uneven, and with gaps in places. But this was sorted out by placing down some laminate floor underlay, which comes in an interesting green colour and is easy to cut with a stanley knife. This was tacked into place before the laminate flooring was to be laid.

After the underlay was finished, it was time to lay the flooring, which took quite some time, with cutting and a few mishaps with measurements. However it makes a change to what was once a rather disgusting floor.

 

 

Apologies for dark pictures but it was rather late by the time it was finished. Everything, including the chipboard, laminate flooring and underlay cost roughly £100. There are only a few finishing touches which will cost around £25, this includes the 'skirting' strip of wood around the floor itself, and a contraption at the top of the stairs to smooth the lip of the floor into the top step (cannot remember what it's called). The old kitchen has not yet been replaced, neither has the back door.

The laminate flooring was purchased from Focus.
The laminate floor underlay was purchased from B&Q.
The replacement chipboard was purchased from B&Q.

Hope you enjoy the update,

THP.

Contact THP

You may contact THP at ThatHouseProject@hotmail.co.uk with any ideas, feedback, questions etc.

FreeCycle - Exeter

A little update as said in the earlier post, here is a bit about FreeCycle - Exeter.

FreeCycle Exeter is a Yahoo Group, that 'recycles' unwanted goods by passing them onto people/places that need the item(s). An example would be that Dave has an old TV that he has just replaced with a brand new flat-screen TV. Dave; being the good man he is, makes a post on FreeCycle offering the old TV. Gill's TV broke two days ago and with the kids wanting to watch their cartoons and whatnot, she takes a look at freecycle and notices Dave's post. Gill messeges Dave about the TV, Dave says it is still available (or not). Gill picks up the TV at arranged time from Dave. And everyone is a winner.

It is as easy as that, and there is a vast variety of items that are offered on a daily basis, from frying pans to cars, boxes to computers. And funnily enough that is where we at the THP have obtained the majority of our furniture. The kind users of FreeCycle - Exeter have provided us with a rather large TV, a pink fridge (snazzy), a sofa, armchair and footrest, an electric oven and hob (one unit), a breadbin, a solid wood door, and other bits which are dotted around the house.

It has helped a lot in terms of furnishing the house, and all the items are in top working order. It has saved us hundreds of pounds worth of spending and made our life easier. So if you need something, have a look on FreeCycle first! But be sure not to be greedy.

Website Creation

That House Project has decided to create a domain, which will be separate from the Blog, and will include a forum, tips, and other bits and bobs. THP will keep you updated on the progress of the website, and on it's launch.

Regards,

THP.

And so it lives.

After meaning to create a blog about the work that we are carrying out on the house that we are living in for quite some time now, I have finally managed to do it. However since I am not at home at this moment in time I will post all the following updates throughout the week.

- Moving in.
- Clearing the kitchen.
- Freecycle Exeter.
- Being on a low budget.
- Painting.
- Decoration.
- Kitchen floor.
- Replacing Bathroom.

In the meantime here is some background information about myself and the other half (Olivia, or 'Liv').

Having only moved to Exeter in July 2009, with no jobs and a motivation to renovate/do up 'That House', we thought it would be a generally easy project with most of the work being done by ourselves. That's when we realised that we need to spend in order to gain, and of course spending meant having a job. It was not long before both of us had incomes, and were more or less comfortable with our financial situation that the majority of the work that has been done to this date took place.

However on February 17th, 2010, both of us ended up handing in our notices to the retail company we worked for. I will not say which for certain reasons, but it involves a body of water and land. To sum it up the management decided to play around with Liv's job, breaching the bullying code in the Employee Handbook several times. Hence her reason for leaving. The same person who was the cause of Liv handing in her notice also had a talk with me in the office and accused me of lying, and caused me to follow in Liv's footsteps of notice handing.

So come March 2010, both of us are unemployed and with the house nowhere near completion things are looking worse than before. But the main thing is that we still have each other for support.