KAREN & THE CONSTABLES

Whilst I’m moving home, I’ve asked some lovely blogging ladies to fill you in on all things housey!

First up is my friend Jen from Jenstar Knits. Not content with being a full-time engineer, superstar knitter and owner of Jenstar Knits, she’s also renovating her home whilst being pregnant! Phew! Jen has written a three-parter on the various stages of her stunning extension!

As well as putting on the extension the rooms at the back of the house have change considerably. As shown in my last installment, walls have come down and doors have been removed. What we were aiming for was a large open plan living space to the back of the house, increasing the kitchen space, opening up the dining area and of course creating a new living space looking out to our yet to be landscaped garden.

Kitchen: Once we had kicked things off with Dab Den in respect to the extension our thoughts, or should I say my thoughts, turned to the kitchen. Although the current kitchen was a large room there was actually very little storage and workspace so this was the perfect opportunity to remodel and get something to my exact specification. Many weekends were spent browsing showrooms and catalogues but in the end it was a trip to Denmore kitchens that really got my heart racing. I talked through our requirements and my vision for what I wanted to achieve such as the mixture of textures and colours as well what I wanted from the layout and appliances, I left them with what our budget was and awaited the call back to go see their proposals. I have to say they got it spot on, the mock up was exactly what I was after, and after a little persuasion, James came to see what I was after too (to be fair up until that point I had been talking about completely different finishes). They came out to the house to confirm sizes and then provided us with a date and schedule.

Bang on time the workmen arrived and by end of day one the old kitchen was completely ripped out. The gas to the old hob was blanked off and the new pipework for the new sink was in place.

By midweek all the new units are in place and the appliances are in place. We went for an induction hob, integrated dishwasher, single oven and combi oven and full height fridge and freezer. With a baby on the way ease of cleaning, maximizing storage and freezer capacity is key.

Bang on target, the whole kitchen was in and complete by the end of week. The only things left are the pelmet for fitting once the flooring was in and the custom splashback which is made to measure and will be fitted once our decorator has been. I can’t believe the difference we are finding already. We have yet to fill up all the cupboards, not that we haven’t tried. We are still getting to grips with some of the appliances but everything works better and quicker. I think it’s safe to say we’re delighted.

Flooring: As we have two dogs and a baby on the way we wanted something practical yet stylish. We also wanted the same flooring throughout the new open space so it had to work well in the living, kitchen and dining areas. We had originally thought that engineered wood flooring would work well for us but then we discovered the new Moduleo Impress range, a vinyl flooring with a textured finish. Available in lots of wood textured finishes it’s durable, attractive and probably most importantly steam mopable! Ordered and fitted through the Flooring Lodge, the entire space was completed in a day! Pretty good going considering how large a space it now is! The space is finally beginning to feel like ours and with a few finishing touches such as the decorating and wood burning stove to happen in the next couple of weeks are grand plan of having everything finished and us “moving in” by Christmas still looks on track.