Throw it away!

After another three days' work in elder daughter's kitchen, I have had to concede that some stock items should just be thrown away - a difficult admission for me to make.

The focus of this trip was the removal of some very dodgy old worktops and their replacement with the beautifully simple and elegant solid birch ones which Ikea sell at a reasonable price.  This was the third stage in 'lightening' a dark room: new led ceiling lights have been fitted and the programme of re-painting the fronts of all the storage units is almost complete. Fortunately I had the kitchen to myself for a day and a half (with assistance available when required from son-in-law, who was busy marking university exam papers) as Elizabeth and daughter and grandson had decamped to Devon for an overnight visit.

Getting the old worktops out without damaging the kitchen units and the walls was surprisingly difficult - they had been well fitted.  A deal of careful sawing was required to divide them into manageable bits, the one with the pot sink in it weighing a ton.  This was the start of the 'interesting work'.  The measuring and cutting of the new tops proceeded steadily, with little in the kitchen exactly square, and cutouts needed for the hob and the replacement sink.

The fact that the new sink was a slightly different size to the original meant that the plumbing of the tap and the wastes (from two bowls and the adjacent dishwasher) had to be reworked.  In the end, after a minor leak on the old tap, a new one was bought and fitted, but the big disappointment was the use of my recycled stock of push fittings for the 1.5" drainpipes.  Late on the second day when testing took place, they leaked.  A lot.  Fortunately the incoming pipes had service valves fitted so there was no damage.  Note to self: always in future use welded abs fittings, with just the one compression fitting to allow the assembly to be removed. That's what I did the following morning, starting the plumbing again from scratch, and this time it was fine.

So, there's still some boxing in and re-tiling to do. And some rationalisation of my plumbing stock - I'll be throwing away anything that has a used rubber seal in it.