Busy busy and nearly a kitchen

Righty, update time. For once the reason there have been no updates is because we've been busy actually doing stuff. Over the last few weeks we've finished the battens and insulation below the gunwhales, run the pipes for the hot and cold water and radiators, run the 230V cable, put the oven and fridge into the boat before the last wall went up, put the last wall up, realised the oven was the wrong side of the last wall, taken the last wall down, moved the oven so it is in the kitchen and not the bathroom, put the last wall up and... made a kitchen!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we ordered the kitchen through Ben the Builder. These are rather nice kitchens that usually turn up put together and ready to go. As ours was such a small order and to make it easier to get into the boat, we arranged to collect it flat packed. Handily, the company that builds them is in Nottingham, and Paul's parents are in Nottingham twice a week so they collected it for us (Thanks Gren and Rita!). After checking we had all the bits we put the first unit together which is for the built in oven:




This unit goes at one end of one side of the kitchen, and at the other end is the fridge. Therefore we had to construct a cupboardy-shelfy thing to extend the oven unit so it filled the gap. Usually when we make anything out of wood we stick a load of gripfill on and screw it in place. This time we decided to do it properly! We'd ordered an extra sheet of coloured woody stuff so to make the extension we had to do lots of this:




Careful measuring, guides for the saw clamped in place, cuts the right way round, dowels... lots and lots of thinking! We even managed evenly matched holes ready for shelf supports to give an option of two shelves splitting the unit into thirds, or one shelf splitting it in half. This gave us an exntension to the oven unit:



In place, I thought it was lacking a major feature...



So in goes the oven. Tis a proper kitchen and everything!




We already have the hob and the work surface, so very soon this is going to be a completed side of the kitchen.

The other side is a larger base unit, with two cupboards, one real drawer, one false drawer and a sink above (well, it will be).




To be able to buy a standard size unit, this side needs a little extra construction to extend the unit as far as the walls. These extensions will be a perfect size for a wine bottle. Not sure how that worked out but it suits us!

Oh, and both sides have 12mm ply lining up to the gunwhales ready to be tiled and there will be a double 230V socket on each side for those essential kitchen gadgets:




So, we've been busy busy bees. Paul's got the day off work tomorrow so will be finishing off the extension bits and making the plumbing stuff appear in the right places.

The next couple of weekends really need to see us sorting out the bit that makes me groan when I look upwards. It is definitely time to get the handrail supports up, batten and insulate the ceiling and get jiggy with fibreglassing take 2. We'll then be able to run the 12V cables and start to line out. Exciting times ahead!