Kitchen Drains

A long standing irritation: the kitchen sink drain. It was never great, and with the outside plaster replacement the drains were put in the wall with flexible tubing. They got sort of blocked a month or so ago. Two packets of caustic soda did not unclog them. Nor did a dash of sulfuric acid. So lets replace the in-wall pipes with a tube behind the kitchen cupboards. And simply connect it up to the loo drain, where the washbasin was connected.

Pity that is 32mm connection while I need 40. So I had to saw it off, and sanded the protruding bits off with a Dremel. It took about a day.

Yes, I’m quite knackered. I’m too old to fold myself into kitchen cupboards all day.

But the good thing is that we can wash away things like teabags as we were used to!

Home improvement - the kitchen - FINISHED! (again)

Surfaces! My surfaces are back! At last, the kitchen now is finished.

The stairs

Oiled the gate and the well worn steps of the stairs. For the first time ever this house has decent steps, instead of the hollow plastered ones that were made for stumbling and falling down the stairs. We did not even think about removing the wooden stair noses though, as they probably are original, and more than 150 years old.

Original.

Now.

Home improvement - the kitchen - FINISHED! (well, almost)

Despite this being a giant kitchen, storage is not abundant. We need more cupboards. And surfaces! All our sufaces are gone!

So where's IKEA? They usually have quite nice cupboards. Well, the doors are nice. Made of aluminium and frosted glass, like we had in Amsterdam. The cupboards themselves are made of chipboard, and rubbish. Well, I can make them myself of decent plywood (multiplex).

IKEA has "Jutis" glass doors for €30. And hinges for both vertical and horizontal usage. And METOD horizontal cupboards. Or, a vertical one: METOD vertical:

Remains the question what to do. Use the chipboard IKEA frames complete with the glass doors? I don't like chipboard, and the cupboards are quite deep (38cm), while we think 22-25 cm is enough. And do we prefer horizontal or vertical?

Home improvement - the kitchen - FINISHED!

At last, finished. A whole week without a kitchen is no fun. Everything is stored somewhere else, and the fridge is hardly accessible. It's a bit like camping, but not in a fun way. But, here we are, all done. The plaster is not all white, but is a light grey. Quite stylish, actually. We were told that this is an original colour finish in old houses.

For the first time in 200 years a decent tiled staircase. It used to be plastered with hollow rounded sides. We did leave the original wooden slats in place, of course.

Cellar entrance with (fake) antique tiles. And some junk still to clear away.

Our Kewlox cupboards were put outside. Unfortunately we have a lot of wind gusts here, and one toppled the big white Kewlox. As a domino it toppled the nice red one with the glass top. It no longer has a glass top, and 3 doors are now cracked.

Oh, and this door stopper is not a door stopper, but a wooden base for an ancient light switch. Which makes perfect sense, as on the first floor above there are antique electric insulators screwed to the beams of the roof.

A nice significance to these insulators is that this means the roof is at least made before the 1930's, as that is about the last date these were used.

Home improvement - the kitchen

Home improvement: the kitchen. Old walls made of stones, lime, gypsum (yeso) and sand and modern plaster don't match. Certainly not if the previous owners painted the wall with waterproof paint, causing the walls to go humid. We'll put a new, compatible, plaster on. "Kerakoll Eco Muro Seco". Sounds good, huh.

Also, the stairs to the cellar are not great, and have wooden steps. Better not have wood there, it attracts nasties like termites. And that plateau on the right has wooden beams in it that are all but eaten. Humidity a few years ago while the house was locked caused cracks in the construction. Time to amend that too.

If you remove old plaster various things from the past emerge. Like this wooden doorstopper. They don't make them like that any more.

And here's proof that at one time the door was not two, but one big door.

The kitchen furniture we put outside. It does not rain here. But we do have nasty gusts of wind. One blew over the big white Kewlox, which fell against the nice red Kewlox with the glass on top. It fell over, breaking three doors, and the glass. Which was not nice.

I think I may have mentioned sloppy work in the house in the past. Like just putting live electric wiring in the plaster. Ok, plaster is an insulator, when it's dry, but still.

Imagine our surprise with the construction of this shelf. We expected it to hang onto two screws or something. But no. Two fat threaded rods stuck 25 cm into the wall. Didn't see how the men got it off the wall. The wall still stands, and the shelf looks unharmed as well. Amazing.

The writing on the wall

An extraction hood was bordered, but the plaster on the wall is a bit loose, is dirty, ugly, etc. And, loose plaster is a highway for termites and other unholy creatures, and we don't want those. Our builder, empresa Simon, is a bit busy at the moment,
so I'm doing some work in advance, as you can see. Quite an improvement, no?

Much plaster is easily removed with just a spatula. That is because modern plaster was applied onto a lime mortar wall. And that does not stick well. After 20 years or so the plaster will come off. But, especially at the top of the wall there are ares of modern cement, where the modern plaster sticks extremely well. And that's too tough a job. I quit.

After a plaster removal session you have a lot of mess and dust. That is easily cleaned up, it's dry, but it's a hassle. This job is more than a week for one engineer Jansen with a spatula, so more than seven times a mess to clean up, while it's just a day for three empresas Simon with electrical chisels. And a cleanup only once.

Another reason the plaster separates from the wall is that the walls are relatively humid. They were made of lime mortar, and attract humidity from the soil and cellar. Modern plaster is completely sealing, especially if you put "plastico" wallpaint on top. Quite wrong. Under the plaster the wall indeed feels damp-ish. Not a big problem, the doors and windows are always open in a Spanish house, so ventilation is okay. But the paint must go.

Quite interestingly, the old walllpaint becomes visible. They quite liked light blue, apparently. This color was used in the past, and is called "azulete". Even more interesting is that the walls are scribbled full of text. Well, more figures with a word here and there. I suspect they did bookkeeping on the walls, as I think I see the word "kilo" here and there, and a "Pepe". It could be they handed in sacks of wheat to be milled, and part was kept as payment. (see below)

I'd like to show you another example of "Ansteystyle" renovation: the terminal block of this switch was simply plastered in, outside the switch. And some cable ends here. Well, of course.

Ansteystyle renovation.

The hood 2

We decided on the Falmec Concorde 120 cm. Ordered at Italian web shop, with the oven, and paid. Got a mail today the courier wants €90,- more. No way. Prices are prices. Curious how this will end.

No this is a photo from a brochure.

Oven

An existential matter is the choice of an oven! Pizza! We missed that. And again: big is beautiful. Only, if you bake a cookie in an oven of 115 liters, is that okay, or will it start to feel lonely?

The German Häussler one is big and beautiful, and expensive, and needs a 400V net connection. The Belgian Rofco is especially goof for baking bread (stone oven), while the Smeg is a huge allrounder. Just let us know what you think.


Häussler Primus - Das Schmuckstück für Ihre Küche

Rofco B10 - broodbaksteenoven

Smeg SF9390X1 - 115 liter!