The kitchen is in!

Our kitchen is in and working!  At last we have a decent cooktop (gas) and a dishwasher, and bench space and cupboards and things!
The guys from Mosgiel Kitchens came on Wednesday with a few bits,

then spent all of Thursday and most of Friday putting it in.

The benchtop came in 2 pieces which had to be trimmed (10mm overlap) and welded together.  The welder took 3-4 hours to cut it, join it and cut the hole for the gas hob.  You can't tell where the join is except for a very slight bulge as you run your finger along the top of the bench, if you know where to look.  The sink was already welded into the benchtop, and the plumber had to put the tap in.  We got an upstand all round the bench so we won't have to worry about water getting down the wall.

We put the tiles on ourselves, yesterday.  We had a couple of goes at it, as we didn't expect the tiles to be different sixes - some were 1 mm wider or longer than others.  Also, each tile had a square long edge and a slanting long edge, and because we didn't notice that until halfway through.  This meant the wee spacers between them held them different distances apart, depending on whether the spacer was between 2 square edges, 2 slanting edges or one of each.  Very Frustrating.  I ended up cutting up some playing cards (from an incomplete pack) and wedging 2-4 thicknesses of card on top of the spacer in the narrower gaps. The current arrangement wouldn't win any prizes but at least they all line up along the top, bottom and sides.  Tiling is not something we want to do again for a while.

We still have to get one drawer shortened, as it hits the gas pipe under the bench and won't close all the way.  Apart from that minor hitch we're very pleased with how it's all turned out.  It's certainly a vast improvement on what we started with - the old kitchen was actually falling apart, and at least some of it dated back to 1961.  And we would certainly recommend Mosgiel Kitchens for anyone looking at getting a new kitchen.  They did an excellent job, were easy to work with, and have a quality product.  We aren't expecting the doors to start falling off after 3 years as I've heard can happen with the budget kitchen outfits.  They have such a good reputation that they don't have to advertise, and are always busy.

Next thing on the list - lino and wallpaper...