Renovation Project - A recycled kitchen in an old French house

Renovation Project - A recycled kitchen in an old French house

Today we have more fun with hinges, we are ready to put the kitchen doors on, oh the excitement is crackling in the house, I’m sure we could actually charge the electrics off it, this may not seem much to you, but the idea of having doors on kitchen cupboards currently ranks up there with finding an outside toilet when we first moved in. We will have food that I don’t have to worry, about what has dropped into it and plates that can be used without having to wash them first, but my happy dreams will not build them, it’s time to work.

I know exactly what I want, I want old style hinges that can be seen on the outside of the doors with old style catches, I have never actually seen these anywhere other than in my head, but we will find them.

I have also decided that I want metal doors on the sink unit to match the steel in the room, plus I am a bit worried that the kitchen may be a bit too wooden.

We have already been to the local builders merchant and bought some normal hinges (again we have found out that there are left and right sided hinges, that cannot be simply turned around, as they are drop on hinges)

We take a trip to Brest which is an hour away as they have an IKEA, and hopefully they will have the metal doors in stock, I found them on line. A tip for shopping in IKEA, if you are buying kitchen items, you have to order them at the kitchen bit, you do not go down to the racks to pick them up. But I did get to test my French by asking for assistance, I was quite impressed and thought that my French is getting very good, until the lad said that he had a little English and then proceeded to speak perfect English, the French idea of a little English is very different to mine! We also found out that you have to order them and have them delivered!!!!!!!! 

Really wished we knew that before we set off!!!!!

The doors are lined up and fitted (this sounds so simple, I’ll not add all of the swearing and cursing that was involved in trying to get them perfectly lined up and finding out about the hinges).

I am so happy with the result, we finally have a kitchen, it’s still not finished yet, but it is getting there.

The best bit is that it is totally recycled, the wood had been the walls between the 2 bedrooms and after scraping it was perfect, it still needs to be fully treated, as we are treating all the wood in the house just to be on the safe side and it will need varnishing or waxing to finish it off, but as I said we can now have dirt free food!!!!!