A Different Kind of Modelling

 

Before anybody thinks that the title means I show my beach body on the pages of this blog, I must disappoint. I finished the process of remodelling our kitchen instead.

This is the smallest room in our flat but it required the most of the renovation work. I dropped the bomb and disembowelled the whole thing, removing all furniture, wall and floor tiles.

The flat was built in the 70s. Can you guess what we found under the floor tiles? Yes, more floor tiles. At least these were fixed properly and didn't break apart or pop up like the ones above them (courtesy of the previous owners).

There also was a door frame with no door. It took up a lot of space and was of no use. When removing it a section of the wall decided to tag along. Here you can see my humble masonry efforts (using the very heart of DIY wargaming terrain building, XPS foam).

Adding cement to the gap.

After some filling and sanding it don't look half bad.

Pouring self-levelling concrete on the floor (after priming and pouring on extra adhesion agent).

Adding the floor tiles - I had some spare brown ones and thought I could use them for the part which will be covered by the counter.

We call these types of flats 'panel' houses because they were made from pre-fabricated iron and conrete elements. One would think quality control looked out for things like 90° walls and floor plans. Wrong! 

According to the floor plan this room should be 144x160cm. Instead it is 142x156. The corners are way off too, I put a laser to them. 

But there are no setbacks in this household, only challenges.

Also thanks to my wife who helped adding glue to the back of the tiles while I laid them. It was a team effort.

Cleaning the remainders of tile grout, again a satisfying result.

The wall was repaired at places, filled, sanded and painted, no hassle there. These wall tiles were, however, very much akin to the kitchen itself, their sides were mismatched, sometimes by a wide margin, so after looking at one wall and thinking to hell with it, instead of measuring things I went by the good old number one eyeball. Those walls turned out better.

Adding shelves and the counter. It is customary in Eastern Europe to hide the smallest kitchen sink at the least accessible nook and to top it off, you must also put a very big cupboard above so you hit your head every time you do the dishes. Well I was fed up with that, bought a big sink and made enough head space around it. 

The cabinets are from Ikea. They came without legs or door handles, of course, and no pre-warning you need to buy those separately. There is a scheme here, if you go to Ikea multiple times, you are more likely to buy those small items they sustain themselves with. 

But we got to the end and furnished it with everything necessary. Only needs an oven installed.

Back to painting figures then!