Kitchen – Stage two

We got the new floor in our kitchen today. I would have loved real encaustic tiles but they are excruciatingly expensive, so we went for the unauthentic option and bought vinyl cushion floor.

Having said that it is unauthentic, it is also warm, soft under foot, slip resistant, easy to keep clean and above all cheap. The one we got actually looks stunning with the dark green units (or at least I think so). The Victorians themselves were all for the “faux” when you couldn’t afford the original – they loved cheap softwood stained to look like mahogany, plaster painted to look like marble etc. So I am going to let myself off.

I’ve just started to paint the walls now. I will put on a primer coat and then try for just one coat of “daffodil white” – but I suspect it might need two. I have also bought an eight step decorators’ ladder to paint the tops of the walls – in this case only up to the frieze (at about 11 feet) but complicated by having to lean over the units in places. I am 5’6″ and R and J are both 6″ so it may be that I need to enlist some male help – particularly as I am not good at balancing on my stiff left foot. The picture shows where the frieze is.

There is also a bit of tiling to be done. I had originally intended to get the whole kitchen retiled, but now the tiles have been given a good clean they look ok with the new units and (expense aside) I really can’t face much more disruption for the moment so I will tile that bit myself with some plain white ones left over from the bathroom.

While this work was being done – I found this.

This is a junction box marked “GPO” – General Post Office for those too young to remember. This means that it was prior to 1981 – luckily it was not connected to anything.