Basking in the Warm Glow of Accomplishment, the First

This brag should have been written a couple of weeks ago.

A story of my kitchen...

I bought my apartment new. Well, it's a sub-sale, but what completed property isn't a sub-sale in Malaysia? We just can't get the idea of 'build then sell' through the heads of greedy developers.

Anyway, the apartment came bare. I had to put up lights, ceiling fan, and curtain rods in all the rooms by myself. And the kitchen finishing was disgusting.

They just slammed two lead pipes into the wall, and used that as the support to put on a lousy tin sink. There's no space to work, and makes the kitchen very uninspiring.

So Ikea comes into the picture.

Saw some interesting choices for kitchen counter-tops there. Either a cheap particle-board with a tough heat-proof laminate; or an elegant solid hardwood counter-top. Both will run perfectly across the 8ft kitchen area that I've got.

The laminate is easy to clean. Does not need maintenance. But if you're unfortunate to drop something on it hard enough to crack the laminate, you'll never be able to repair that. Also, particle wood is difficult to cut a neat hole in, and you're likely to get a jagged edge where you cut it.

The hardwood is more expensive. And looks very elegant. But being wood, it needs some love or water will damage or warp the wood.

The decision was made for me when I saw a solid hardwood board at the AS-IS corner. Marked down 30% cos there's small dent in one corner. Used a wood oil and saturated the wood with a protective sheen. Bought a jig-saw and cut a nice hole for the sink. (Bought the sink outside Ikea. Those Ikea sinks are overpriced.)

Important note when you buy sinks: make sure that it comes with all the necessary fittings to clamp the sink to the counter-top. Some of the discount sinks I saw don't come with these fittings. And it may be quite difficult to buy these fittings separately. I've not seen any in the hardware shops I've been to...

So I've got the counter-top, a hole, a sink. I bought just one kitchen cabinet to support the counter-top. Didn't want to get a full set. Expensive. I'll just wait for discount cabinets and grab them then.

Joy:
-I've got a solid hardwood kitchen top with 8ft of working space! Nice.

Disappointments:
-The bloody kitchen wall is slightly concave, so there's a lousy gap between the middle part of the kitchen top and the wall.

-The wood oil does shit. Water from the tap drips onto the wood, and after a while, it gets mildewy. One time a housemate toss a wet rag onto the wood, and that spot becomes permanently warped. Ikea sells a different kind of wood treatment oil, which makes the whole surface sticky, and is no protection against the mildew stains either.


I made do with the situation for the time being.

Then comes Christmas. Ikea redecorates the show rooms and discard some used stuff. I started dropping in everyday when I can. (Living across the road from Ikea is kinda cool.)

Eventually, I got 3 more cabinets, with doors, and drawers!!

Managed to get the whole thing installed when my dad dropped in after Melbourne. He bought an electric planer in Melbourne. We used that and trimmed the countertop edge until it fits into the concave wall.

Put legs on the 3 new cabinets and put them in.

I took out the sink and did some more work on the kitchen top. Used an orbital sander that I bought from Bunnings, and tried hard to get rid of the gunky oil from the surface. Then bought a can of Minwax Wood Finish & Stain.

Painted the whole piece of wood a deep mahogany colour.

Piece of advice when using this wood finish... The first coat is EVERYTHING! I thought I could just slop on the first coat, then be more careful with the second and third. But it was difficult to cover up my laziness with the first coat.

The first coat is EVERYTHING. Make it count.

But it still looks great. And the surface is now waterproof and everything. But I added a layer of Minwax polyurethane just to be sure.

Yeah, the cabinet doors don't match. I've got two panels biege, two panels mahogany, and two panels steel. But it doesn't look too bad. Full price of one mahogany colour door is RM150. So, I'll deal with the mismatched doors. It's not worth enough to make them look all matching and pretty.

And see how the drawers come all the way out. They can come 95% out without falling off. That's what's cool about Ikea drawers. They're pricey as heck, but the price after the AS-IS discount is more acceptable.

Then I get a plastic tray, and I've got a neat little cutlery drawer. How cool is that. Um... it does seem like an inordinate number of knives, doesn't it? But I don't think I even got ALL my knives together in this shot either. I've enough blades here to dispose of a corpse. Bone knife, de-jointing knife, serrated, non-serrated, even a couple of good stab-bey ones...

Yea... I'm probably disturbed... But we all know that already...

I almost wanted to add a Global to my collection. Saw a couple in Melbourne. It's the Hattori Hanzo, of chef knives...

But I'll end the blog here before my blood lust manifests itself in a socially disturbing manner...