Another wild weekend

This weekend had some degree of balance to it, unlike most weekends! Yet I still managed to get some more items ticked off the to-do list too.

Saturday

So the day started with an experiment. I took a piece of worktop offcut outside and attacked it with my electric planer. Much to my surprise, the laminate didn't chip off, it all was ground down nicely. Okay, so I was only doing half a millimetre at a time, but I figured it was better to take it slow for a better finish.

Then it was time to put this discovery to good use and get the back of these worktops to the same shape of the wall. However, it took over an hour of pondering to figure out a plan of action.

The dilemma was about where the gaps are left against the wall versus keeping the worktop in line with the front of the cupboards versus not taking too much off next to the sink. 

In the end, three locations were shaved, one on each worktop section. Over a centimetre was needed off on two sides, with five millimetres off the third. Here's a picture showing the line I needed to shave to, with a pen for scale:

Once finished, all three worktop sections sat nicely on top of the cupboards. It wasn't possible to fix the sections together yet though because one of the cupboards needed to come out again. Yes, THAT cupboard. AGAIN!!!

So off came the electrical stuff. The back of the cupboard also decided it wanted out too. The cupboard was then extricated from its corner and then the fun began.

First up, a hole for the sink was cut out. I don't own a jig-saw or router so a circle of holes was drilled around the inside of the line. A tiny saw was then used to cut from hole to hole until a bigger hole was born:

Then, presumably because making holes in cupboards is an addiction at this point, another hole was drilled in the back of the cupboard to accommodate the dishwasher waste pipe (rightmost hole in the picture below). This was one of the more interesting holes as it was cut at a 45 degree offset to the chamfered edge of the cupboard back. So the pipe would follow the line of the wall even though the cupboard back was angled.

A screw was also used to reattach the back of the cupboard. This proved very effective when it came time to reattach the electrical stuff. But I'm jumping ahead. We haven't fitted the sink yet...

The sink itself had three anchor bolts that went into the worktop - to stop it rotating and to hold it down. Holes were drilled for these. To complicate matters, there were wing nuts that needed to go on these bolts which needed to be accessed from inside the cupboard. So access holes were required. 

We put the holes slightly too far to the right so the worktop hole needed deforming by a couple of millimeters to get the sink to slide in. Bit of elbow grease with the tile file (the only curved file in the building) got the job done.

Called it a day at this point and got ready for Date Night. Went to the pictures to see the new Antman film. Really enjoyed it, didn't feel like 2 hours at all, which is always a good sign. Was going to go for a meal after but ended up going home and ordering a takeaway. Not a lot of ordering choice at nearly midnight!

Sunday

As you might imagine, Sunday was a late start. Went for brunch at a supermarket cafe. Got back home and got straight on with the next jobs though.

So the next job on the list was to extend the water pipe leading to the dishwasher. The previous location was out of reach of both me and the hose. Simply a case of cutting a bit of pipe to size and sticking a compression joint at one end and moving the valve to the other end. 

Then the 'wastes' were attached to the sink. For those not in the know, these are the plug hole cover, an overflow cover, a link between overflow and the main plug hole and an adapter for connecting to the wider waste pipe community.

Of course, the overflow pipe didn't fit the hole in the cupboard so some more filing down was required.

It wasn't possible to fix the trap (aka u-bend) to the waste fixing. I knew from the start that the waste was 32mm diameter but the trap was 40mm. So I'd bought an adapter, guessing about how it mated together. I guessed wrong. Might have to order a more niche type of adaptor. They exist, but it doesn't seem to be a commonly stocked part in the generic DIY stores.

One guess I did get right was with extending the waste pipe from the dishwasher. I'd bought a little adaptor kit which worked well once sawn in half. The supplied jubilee clips weren't fit for purpose though, so that's another item for the shopping list!

So that's it. Electrics were reattached, worksite was turned back into a living space and I had some tea.

Congratulations if you've managed to get through this whole post. You really don't realise how much you've done until you try and write it all down!