One of the last things the builders did on Thursday was make a quick pilot cut in the floor of the kitchen. Unfortunately, they struck an unexpected heating pipe. It was late in the day and they couldn’t get a plumber out to us until the next morning, so we had no heat or hot water overnight. It may be October, but the weather is still mild, so we didn’t freeze. They were with us again by 07:30 the next morning, ready to do the rest of the drilling to prepare for installing the new under-floor heating.
Fiona is here! We caught up on episodes 6, 7, and 8 of She-Hulk in the evening. Cliffhanger before the finale! No episode 7 flashback. I’m glad that Emil Blonsky genuinely did go off to run a meditation retreat in the countryside, and that his parole from prison wasn’t just a supervillain fake-out. I hope the showrunners don’t turn back on that at the end. Abomaste.
The builders made a lot of noise today. Rocky spent most of the day under the bed. It’s his safe place.
Fiona is coming back this evening! It’s her first mid-term break away from home, and she’s going to be back for two weeks. I’ll be picking her up from Schiphol later.
This probably isn’t going to turn into a kitchen renovation blog. Probably.
Our builders, Leguijt, started on the work today. Step 1: strip the old kitchen bare.
Without all the furniture and appliances, it it really still a kitchen any more? Maybe not. For a while there it was just a space, an extension of the living area . Then Abi put the cats’ food in it, at which point it became a dining room.
Having discovered that all the upcoming gigs for De Staat are sold out, yesterday evening I had a look at the agenda for Son Mieux, another Dutch band I’ve been enjoying lately. Turns out all of their gigs in NL are sold out for the rest of the year as well, but they’re playing 013 in Tilburg in April 2023, so I’ve snagged a ticket for that date.
I’ve also got tickets to see Maggie Rogers in Melkweg in November, and Meute in Paradiso in December. Circumstances permitting, of course.
Today we spent some time rearranging the last “big” things from the old kitchen. We extracted the built-in fridge from its mountings and put it in the cupboard under the stairs. We moved the freezer and microwave out into the living room. We moved around the furniture in the living room to make space for this, and to make sure that the builders have enough room to work.
I also spent some time reviewing our energy situation. Two years ago we were paying about €0.22 per kWh, and €0.79 per cubic meter of gas. We’re currently with Eneco and the upcoming price increase will put that up to €0.95 per kWH, and €3.40 per cubic meter of gas. We have 20 solar panels on our roof, so that buffers us against these increases a bit. It looks like prices will have a cap on average use from 1 November, but if a household goes above that average, the energy companies can charge whatever rate they like.
The average annual household gas usage is proposed to be 1200 cubic meters per year. Over the last three years, we’ve used on average 1470 cubic meters per year. The new kitchen is going to be all-electric (induction stove!), so we’ll knock a small percentage off that. We can take it down further by being more mindful with the thermostat. Once we’re done with the kitchen we might take a look at replacing the glass around the house with high-efficiency double glazing, and maybe a hybrid heat pump boiler system.
