The kitchen project, which truly turned out to be one heck of a wild ride for a while there, and the area looking like a construction site for longer than I care to mention, we are nearing some sort of closure ๐Ÿ˜‰

It all started out looking like this:

BEFORE
Original State

After which, the sliding glass windows in the balcony were thrown out along with the wall dividing the balcony/loggia from the kitchen area.

New Windows

New, “real” windows were put in, with the middle one being sliding as well. This will come in handy later for my idea of placing a high-legged table right next to the windows to allow for relaxing breakfasts in fresh air whilst enjoying the view of the park below. A new wall with appropriate insulation was erected and shelving placed on top.

Evacuation
Waiting for better days to come…

Zaim
Removing old tiling and top layer of concrete… Zaim in action!

Window Frame
Response to the first complaint regarding the windows (successfully resolved) while the plumber looks on and figures he’d better do his radiator job well…

New Tiles
New tiling and radiator in…

Roki
A job well done calls for celebration… Or at least a cup of good coffee for Roki, the master of tiling.

All of the above was done in a matter of five days so it seemed the impossible goal of quick completion of the project was not going to present much of a problem. However. The walls in my home have always been taken care of by a friend I’ve made during my agility days. Iztok is somewhat of an artist and an exceedingly thorough man. Unfortunately, he hurt a leg muscle while training for an agility competition and would not be able to come over for three weeks. Fine, I’d wait. Then an added, potentially fatal complication occurred: thrombosis. Not only is Iztok a friend, but also a father to three children with the fourth one on the way. Some food for thought on the meaning of life right there, but I digress. I decided to wait for Iztok to get better and some six weeks later he was able to come over and finish the walls. In the meantime, dinners were served in front of partly disposed concrete walls with candle light playfully illuminating creaks and holes the old windows had left, the draft moving the flames in an especially romantic fashion.

Thanks to more help from my loved ones, the new TV is up as well. LCD and all ๐Ÿ˜‰ and has been put to use. Now all that is left is to pick out a new couch and to have the custom-made table built by Iztok’s brother the ingenious carpenter (who happens to have been involved in the Slovenian Presidential Palace remodelling this summer, ha! ๐Ÿ˜€ ). I promise to host the kitchen-warming party before that, though :mrgreen:

AFTER
Kitchen Project - After

With this project, I’ve learned so much, for example about expansion joints in the tiling between the kitchen and ex loggia, but most importantly, I’ve met wonderful people with fascinating stories to tell and am thankful to the guys who did their job so well. In the words of Zaim, the incredible contractor who found solutions to the problems thought insurmountable by others and did so seemingly effortlessly:

Victory is inevitable – if only we try hard enough.