Now that the floors were complete, doors, skirting and architraves were fitted along with boxing in of pipework and sundry other bits of joinery.
The kitchen, ordered from Midco Builders Merchants (sadly now taken over by national merchant, Travis Perkins) in Leek, arrived and Ian and Phil set to work installing it. Ian had made an iroko hardwood worktop for the kitchen and once the units were in place and the worktop fitted, the kitchen looked very sleek indeed. We were beginning to wish we could move out of our house and into the barn!
We decided to treat the kitchen worktop with the same Osmo Polyx-oil as the floor. It is a completely natural, non-toxic product which is extremely resistant to water, wine, chemicals, etc. and enhances the natural grain of the wood. We were very surprised when the Oswax took a good two weeks to dry on the worktop when the floors took less than 24 hours. Interestingly, the second coat on the worktops dried in only two days so we assume there must be some kind of oil in the iroko wood, not present in oak.
In the second week of April, Severn Trent Water finally decided to connect us to the water main after six months - a job which took a touch under two hours!