The Kitchen Saga Continues

So, as of 9pm last Friday we have a partly functioning kitchen. We have base units and work top in place, Ian even managed to fit the gas hob, the electric oven and the sink without incident, no mean feat given that nothing ever goes quite to plan in our house. It was an absolute joy to finally be able to cook dinner using something other than the microwave and to no longer have to take the washing up bowl down to the bathroom.

Anyway, I digress... we have decided clearly there isn't enough disruption in the kitchen and so we're going to create some more, right here:

This is a false wall which has been turned into built in cupboards, about 2 foot deep and about 7 foot high. When we moved in the fire in the front room had a back boiler in the chimney which was connected to the water tank which was installed in a false ceiling above these cupboards. All of this was fine before we had a proper boiler fitted but now we're left with an empty tank in the wall and these ever so attractive louvre doors. Initially the plan was to fill in the hole which is just above the strange black patch on the left of the picture, paint the woodwork and doors white and paper over it. We couldn't afford to lose two massive storage areas. Well we couldn't until an off hand suggestion from one of our neighbours planted a seed and now we're going to take down the false wall. At first we dismissed his suggestion but then once the worktop was fitted we were left with nearly 2 metres of spare worktop and it seemed a shame to get rid of it. We ummed and ahhed for a whole weekend, the same neighbour came over, took one look at the wall and said "you've got to do it, the new kitchen will make this look awful" - he was right. The wall is coming down and in its place we're going to get a larder cupboard so that we have somewhere to keep the ironing board and the hoover, a worktop extending from it with a double cabinet underneath and the fridge freezer at the other end. 

I actually think we might be out of our minds even considering this but well, it'd be such a shame to waste some worktop for the sake of a couple of hundred pounds. No I'm right, we have actually gone a bit mad