The Big Van

So, this weekend the plan was to hire a van and load it up with the kitchen worktops that do not fit in the car and take them down to the chalet. Hiring a van for a couple of pieces of wood seemed a bit extravagant so we decided to fill the rest of the van with a load of other stuff. We bought a couple of mattresses and beds and dug out stuff thats been sitting in the cellar since we moved to our latest apartment. All this was loaded in the van including 6 doors purchased from Bahaus. A good friend of mine, Steve, had agreed to come down with me to help with some lifting and also I think out of curiosity about this building I keep ranting on about and no one has ever seen.

Well we left about 5 ish on Friday and arrived about 9 something just as it was getting dark so after a brief tour of the building we had dinner and went to bed.

Saturday was shopping day but first we had to unload the van. Doors, beds, mattresses and other furniture was all unloaded and parked about the chalet in various rooms. We drove down to Thonon in order to get the fitting for the second bathroom, namely a sink a toilet and a shower. After some faffing about in the shop and after two shop assistants were surprisingly helpful we left with a toilet and a shower.

Then it was off to Gedimat to get a huge amount of tiles. i wanted to get all the bathroom tiles, the bathroom floor tiles and the hall and stairway tiles also. this was about a 1000 Euros in tiles with all the adhesive and grout I would need. All this was loaded into the van and we drove home.


All this was unloaded and, God those tiles are heavy!


After a cup of tea to recover we set about making the rest of the units for the kitchen and sizing up where and how the worktops would go. Eventually, after much thought and with some trepidation I made the first cut in order to fit the back worktop that contains the hot plates. It seemed to fit and in our enthusiasm we proceeded to try and cut the hole for the hot plate. Measure carefully, weigh up the alternatives and then commit yourself. After cutting two sides out the jig saw finally broke and left us half way through the third side. Critical bits snapping off left the saw unusable. The worktops are hard stuff! I finished the third side with a hand saw but that still left the fourth side. I then attempted a "Plunge" cut with the rip saw. Normally with the rip saw you start from an edge and slowly work your way across the timber to the other side, with a plunge cut it is possible to start in the middle of a piece of wood with the cut. We only needed enough to get the hand saw in then we could finish with that. You don't do many plunge cuts as they tend to be a bit messy and a bit rough and difficult to get exactly where you need and its not recommended to do this to cut out holes in worktops! Any way it all actually went very well the cut was close enough and we finished off with the saw.

Sunday and I wanted to get the three worktops cut to the right size. Again, after some ponderous thought and careful measuring the cuts were made. Steve had meanwhile oiled up the first worktop and with that in place the kitchen actually started to look like a kitchen.




One last job and I changed the swiss plugs on the microwave and fridge to French plugs.

We left about 1:30 and got back to Zürich about 5:30.

I think the weekend was a success, we got a lot of stuff delivered to the chalet and even though the jig saw gave up we did cut one hole out. Only the hole for the sink remains. we have the fittings for the second bathroom (except the sink, I cant seem to find a decent sink in France! must have them somewhere!) Loads to get on with next time.

Next time I need to prepare for the family coming down in August. So the dinning room will need to be cleared of all the rubbish from the kitchen, the chop saw room will have to become a bedroom and it would be really great if I could get the stud wall up and the shower working for when they are there.

Return of the Hot Box

Returned the Hot box yesterday, Ikea very good about it, would not give me cash back, as I had taken all the wrapping of the oven, but instead, gave me a kind of credit card thing with 599 CHF on it.

Now all I have to do is get another 240 volt oven to replace it. I wonder where the nearest French Ikea is to Morzine?
Meanwhile I am trying to figure out how best to get the large worktops down to Morzine. The plan at he moment is to hire a van and take them down in that but if I am hiring a van I should make it worthwhile and take a bit more stuff that will not fit in the car, like beds and mattresses etc. Either that or balance the worktops on top of the car and drive with them strapped to the roof.

The Warm Box

Ohmri and I where down in Morzine this weekend and took the fridge and oven down with us. The plan was to see how much of the kitchen I could get built now that the tiles were in. But first I would have to finish the electrics for the lights and plugs, skin the walls and then start the actual build of the units.

Rob was down with his family for their half term and he helped put the kitchen walls up and wire up the lights and plugs. Then we started assembling the kitchen units that fit along the back wall. Once the carcasses were fitted and screwed to the wall we started to fit the fridge, microwave and oven. The fridge and microwave have Swiss plugs on them and I did not have any French plugs but the oven just needed to wired directly to the wall. We wired it up and as we did noticed that the oven said 400 Volts. This is weird. Rob and I expected 240 volts. 400 is just really hard to get, especially when the plugs lights etc are all 240. Well we tried it and I can confirm that a 400 Volt oven is just a warm box when you try it with 240.

It was bit disappointing and I will have take the oven back to Ikea although it will provide Rob with hours of entertainment, teasing me about how many volts an oven has, I have looked and they do actually say it is a 400 volt oven in the web page. Strangely, you can buy the exact same model in the French Ikea which is 240 volts! Stranger too is that the swiss oven coats 599 swiss francs and the French oven costs 525 Euros! Nearly 800 swiss francs. Apparently swiss ovens all are 400 volts and they do something clever with 2 or 3 phase electricity to get 400 volts, but it must be complicated and why bother when you are providing 240 to lights and plugs anyhow? Seems weird. Well a couple of friends here have confirmed it and the oven in my apartment is actually 400 volts as well, but I still have no idea how to get 400 from 3 240 phases. I could perhaps do the same thing as I have three phase power in the chalet but I have to get the electrics signed of by the EDF and I don't want to have to explain anything out of the ordinary. I just want it simple, so I will replace the 400 volt oven with a 240 volt oven (not quite sure where from yet) and use that one.

Any way the kitchen is looking good apart from the oven, loads to do still but it looks good.