We went to Wickes today to sort out the kitchen. My goodness, what an expensive proposition that is!

We have been umming and aahing for weeks over what the layout should be, all rotating around a walk-in corner larder unit. The layout was finalised today. We will be having Sofia units, which are a cream, high gloss, slab door with no handles.

The worktops will be a cream mix. We were looking at Corian, but that cost 1.5 times more than the units! Even Slabtech costs the same as the units. There isn’t that much work surface!

There was the usual salesman nonsense about having to place the order by tomorrow or lose the extra 20% discount, on top of the existing 50% discount. The pricing is ridiculous, it just comes down to what you should have paid in the first place.

I wanted to get another quote from Benchmarx, but they don’t do the corner larder unit, which is a pain. We will order the units tomorrow, but not the worktops, and look around for other quotes for those.

Doing this in a hurry just before bed time, (where HAS today gone?) so no time for pictures. I’ll scan the layout pictures he printed off, so you can see what we are thinking of.

Scarily expensive this!

Made worse by the fact that I want to change ALL the appliances. We fitted a range cooker when we moved here 8 years ago. Gas hob, two electric ovens. I have barely used the second oven, it is an expensive cupboard. And I am really not that keen on the gas hob, I could get much more controllability on my ceramic hob in our last house. So we are probably going to change the range cooker to a steam oven and an induction hob.

The Combi microwave is about 25 years old and the conventional part is unreliable and keeps switching itself off, although the microwave part is absolutely fine. So I would like to change that as a small oven is all I would need most of the time.

I went to a demo of the AEG steam oven at the agricultural show here in Broad Oak a couple of years ago, when I was first thinking about it. I was very impressed by its performance and efficiency. An induction hob too, uses very small amounts of energy. Not that that would be a reason to change on its own, not with the prices they are!

I would also like to have those hidden away, integral appliances, fridge, freezer and dishwasher. The dishwasher was given to us by a friend who was putting in an integral one, so we will pass it on to someone else in the same way.

Not forgetting that all this expense comes on top of what we have been paying out for the extension to be built in the first place. I said to DP, only half joking, we’ll have to do the £1 a day thing to afford this. I would be quite happy doing it, but I don’t think he would.

We’re off to DP’s sister at Seaford tomorrow, hopefully it won’t rain too much as we usually go for a little walk somewhere nearby.

Know anyone who fits Corian or Slabtech without me having to take out a mortgage?