My New ARTHaven–Sink and Shelf Complete

The second of two posts today.

As well as working on the utility room and wrestling with the problems of non-standard kitchen units and missing doors, Andy managed to finish my ARTHaven proper today – there are still shelves to go up in the office section, but these will wait until he returns from holiday.

He has taken a large piece of worktop identical to the worktops around the room, and cut it longitudinally – the remainder will make shelves in the office section. He has fixed a piece of supporting timber on the wall, and screwed the end of the shelf to this. It then rests on top of the tall storage unit, spans the black shelf unit (giving me a useful space underneath) and extends over the black bookcase. He has taken one of my spare pieces of black shelving and cut it down to form two “legs” which are attached to the top of the bookcase and the underside of the shelf with small brackets, again providing some useful space on top of the bookcase. The whole structure is incredibly rigid, and deep enough for storing large flat items. I need my little stepladder to reach it, though!

Here is a view of the end, with the “legs” on the bookcase to support the free end of the shelf.

I think the addition of this shelf brings the whole rather unattractive storage zone of my ARTHaven together, and making it look much more attractive than it did.

Moving on to the sink, this is now complete. Andy has removed the cupboard doors at my request – it doesn’t look very nice without them, but it is a functional piece of kit and I don’t mind about its appearance – once things are in the cupboard and on the shelf that he’s also made, it won’t look so bad. He’s used some of the same worktop as he used in the annexe kitchen, and will be using for the utility room.

On the shelf in the next photo, you can just see an edging strip of worktop edging lying on the shelf. This will be fixed to the end of the unit. There is also a box of splashback tiles the same as those used everywhere else.

If you look carefully under the sink, you can see the flexible pull-out hose of the tap with its spherical weight on it. This came with a bore hole too small for the hose, so longer screws were used to enable the two halves to be further apart, and the way it is now, the weight is actually loose on the hose, which means it always slides to the bottom however much hose is pulled out, and this prevents it tangling with the waste. A very good solution all round.

The next picture shows the hose partially extended. The small basket in the half-sink is one I’ve had for years but never used – it is a bit tatty, but it will be great for cleaning my brushes! It fits perfectly, and the waisted bit in the middle enables me to lift it out with one hand.

The extending part of the tap has a small lug on the underside which locates in a slot in the fixed base of the tap, preventing it turning. The whole monobloc swivels. I am so pleased with this tap, and actually prefer it in many ways to the posh (expensive!) one I chose for the main kitchen – for one particular reason:

The above photo shows the tap turned on, in “stream” mode. There is a black rubber pad on the top, under which are two buttons. Press one, and the water comes out in a solid stream.

Press the other one:

and it emerges as a spray! This is so cool, and will be very useful in many aspects of my work. The pull-out tap in the main kitchen does not have this spray facility. I bought that tap fairly early on in this adventure, and I assumed that all pull-out taps featured a spray facility but I was wrong.

The tap for my ARTHaven sink was the ultra-cheap one I got on Ebay. Not only was it cheap, but I got it for a further reduction as I had a Paypal cashback!

Before coming home, my hubby was working in the garden with a friend who had agreed to meet him there at tea time to clear the rubbish from the top of the garden, and while they were doing that, I brought a few more things into my ARTHaven to put on the high shelf.

After bringing in only a few things, I noticed a curious alteration in the acoustics of the room – when it was empty it was quite echoey, but the arrival of different objects with many sound-deflecting and absorbing surfaces, the sound quality is quite different – very muted and entirely echo-free, like those sound-proofed music studio rooms lined with what looks like egg boxes. It’s going to take some getting used to!

The blind should arrive early next week. Not much more to do in either the ARThaven proper, or the office section now. I ordered some stainless steel rods from Ebay and these were waiting for me on our return home – these will be used for hanging various things above my main work area, which is now starting to form in my mind, where I shall arrange things.