PRELOVED KITCHEN - LOVED AGAIN

We had barely acquired our new/old cottage when we noticed a kitchen for sale on the internet which was way too good not to pursue. And pursue it we did! So rare to find a kitchen in an exclusive suburb of Sydney where the property had been sold to developers and the house was about to be demolished.

I made contact with the kitchen seller immediately, discussed the details and made an offer. She accepted my offer and told me that I was second in line and she would give buyer number one until the next morning to make her decision. Well, the next morning came and went and I decided to call the seller around lunch time. To my dismay she proceeded to tell me that the original offer had to fallen over and even though I was next in line, she was not sure what to do as others had contacted her and were willing to pay twice the asking price as they recognised the value of the kitchen.

After a serious conversation, she told me I could have it if I could get someone to Rose Bay in Sydney within the hour to look at it and pay a deposit. I also knew it was an expensive kitchen, so I called my builder friend in Sydney, he kindly went straight to Rose Bay to check it out. He rang me from there and told me that we must go through with it as it was a $30,000+ kitchen, which included an integrated Liebherr fridge and all Miele appliances which had hardly been used. And three lovely pantry cupboards as well. He happened to have enough money on him to pay her in full. Whoa La!! We now have a kitchen for our cottage! Yay!!!

Then came the challenge to remove and relocate our precious purchase. Wow! What a marathon! It is a well travelled kitchen. One the evening of the day of purchase our builder friend took a couple of guys with him to dismantle the entire kitchen. We then arranged for our son along with a few friends to pick it up a couple of days later in a large pantec trailer. They were happy to oblige, however their enthusiasm diminished when they arrived and found the house on a hillside and they had to carry the kitchen down 25 narrow sandstone steps to the trailer below. And the 3 metre long stone bench-top proved to be an impossible feat, so they resourcefully abseiled it over the high sandstone wall to the nature strip below. It was at this point they were wondering what they had signed up for.