Kitchen Refurbishment

Early in 2026, the Parish Hall Management Committee embarked on a journey to upgrade the facilities and the hall itself, bringing it up to date since it was last updated in 2000. 
In March, SKDC kindly awarded a Community Grant of £5000 towards phase 1 of our refurbishment, enabling us to replace the kitchen, cooker, cooker hood, lighting, and flooring, whilst also adding a new hand sink and a large 10ltr water boiler. The grant also allowed us to have the kitchen tiled and decorated. This now stands us in good stead for promoting more events and extending our offering of the hall and its facilities to those from outside of the parish. In turn, this should help in creating a more inclusive community as well as generating further income for the hall's ongoing management. 

The images below offer a step-by-step of how the kitchen appeared in March 2026 through to its completion in July.

Here is the original kitchen that had served the Parish Hall well for 26 years. Although it was functioning, areas did need to be attended to. There was a damp area in the top corner on both the walls and ceiling which needed addressing. Some of the cupboard doors had warped over time and no longer closed as they should. 

In the next image, some of the electrical cables were hazardous and needed replacement. Although they were fitted as per electrical specifications at the time, they were no longer as safe as they could be and so were replaced accordingly.  New LED strip lighting will be added in due course to offer a more consistent lighting footprint throughout the kitchen which will also be more economic to run. 

With everything stripped out, new wiring channels were made, creating a safer working environment. New pipework was added for the water boiler and hand washing sink while under counter electrics were upgraded to accommodate the new siting of the fridge. 

This image shows the new cabling routes for the cooker and cooker hood, along with a new, surface mounted isolation socket. The old cooker hood ducting was removed as this would be of no further use, which will be replaced by a new hood and charcoal filter system. The flooring was in excellent condition and allowed for an easier floor laying later on in the project. 

New cupboards have been fitted and a partial worksurface added to the majority of the kitchen. Walls have been made good, sanded and filled, with new tiling added to the whole surround. A few electrical items still to be completed, grouting to be added and new lighting to be fitted but otherwise, the project is coming along nicely. 

The project is almost complete now, the flooring has been laid, a new 10ltr water boiler plumbed in, a new sink and taps have been fitted, two LED light fittings are in place.  The tiles have been completely grouted and the cooker and hood complement each other, especially with the removal of the old exhaust ducting system. The only items to be completed at this stage are the painting of the walls and the manufacturing and fitting of the serving hatch. 

Having taken just a little over three weeks, the kitchen refurbishment project, phase 1 of the works being undertaken in the Parish Hall, is now complete. These final two images show everything in place, fitted and painted. 

This final image shows just how well the new LED lighting illuminates the whole space evenly. This has allowed the kitchen to be made ready and put to good use within our community and we look forward to hosting a variety of events in the future.