Weekly update – kitchen woes

I always try to be a good client, for all kinds of reasons, it’s just the right thing to do.  However, with the kitchen woes going on, I might be changing into a stroppy client.

“Two or three” weeks they said it would take.  We are now towards the end of week five.  I am told we won’t see the kitchen fitters this week because they have another kitchen to install somewhere else.  Following this is the two week summer holiday.

They admit the kitchen has taken longer than expected and initially they tried to shift some of the blame onto me.  After all, they were ready to fit any old inappropriate insulation but I insisted on our breathable insulation, more in keeping with an old property.  While that has caused the plasterer extra work, that’s in the laundry, nothing to do with the kitchen itself.

The current state of play is that we have a functioning kitchen, with appliances installed and most of the important work is done.  There is, however, a lengthy list of things still to; supply missing handles, drawer fronts and cupboard doors and so on.  Needless to say I’m getting impatient but at least the flooring has now been fitted.

The characters!

Firstly, there is Pietro who is the lead fitter.  A man who is spinning a million plates in his head and carries all of the worries.  He takes overall charge and is the qualified electrician and gas fitter.  He is good at high speed carpentry and his van is like a mobile workshop, though the outward appearance is just another white van.  Actually the workshop has been set up on the back lawn, quite a sight with trestles set up and machines whirring sending clouds of sawdust into the air.

Then there is Jonny.  He is the assistant and I quite like him.  He simply keeps his head down, doesn’t talk (apart from being polite) and he diligently plods his way through the work.  As someone pointed out, these guys are always wrong, even when they’re right.  It’s just the nature of the pecking order in the world of tradesmen.

Ricardo is the plasterer and undoubtedly the most colourful of the characters.  He has an opinion on everything, leans towards all of the conspiracy theories and I think watches too much late-night TV.  He’s also rather loud and laughs at his own jokes like a hyena in between F-this and F-that.

He is also prone to spout out all kinds of personal things; particularly relationship problems with the latest spat between him and his girlfriend.  He justifies walking out on her and spending a miserable week in a lousy hotel, before going back to her and his young son.

One day last week we had the Head Design man come over to see it all taking shape.  Just as well really as he was able to bring the CORRECT coloured sink, having driven to Newport Pagnall to collect it at 6am.  We have gone for a dark coffee colour, much better than the insipid cream version they sent by mistake.

Apparently he, the Head Design man, is coming over this week to bring the missing handles and to possibly fit them, seeing as that’s a “low skilled” job.  Little does he know, I might be presenting him with a further list of snags and woes.

Toothache!

To make all this even worse, I have toothache.  Never had toothache, or at least, never like this.  So after a week of antibiotics treating a non existent abscess, I am going back to the dentist.  To be honest, I think I’m saying farewell to this particular tooth; namely a wisdom tooth.  Oh dear.

Also, for some technical reason that I don’t understand, I can’t upload any photos for this post.  Double oh dear.