Although it’s not really a fear of builders, as such. Just a general dislike for those in that trade.
I’ve met one builder (well, plasterer) that I truly felt did a good job and cared about his work. One. The rest of them? Shoddy, lazy, happy with poor quality workmanship, late… This group seem nice enough in a lot of ways. Their boss gives the impression of caring, the work they do is of an adequate standard – it’s not mind blowingly brilliant, but I’m not paying for mind blowingly brilliant, I’m paying for adequate, I guess.
But it’s the lack of care and attention that gets me. It’s the nailing back up old trim, splitting it, and then suggesting that you’ll just fix back on the broken bit rather than admitting that you’ve buggered it and need to get some more. It’s the pipework for the radiator not being at 90 degrees. It’s the complete lack of willingness to spend the time to get it right. It’s having to be prompted to put the lintel for the door in the right place.
IÂ dislike the lack of control here. I’m now very used to organising and doing the building work – to knowing that I’ll do everything IÂ can to get it finished on time. That it’s taken nearly 2 weeks for them to do a 1 week job – just because for most of the time they’ve had one person here, not two. That they’ve laid the tiles using wall-tile spacing instead of floor tile spacing because they got the wrong spacers… It’s simple stuff, and stuff they should get right; it’s their job, after all.
It is frustrating to pay people to do work for you when you know that you could do it as well as them (the tiles being a case in point), not as quickly, I’ll grant, but as well, certainly. It looks like the money for the kitchen’s going to arrive late, too. Well, it’s already late, so they’ve not ordered the kitchen, so it’s going to be another 5 days… It’s going to be bloody tight for them getting the kitchen in, and tiled, before Sherry and Terry (Kathryn’s mom and partner)Â arrive. And it’s tight for the wedding.
It’s finally hitting that point when it starts to feel a little stressful.
Hopefully next week they’ll start cleaning the lounge up. Let me rephrase that. Next week, they’ll be cleaning up the mess they made in the lounge while we wait for the kitchen to be sorted, which means that we can clean the house, and prepare it, because the week after is ATNCÂ week and I’m not going to be here until Friday when IÂ turn up at home with Kathryn’s mom… :)
IÂ do like to get all the stress over in one go :)
One thing which has occured to me is that suddenly, after the wedding, we’re both going to have a lot more free time. The house needs finish jobs doing, but it’s one of those, spend a few hours every week on it and it’ll all be done before you know it. There’s some drawers to make for the bedroom, and I’d like to clean up and redecorate the larder – including replacing some of the lath-and-plaster in there (and maybe repairing the stairs while I’m at it…
But other than that, we’re pretty much done. Maybe life can become a bit less of a stress and a bit more relaxing and enjoying ourselves.
