Category: General

I am definately ill today. Not, thankfully, deeply sick type ill. Just ‘unwell’. My throat and ear definately hurt and I probably should have skipped work yesterday. I’m off sick tonight.

What’s less good is that the builders, who work at a pace that’d make a sloth seem quick, have informed me that the kitchen will be finished on Thursday. That’s 6 days to fit a kitchen. I could do it quicker. By myself. Blindfolded. With one hand tied behind my back. I’ve spoken to their supervisor who’s told me that it will, without fail, be in, finished, the house cleaned and sorted by Thursday. That’s the best he can do, apparently. No, I won’t be recommending these people to anyone else – I might get money back for recommending them but this is just a joke – and I wouldn’t inflict them on anyone else. Yes, I will be naming them once they’re done and out-of-here.

It’s not like it’s a deeply complex or difficult kitchen fit. It’s an L shaped kitchen and a pseudo-island. What also leaves me unimpressed is that they removed the U bend from the waste pipe where the dishwasher sits, which is fine; it was the wrong part, but the only part I could get; but they’ve replaced it with…stuffing the end of the waste water pipe from the dishwasher into the waste water pipe. They’ve also disappeared for 3 hours having turned the water off and removed the pipework for it. Annoyed? Yes I am.

I rang them this morning to find out what on earth they’re playing at; it’s a long time since I’ve felt that annoyed speaking to someone.

Having fuzzily woken up to use the loo at roughly mid-day and had a wander round and not seen them, and then woken up properly at 1300 and since then not seen them… well. I am hungry, but can’t go out because I’m a state (having worked a night and then spent the morning in bed); I can’t shower, I can’t drink any more water, because, well, all I’ve got is 1/5th of a glass left and then I’m out of water. I can’t flush the loo, I can’t wash my hands. And where are they? Well, one of ’em has apparently gone to Scotland, and the other? Lord knows where. I’ve rung them again and am waiting to find out where, exactly they are. I am meant to be studying and am sat here fuming angrilly instead and waiting for the phonecall to tell me either when I’m going to get water back, or that I might as well do it myself and subtract my time and parts from the fitting fee for the kitchen.

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.

I 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 I 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) 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 ATNC week and I’m not going to be here until Friday when I turn up at home with Kathryn’s mom… :)

I 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.

So, today we checked in with the ring people – they’ve sent us a new design, between it and the previous one I think we’re 100% there. They just need to combine the mountains from the previous design; the roots and trunk of the previous design and the spread and foliage of the tree in the current design and they’ll be there.

We have driven to Southam to get the minor looked at – they need to take the radiator out and whip the timing cover off, ‘cos it is that it’s leaking from but they think it’s holed; this is terribly frustrating as essentially we wasted 4 hours driving up there and back, but hey. Live and learn. It’s going to be a while ’til that leak gets fixed tho’. The minor’s performance is pretty spiffy though; top speed’s not hugely high (it’s very high geared), but there’s loads of torque available to get you there. A new gearbox and diff and we’ll be sorted. You can feel the slop in the diff when you let off the accelerator (throttle/gas pedal) and the gearbox just sounds awful in 2nd and 3rd. Ah well.

Anyhow, after a long drive we made it to Ikea (Wembley) which was, as you’d expect for Saturday (and Saturday after pay-day) absolutely bloody packed. We made it out alive though – carring the bathroom stool, bench, a towel rack (we didn’t expect to get that), the futon-sofa-bed and mattress (better one that we were intending to get, ‘cos the cheap one was out of stock; if anyone fancies getting us a sheet to cover it with, tho’, that’d be nice ;) ), a rug, napkins, a drying rack for the kitchen (I’m sick of the rusty plastic/metal one I’ve had forever), a pack of glasses…and I think that’s it. The list could have been much longer.

I also got stopped for my shoes – first time this has happened with a couple (both) wanting to know where to get them from. I reckon Vibram should offer us free cards to dole out to people, with a number on, such that you can get a discount if enough people buy using your cards… I’m still very much enamoured with them, and impressed with the fact that I’ve spent the day driving and my shins, which normally would ache after such a long drive are absolutely peachy. They were also good for hopping around the pallets left out in Ikea where they were low on stock, and saving me waiting for the very slow people to move through the store.

It all squidged into the car fairly easily and the journey home was amazingly not too horrendous. Unfortunately, arrival home was disappointing in that the builders who’s promise for the day’s work was:

– Plaster the walls and ceiling
– Finish and level the floor
– Fit the new door
– Brick up the old door

(Essentially everything that’s left to do)… Yeah, of them, they’ve managed to brick up the old door. The outside of it is a very nice job; the salvaged bricks look really good and once it’s painted it’ll probably be barely distingishable. The inside’s blockwork, and is fine, neat enough. But for the second day in a row the door isn’t in despite promises that it would be. Possibly the mortar’s still to wet, it’s been very cold. But I need some kind of update, and am very unimpressed with the way they left the back of the house.

I’m theoretically waiting on a call back from the builders, but it’s after hours on a weekend, so I imagine that I won’t hear anything until…well… Monday? When I’m at work?

*sighs in a frustrated way*

I’ve also got a headache from being in the sun without enough water…which isn’t making the world any shinier right now, which is a shame, because I was quite looking forward to coming home to a nice door (well, an okay PVCU door) and a nice ceiling (I didn’t think they’d get *all* of it done, but more than that…). Not least it’d’ve been nice because there’s lots left to do in the rest of the house (including assembling a bunch of shelves which we can’t currently put up ‘cos we can’t get to the wall :-/

Poot.

*le sigh*

Anyhow, I’m going to go and try and stare at the ATNC book and ignore the headache (and yes, I’ve taken painkillers :-p )