Blog 54 [10]One thing leads to another...
You know how sometimes you need to do something and it
starts a chain of events…like for example you paint a door that’s scratched and
then the rest of the room looks like it needs touching up as well…or you wash
the inside of the windows and the outside looks even dirtier than before? It’s
often the case that one little job in the house turns into a major incident.
Well this week has been one of those times when something had to be done…but
the consequences seemed to be far outweighing the benefits!
Our house was built in the early 1990’s…1994 to be exact,
in fact we moved into it in the October of 1994 when I was expecting the
‘Intelligent-one’… whole different blog is that you know moving house when
heavily pregnant and I know I’m not the only woman to do it! Well anyway, we
moved into a brand new house and enjoyed the first four years with very little
to do to it [much to the delight of the ‘Hubby’!] Over the years we have added
a conservatory, replaced wooden frames with UPVC double glazing, replaced
guttering, pipes, fencing, block paved the back garden, converted the integrated garage
into a family room, replaced the faschia boards…the list is never ending really
but that is part and parcel of owning a house. For the past few years I really
wanted to have a bigger kitchen which could be easily achieved by knocking the
wall down between the kitchen and the small dining room. Well it was easy in my
mind and I have spent the best part of three years drawing designs, collecting
pictures from magazines and looking in showrooms. I think it all stemmed from
being at home all day…I had the time to think about it, I knew exactly what I
wanted. The hardest part was convincing the ‘Hubby’ who would of course have to
do the bulk of the work! Believe me it has been a major struggle to get him to
even consider the possibility but I managed it…how I did is a secret which has
to be kept to me because if he reads this and knows what my powers of
persuasion are he will never allow himself to be persuaded again…and I’ve a few
other things I’d like! So, he eventually agreed to go along with me to
showrooms and he very VERY slowly came round to the idea of a bigger kitchen as
the boys were getting bigger and they would need somewhere to sit and have
pizzas and beers with friends and the ‘Bridezilla’ could have her friends round
for coffee or wine nights and have somewhere nice to sit away from the
televisions [little did I know she’d be getting married before I got the
kitchen!] It did however take some time to get the ball rolling and last summer
we had a few friends round for supper and one of them is a builder. He talked
the ‘Hubby’ through what was needed as the wall I wanted to take a sledge
hammer to was unfortunately a supporting wall and therefore a 'rsj-steel girder' was needed.
Mmmm this made things complicated. Ah well, I continued with pricing units,
checking designs, considering integrated or non-integrated appliances. Then
this June the builder friend announced he had a week free before he would start
building a hotel and he could come and knock the wall down and all of a sudden
it was all very real and we were going to do this!
The kitchen ceiling was supported and the wall was
removed and the girder was put in place…an amazing process…at one point I
thought the ‘Hubby’ was going to have a heart attack whilst supporting the
girder as it was guided in! We were left with an amazing sized room…of course
the down side was the dust, the bareness of the girder and the beams, as well
as an overwhelming sense of Oh My Goodness what have we done! So, spurred on by
the fact that there was no turning back we proceeded to chip off all the wall
tiles, remove cupboard doors and then we demolished the breakfast bar…I’m very
much into recycling as much as possible so the bricks from the breakfast bar
were used to build a fabulous bbq…some of the cupboards were passed onto a
neighbour with the same kitchen and he wanted to use them in his utility
room…all the handles from the other cupboards were removed and given to a
homeowner who wanted a change…[eventually the ‘Birdezilla’ is having the
dishwasher and the fridge freezer and washing machine will be sold…sadly the
drier went way back in the summer after shouting; ‘Ste… ste… ste…’ at me once
it was heating up…beyond fixing, it ended up in a council van for recycling!]
We then had to spend the rest of the summer surrounded by
boxes of pans, pots, dishes, cutlery and a whole lot of junk! There eventually
became not a room in the house that was clear…did all this stuff actually come
out of a very small kitchen? At this point we were faced with the financial
burden of trying to complete the heart of our home…my mother always said that
it is vulgar to discuss money so in an attempt not to lower the tone of my blog
suffice to say that the following procedures could only be carried out in parts
each time the ‘Hubby’ received a bonus from work! [Then of course we had to
wait for my retirement ‘golden handshake,’ more like silver but hey it’s better
than a kick in the teeth, to buy the units!] We had to have a false ceiling put
in to cater for pipes and wires as well as hiding the piping that had belonged
to a radiator on the now demolished wall in the dining room: the walls, the new
ceiling and the new squared off arch that concealed the girder all had to be
plastered: once this was dry it could all be painted. Weeks turned into months
but by the end of October we were ready to paint. I love fresh white painted
ceilings and I dearly wanted a warm cream for my walls and a mink colour for my
accent wall. [Ah yes, saw this in a home design magazine…we have a large 3
seater sofa that I wanted incorporated into the new kitchen’s family area with
comfy throws and cushions, against the accent wall facing the new breakfast
bar!] Could I find the correct colour of mink? Not at all…how many different
shades of mink would you think there are? I wasted time and energy and money on
these silly little tester pots that produced a wall of streaks of colour
varying from terracotta to mud! The stress was beginning to hit me, how on
earth I had coped all these months with all the kitchen all over the place
without a melt down I don’t know…but throw in the lack of the right colour and
I was beginning to sound like a ‘wifezilla’…my new word to describe me and my
temper tantrums! The more I stressed over the colour the more my pain seemed to
dig away at me and eventually I ended up in a miserable heap…the first of many
miserable heaps let me tell you! As for the cream…do these people selling paint
really understand how important it is to GET IT RIGHT! Four varying shades of
cream splattered across the new archway…not one the warm colour I wanted and
had read about…not one pot was the same as the colour in my mind…poor ‘Hubby’
was now getting frustrated…cream is cream is cream…not at all. This was my
dream kitchen and even on a budget I didn’t want to compromise it by settling
for any old colours. So he came to the rescue…he bought two rolls of wallpaper
the exact same colour of a cushion I had wanted for the sofa…and he wall
papered the accent wall…and believe me it is his least favourite occupation! He
bought a small tin of ‘investment’ paint…my nick name for a brand of expensive
paint…and proceeded to mix it in his own little way to get exactly the right
colour of warm cream! [We now have enough cream paint to redecorate the whole
house!] Peace restored…ah well until this week that is!
With the wall gone and the radiator gone and all this
space…the new kitchen was cold. The conservatory has been cold forever…the
radiators just never seemed to get warm enough; during the summer it’s
fantastic but the winter just brings misery and this is now our main dining
room. So we decided to get the ‘gasman’ in to look at putting a new, larger
radiator in the kitchen and to have a
look at the cold situation in the conservatory. Now then, bearing in mind that
he serviced the heating boiler last winter and did say we needed to consider
replacing it as it was on its last legs so to say after 18 years of loyal
service…so it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise when he announced that
in order to put in new a radiator and to get heat into the conservatory we
needed a new boiler that would be able to handle the pressure efficiently as
well as being far more economical and we needed to be aware that once a new
kitchen cupboard is fitted around the existing boiler when it does conk out it
would be extremely difficult to remove it without destroying the new fittings.
OMG… ‘wifezilla’ was stirring inside me…this is the last thing I wanted to hear!
Before I exploded he offered to go away and price up what it would all cost: a
new boiler, a new gas pipe as the old one is too narrow [seriously yes you can
have different sized gas pipes!] flush through the system, [?!] remove the old
water tank and the water cylinder as these will not be needed with the new
combi-boiler. This would take approximately 3 days…hate that word it’s a bit
like seeing a cheap holiday advertised and then you see the small print… ‘FROM...’
Anyway, his quote was okay [!!] and the work needed doing AND he could start
straight away as he had other jobs booked in running up to Christmas…oh yes can
you believe that I was thinking way back in June “Ah I’ll have a wonderful
kitchen to cook the turkey in…!” So this work began and for the first day with
no heat and no hot water it didn’t seem too bad…I stayed in the garage [family
room really… but after all these years we still say garage!] There was a lot of clonking and clanking and drilling
and bumping…to get to the main pipes they had to take the upstairs carpet up
and the floor…these things never go back the same do they? By the end of the
first day I was feeling less ‘wifezilla’ and more myself: I had busied myself with
ironing in front of the television. That night was horrendous, we were so cold,
no showers and every room upstairs was in a tip as they had to take up more
carpet and more floor boards… “Oh mum look I can see the kitchen lights…”
shouted the ‘Intelligent-Cutie-pie’ [I said I’d come up with a shorter
nick-name!] The kitchen lights were wired up through the false ceiling but with
the replacement of the landing floorboards the lights were reflected upwards
through the cracks…a very strange feeling to think that there really isn’t that
much under our carpets when you see it from this view point! Day two just had
to be considered as a day nearer to warmth and all seemed to be progressing
until I was asked for a mop and bucket: unfortunately whilst the system was
being ‘flushed through’ the teeny tiny radiator in the ensuite was overwhelmed
and leaked massively: coming through the ceiling, down the newly painted walls
and down the adjoining walls in the living room! Arrggghhh!!! More decorating
to be done. A very dear family member offered heaters, electric blankets and hot water bottles in case we were to be without heating for too long. [Based on her own experiences!] Luckily the new boiler and pipes were fitted and by the tea time we
were all standing in the lovely warm kitchen watching the boiler and the new
remote, wireless controller that can now be carried from room to room…when a
drip splashed on the engineer’s head…four adults looked up to see water
beginning to pour through one of the new kitchen light fittings; I do mean
pour…and the other three adults watched in horror as I morphed into
‘wifezilla’. The engineer raced up stairs pulled back the carpet and
floorboards [definitely won’t be going back down properly now, ever!] and the
leak was not from one of his new pipes. What? Where is it coming from? Old
pipe…possibly the feeding pipe to the conservatory…have to trace it back…will
switch everything off for now and be back in the morning…what? Could it get any
worse? Well by now you know full well it can!
Day three I needed to go to a memorial service and was in
no mood to mess around…just get it fixed was the ‘wifezilla’ motto of the day;
they had to empty the ‘Intelligent-one’s’ bedroom of his bed, pull back the
carpet and floorboards and see if that’s where the leak had sprung…as I was
getting ready to go out they cornered me and explained that the leak was not
coming from there but from another pipe which could only be reached from under
the bath. Decision time; choice number 1 they could cut into my nice smoothly
plastered new kitchen ceiling OR choice number 2 they could take the bath out
and lift the floor…another floor ruined…”Just take the bath out” I found the
‘wifezilla’ barking and then I added “I have to go out so I’ll leave you the
door key, I’ll push it through the door on my way out…” trying desperately not
to get flustered, the pain in my back was winding up tightly now, I haven’t
felt this bad in ages, I took the car key off the key ring, collected my bag,
locked the front door posted the keys through the letter box and walked to the
car whilst rummaging in my handbag for the car key…oh for goodness sake I had
put it on the radiator shelf as I went for my bag…OH no! I had locked myself
out with the car key inside and two heating engineers upstairs trying to sort
my leak and probably a bit bothered by my attitude; they are only doing my job
after all! So I banged on the door [the door bell hasn’t worked for years…!]
and shouted through the letter box…until finally one of them came downstairs to
let me in…oops!
On returning later that day I was faced with a real old
mess but a warm house: a) the bath will never go back properly if the ‘Hubby’
has to do it as it needs adjusting and a lot of the tiles came off as well…and
he’s in no rush as no one uses it that much anyway…so he decided that we can
manage for now and one day he’ll fit a shower like the one in the ensuite; b) also
the fact that the heating in the conservatory is a bigger job than they first
thought as the pipe work is not correct and they need…wait for it…to take the
carpet up in the conservatory, trace the pipes back by removing the skirting
boards and then remove the plaster that houses the pipes in the exact spot
where my new breakfast bar is supposed to go! Oh dear Lord what did I do in a
past life to deserve this? Add to this problem they are booked in to do a job
for the next few days and will return the following Friday; ‘wifezilla’ bit
her lip…I just wanted to cry…I now felt the full brunt of a week’s worth of
extra stress and I was in a miserable heap yet again! They left and I surveyed
all the carnage: my kitchen was due to be delivered the day before the heating
engineers can return…it’s not their fault it’s just the way things go…but my
whole house was upside down with floors and carpets and bedding and all the
kitchen contents everywhere…there was only one thing for it…the house was warm,
the new boiler heated water in an instance: I’ll treat myself to a steaming hot
bubble bath that’ll ease my back…I actually opened the bathroom door before
remembering the bath was no longer in there but in the study! The irony of this
is that 18 years ago I said to the ‘Hubby’: “We can buy a hook that matches
the over-the-bath-shower taps and create a second shower for when we have
visitors…” 18 years later I was still waiting for this when my cousin offered
me her’s! Her house was similar in age and the bathroom was the same except
that she had one of those hooks fitted in: she was having a new bathroom fitted
and after a conversation about the shower hook she very kindly offered me it which has now been
sitting on the bathroom shelf for the past two weeks…now I didn’t have a bath
or a shower tap; but I had the hook!
Hey ho! So you see how one thing can lead to another?
My kitchen is due to arrive at any point now but there is
already a delay on the sink…
...what else could possibly go wrong…?
...I’ll keep you
posted!
[Footnote the next blog will be week beginning Monday 10th
December.]
Blog 54 [10]
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