KITCHEN DIARY BY FIONA CUMMINGS

Today words fail me. So, what to write about? I guess keep it safe and tell you about my kitchen if you are not bored already.

Oh my, the drama in my life right now is unreal, but as for the kitchen? Well, my lovely joiner who I totally trust was, or is, going to do our ceiling by putting up plasterboards and covering up the vast damage. I didn’t even know just how bad our ceiling was this is the tragic thing. How would we know? We only knew about the ceiling in the living room because our Son told us there was a rusty mark and the next thing we knew, the water started to fall through from upstairs shower room.

Some stress and weeks later, we got is fixed kind of, yet another dodgy tradesman entered our life. Never mind that was that, we ended up resolving the situation costing more money than we should have paid because of how bad the plasterer left our room.

So, our joiner said to board it then plaster would be fine, the builder said no way it can just be boarded up because you would still be able to see the damage and there will be nothing to knock the boards into as the ceiling isn’t strong enough.

So, the builder’s proposal? To bring down our ceiling, oh my God.

I really hate this house. There isn’t a room where we haven’t had to do some work and in most rooms, loads of work. I truly wished we had not moved here. Having said that, I have met such nice people. My friend keeps trying to get me to move back to where we used to live, but no way, though Hub would move back there tomorrow.

So yesterday morning I got a call from the builder, he said that we are paying masses over the top for the kitchen. He said the kitchen shop over the road will do it cheaper. Talking thousands. Thousands? Well, long and short of it is, I just can’t trust his word on this. Firstly, where we are buying our kitchen from, they come ready made, the other place are flat pack. These wall cupboards are deeper big enough to get a dinner plate in. The place across the road you can’t get a 12 inch plate in the cupboards, apparently. Sales pitch? Possibly. I called our kitchen place and asked if there was a cooling off period? There is. So, our deposit we can get back. But do I want the kitchen from the other place? I know the builder has to purchase it, as they only sell to tradesmen. And they will sell it to him for less obviously and that is how he makes his money. The builder is really pushing a particular lady onto us from the kitchen place. He gave me her name. I called the place across the road and I was told that there wasn’t a lady with that name at their place but at the shop in town there was a sales person with that name. Hmm. And why has the builder not told me just to give anyone a call? Why this person only?

My last house, we were to get windows in. The builder told us that they were expensive but would last a lifetime, the other choice he does was for those who are doing up a house to sell fast and cheaply. So, we picked the expensive ones. The van pulled up, work started. I learned the van had the name of the cheap window company on but the builder charged us for the expensive ones. When I confronted him, he said to be honest they are much the same. This is after he spent weeks pushing the deer ones onto us a saying why? I just can’t stand it. The stress is immense. Do I let the joiner who I trust do the work that will cover damage but possibly the ceiling won’t take the stress of the wood being put onto it? And if the builder is right, will we still see the damage? Our joiner says no, you can’t see the damage because the boards are thick, going back to my problem, will the ceiling take the weight of the boards? As for price, there isn’t much in it between a new ceiling or boarded up.
All I wanted was a bloody new kitchen.