Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Kitchen capers

Kitchen
MY kitchen needed a makeover - with just a sink unit, breakfast bar and just three tiny cupboards on the walls - a new kitchen beckoned.

After a few quotes we decided on a planner and chose the doors, worktops, handles, etc but eventually the date arrived and the reality of ‘out with the old and in with the new’ hit home.

It didn’t take long to empty the three small cupboards into boxes and put them into the lounge. And what about all those gadgets we hardly ever use, that lurk on top of the cupboards.

My flat is a dust magnet, at the best of times but after all the banging about it looks like it’s been snowing in the lounge. 

Despite having the ioniser switched on all the time, it hasn’t been able to cope with the extra fallout. But to be fair, I now have the freshest dust in St Mellons.

The delivery man arrived with the new kitchen and box after box just kept on coming until we were stuffed to the rafters. When the kitchen was full we had plinths in the bedroom, worktops in the hallway and cornices in the lounge.

Our fitters arrived and we sloped off and left them to it. 
When we got back some hours later, the fitter told us the measurements were out and that the magic corner I had paid for was not going to fit in the cupboard! 

Was I mad! I got straight on the phone and shouted at the customer services lady, the manager, and the girl on the switchboard but to no avail. They couldn’t care less that I had paid cash on delivery for the goods even though some of them were no use to me. There was no way I was getting a refund. They said the best they could do was a credit note.

And they were right I checked with Trading Standards I and decided to go for a swap, I just have to find something I can fit in the kitchen to swap the magic corner for.

The fitters were brilliant, they methodically slotted everything into place, even changing the design to give me even more space than the (incompetent) planner had suggested.  
Some of the items sent were damaged and I have to wait a few weeks for my wine rack (oh no!) to be replaced, when my very helpful fitter is coming back to sort it out for me. If only I had known his phone number, I could have gone directly to them and saved myself the hassle and some wonga.

After two days of banging, drilling and living in a bomb site, the job was done and I started to put everything back in the new cupboards.
It was a mammoth task, as every single item had to be cleaned due to the white film of plaster/dust covering the whole flat! 

In the chaos I temporarily lost my trusty friends - the UFO (halogen oven) and Bertie the slow cooker and I couldn’t find the cutlery anywhere. 

By the weekend the kitchen looked great and I was well pleased. I made a cup of tea and as I took it into the lounge I remarked to The Grump “ looks like it needs a makeover in here,” just as he found the steak knives. I made a hasty retreat.

He’ll have to replace that door!