We've lived in our house for around twenty-five years now. Probably about twenty years ago, I offered to give the kitchen a makeover. We didn't have much money, so I figured some new work surfaces and cupboard doors would at least buy me a few years before we took the plunge on what is a very expensive exercise: a new kitchen. Like most men's cunning plans, things didn't quite go as I'd hoped, and in fact, I had to repair the floor and replace a few of the rotten cupboards. Suffice it to say, I spent double what I'd initially budgeted for.
My long-suffering wife had reached the limit of how much longer she could ignore the sagging doors and mismatched cupboard ( On the left of the first picture ) and demanded a new kitchen, and so, like a lot of families in the UK, it was off to B&Q a DIY outlet after making an appointment with one of their 'Kitchen Design Team.'
Back in the good old days, you had someone come to the house, measure up, show you some catalogues, and help you choose the right items for your particular room. These days, with the wonders of computers and 3D modelling, there's no need to give your space a once-over, or so they believe!
My wife, bless her, doesn't do "visualising" so she finds it difficult to understand, for example, that an oblong can't go in a square: "Why not? they both have straight edges!" 🤦♂️
I knew we would have a problem with the wall that has the window. All base units, that's the cupboards to you and me, are 600mm deep; however, from the doorway to the wall, it's 3200mm.
Designer: "We don't supply half-base units with our installation service."
Me: "But we have that doorway, and the wife doesn't want to block it up."
Designer: "We don't supply half-base units with our installation service."
Me: "But you sell them, I bought mine from you. Admittedly, it was about twenty years ago, but even so."
Designer: "We don't supply half-base units with our installation service."
Me: "OK, let's continue and see what we can do."
The computer program is a simple drag-and-drop. The designer picks from a list of cupboards, sinks, fridges, and washing machines until they—or should I say the computer—have built an image of your dream kitchen.
Designer: "I can't get your washing machine to fit!"
Me: "Well it does fit, it's fitted now."
Designer: "The system won't let me put it there."
Me: "That's because you use 600mm bases."
Designer: "We don't supply half-base units with our installation service."
At was at this point, I wanted to find a way to get my wife to leave the store so I could suggest we go somewhere else when, to my utter horror (Remember, I'm a salesperson), the designer said: "I don't think we can help you, it might be better if you went somewhere else maybe someone who builds kitchens." I was both horrified and relieved. I was horrified that the designer was willing to throw away a £15K sale but relieved as I was about to explode with frustration.
In all fairness, I should be honest and own up that the wife finally came around to the idea of blocking the door off. I've cut down our interaction at B&Q because it went on for ages and became even more bizarre and annoying as time went on. For example, the designer suggested having the washing machine and two bases fitted, and we fitted a 3200mm unit ourselves, which meant that as you walked through the door, you would have to side-step to the right to avoid the 600mm bases. 😱
We went to Wickes, where our design experience was far better but still riddled with problems.
In part 2
"Sixty-Seven packs of tiles? Are we doing the whole house?"
"They haven't loaded the handles, oven, and some panels."
"It'd be funny if those tiles were coming from all over the West Midlands!"
Image created by irisworld
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We'll go through this some time fairly soon. It's 20 years since we fitted our kitchen ourselves. We bought some display units at auction plus a few more to fill gaps. Made a feature of them not matching. Now the other half wants a new look with more stuff concealed as we're open plan. I'll let someone else fit it this time as I've had enough of that stuff and usually bodge it. Good luck with yours.
It's a nightmare. Yesterday, the wife texted me, "The plumber is struggling to fit the radiator." How can you possibly have trouble putting a radiator back where one was removed? This morning, there was no heating! I'm no plumber, but I had an inkling of the issue. The idiot hadn't refilled the expansion tank. Once I topped it up, the heating burst into life; however, you could hear water filling up the radiator, so it would seem he hadn't bled the system.
Then, the Nest decided it was going to disconnect with the boiler, and they're a bugger to reconnect if your Nest and boiler are at the limit of the Bluetooth link. My parting words to the wife this morning were: "I'm so glad I'm going to work to escape this nightmare of a house!"
You don't want heating issues just as it turns cold. Our original boiler got condemned on a service in winter. Could use the immersion for water at least. Best to get it checked in warmer times.
We have a Nest and other half doesn't fully trust it. I think it does okay really and it's not had connection issues. She comes in and says the house is cold, but that could be due to her still being cold.
I love being able to tell Google to "Turn the temperature to twenty-one degrees." it reinforces my lazy git persona.
I replaced our boiler and six radiators about six years ago.
Comming in and saying it's cold My missus does that! Or gets out a nice warm bed and says: "It's hot in here!" 😱
Wow! It certainly requires a lot of energy for a remodel.
It's still not complete. We're into week two now, and we've no oven, drawers are missing, and the plumber is having trouble (Today) getting the new radiator working: "It's water in a pipe. There's nothing mechanical!"
I'm spoiling part 3 now.