They got underway on January 29th and have been stressful, way more so than was ever sold to us!
On one particular day the house was so worked on that we couldn’t actually live here. We’d already had to leave for the day, that was made clear to us. The woman acting as our liaison is a patronising bitch and, in my mind, most likely a former social worker! The project has been allowed to fall behind and then she had a long weekend off.
This was how it started off looking, this is just with the kitchen removed. Not too horrendous, it was still useable anyway.
We had already moved most things into other parts of the house so just needed the fridge, sink and cooker to be connected.
The floor tiles were meant to have been removed by now but that didn’t happen as the Asbestos (ASBO Man as they seem to call him and his team) Surveyor said they had asbestos underneath. Turned out they didn’t but this was after the destruction team left them to the ASBO team who then left it because there was no asbestos.
The walls were stripped but not very well so the plasterers had to dry line all the walls and plaster over that to sort the room out again
This is what our lounge is like, indeed, most rooms in the house are similar with only the bare essentials left out of boxes.
Of course, the stupid manager didn’t let us know they had to change all the light fittings, she said they wouldn’t so we placed everything underneath them. This caused the electricians some real issues so things got broken, that and she’d allocated the same amount of time as she normally would to a 3 bedroom house. As this has 5 bedrooms and an extra reception room, it was a stupid deadline that they couldn’t keep to and they did try.
So, the result is, carefully stacked boxes were toppled and things cascaded and fell to the floor and broke. The manager was being totally unrealistic and not communicating adequately. We had no clue what was going on most of the time, the written schedule had long since become useless.
So, on our worst day we came home past the kids bed time at 6:30pm to discover the house uninhabitable. Loose wired, carpets up, the contents of our loft thrown onto beds, dirt everywhere, we just couldn’t get it cleaned at all let alone in time to sleep. Thankfully, Sue and Fred amazingly took us in, Adam gave up his bed, we were really grateful for that otherwise we’d have had to fun a hotel.
We are now one week into this and the light is appearing at the end of the tunnel. The double glazing is in, though badly, so still needs to be made good. The bathroom is in but, wonky and broken so needs to be made good. The tiles are nearly up from the kitchen, so someone is coming back to make that good. Holes for the new extractor fans were drilled and covered up again by the plasterers! Tomorrow we have the central heating being replaced, double glazing checked by the boss man, floor totally removed from kitchen, plastering done, and something else I have forgotten!
Wednesday the kitchen is meant to be going in, I think that’s a little optimistic.
Daisy and me had a short break Saturday when I took her to see Sleeping Beauty, the ballet in Milton Keynes. I thought it was amazing, I think Daisy did too.
I am missing seeing some of my friends, Tyler in particular, he always makes me laugh. Many others I just want to chill with too, just so little time.