Cheery's country living adventure

Baileys_Babe

That is very frustrating that the kitchen fitters will not give you the prices for the granite.
At least if they would group your selection into bands and give you a ballpark figure for each band it would be a start. Or tell you the cheapest and most expensive and then tell you the order would be something. 
Hopefully, they will give you more information very soon.

Cheery_Daff

I think it's the granite people themselves who are the problem - they wouldn't give us any indication of cheaper or more expensive when we were there. Most annoying. I think the kitchen fitters are worried that the granite place and/or stonemason are going to get annoyed with them for asking for so many quotes - but really the only need to give one, then tell us whether the others are cheaper or more expensive. It's not difficult!

Baileys_Babe

No, it is not difficult so why is the business making it so hard for a customer to buy something?

Cheery_Daff

That is precisely my question! Suosedly because they want you to fall in love with something,then agree to buy it anyway when you find out the price. A couple of the big kitchen places we tried were the same- no prices, you just had to 'decide what you wanted' then they'd give you an overall price, not breaking down each of the unit, appliances etc so you could mix and match. So annoying! 

Anyway, our bedroom door issue has been solved, and we can have the width of door we wanted (which is good, because we already have a door 😂). All good. 

Baileys_Babe

Pleased you have solved the door dilemma.

EssexHebridean

Are you paying the granite people directly for the worktops Cheery? Or are you paying the kitchen fitters and they then paying the granite supplier? If the latter, or if they *think* it's the latter, that could explain it - but if they know that you are their customer then personally I'd be inclined to see if there is anyone else local you could look at for it. Although we did have issues with our worktop suppliers down the line, they were completely upfront about pricing stuff, in fairness to them. Frankly if it is simply that the supplier you are looking at is essentially waiting to see how much they can get away with charging you, I'd be very inclined to tell them to stick their granite up their...well, yes!  

Glad the door dilemma has been sorted too - I bet you were NOT in favour of leaving the frame off, were you!  

Cheery_Daff

No I wasn't! But then neither was I in favour of having a narrow door that would just get taken off the minute the builders left, nor asking the builder to do something complicated that would require extra work so we seemed to be at a bit of an impasse... 

However, our suggestion that they leave the door off prompted half an hour of three-way problem solving, and we have managed to sort a solution that satisfies us, and shouldn't be too much extra work for them. Fingers crossed... 

As for the granite... We went to visit the supplier, and they wouldn't give us prices. We're actually buying through the kitchen fitter (who is sorting a stonemason to cut and fit), so they have to ring either the stonemason or the supplier for prices - and they're just being a bit wimpish about asking them for 8 different quotes Might give them a list in order of preference, tell them to get as many quotes as they are brave enough for, and then if none of them are as cheap as the original 'cheapest granite' quote they gave us, go back and keep asking for different quotes until we get a cheap one  

I fail to see why nobody can at least give a price band (eg A=cheapest) even if they don't give exact prices!

Anyway... bit of an annoying day all round really. 

Poor phone was managing valiantly this morning, but has been flashing alarmingly green throughout the afternoon. I'm just retrieving photos and then will order a new one. I've not even had this one that long - how annoying! 

Cheery_Daff

Yep - 21st March, £179 

Cheery_Daff

Hmm, investigating screen repairs - the places I've found so far seem to be charging about £200! Which is all very well if you paid hundreds for the phone... Not sure whether it is just the screen that's broken, especially as the top inch or so I can see, but it doesn't respond to touch, and now the whole thing is flashing bright green quite a lot of the time... 

Right, decision made. Had a quick scroll through eb*y at a bewildering array of options (just for this one phone!) but giffgaff are doing a refurbished one (which I had last time and have been very happy with) for £169, delivered tomorrow, so I'm going with that. Apparently I can recycle this one with them and get £14.20 so I might do that to recoup a tiny bit  

Doesn't feel very MSE, but this is what emergency funds are for, right?? I could probably save £30 or even £40 by waiting a few days... but on this occasion I'm not going to, I can't stand being without a phone, and we don't even have a landline at the minute. And I'm impatient and stomping my foot, of course...

hb2

Cheery, what an absolute pain about your phone! I don't blame you for wanting another one ASAP, especially as you don't have a landline.

I'm glad that you have found a solution to the door problem.

It's not surprising that you are frustrated about the lack of pricing info for the worktops; I don't think there are that many people who can have whatever they like, irrespective of cost!