Cheery's country living adventure

EssexHebridean

I had a feeling you might have had more snow - glad it's not stopping people getting to you though! Also really pleased that the kitchen fitter has sorted the granite - it almost sounds as though perhaps things settled a bit after they'd finished yesterday which caused the drop doesn't it. 

themadvix

Bit late to the party, but I'm glad you're both OK and life has resumed some sort of normality! What a palaver indeed!

Glad the kitchen fitter could see the issue with the worktop and has sorted it out too. It's always a relief when you point something out and they go 'oh yes, that's not right', rather than thinking you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Not much further to go now before you can really enjoy it all in peace!

rtandon27

Cheery - making it to the end of November is indeed something to applaud!

Karmacat

Yep, you've done really well just surviving - getting your kitchen very nearly sorted out is fantastic, well done both  

Cheery_Daff

Certainly feels like it RT!
Carpet guys have turned up and are getting on very efficiently. Granite is repositioned and the guy was putting the upstands back on when we left. 

Took the car to the garage - we cracked a bit of the plastic underneath going over a mound of hard snow the other day 🙄 Looks like an easy fix thank goodness. And I left the window open on the other car so the driver's seat is soaked through and freezing 🙄

Having a look at finances having still not had a detailed invoice from the builder...

Original quote was about £13,500 - not including the kitchen itself, but including £2400 for fitting (which is now being done by the kitchen fitters) and £400 for tiling (which we've not had). So if we take that £2800 off, let's say the original quote was roughly £10,700.

That included all trades and VAT. We've now been invoiced by all trades (except the electrician, who hasn't finished) separately, so have paid out:

£1275 plumber
£3960 plasterers
£1710 builder's apprentice
£2584 materials from building merchant (included in original quote)
£6500 deposit and first two (non-itemised) installments to builder
= £13,445

Been told the electrician will cost about £1750, so adding that to the total above
= £15,195

Builder has asked for another £2500, and said a final (minimal) invoice will follow when he's been out the final time. Let's ignore that final one for now - even just with the extra £2500 that takes the total to...
= £17,695

I know we had a lot of messing about, and changing our minds, etc, but given that we've gone about £7000 over the original quote I don't think it's unreasonable to want an itemised list - especially as much of the extra was plastering, plumbing, electrics etc which we have been itemised already. 

I'm wondering whether he's left in the amount for the kitchen fitting... He'd already told me about around £4000 worth of extra as we went along, but I'm just not sure where the extra £3000 has come from if it's not the kitchen fitting. They all work together so I don't care who we pay but I don't want to pay twice. It's also quite feasible we have indeed racked up that much extra, but it seems like an awful lot...

Anyway, I'm not paying up til he's given me a list, and I'm not chasing him, so...

themadvix

Quite right too. That's a big discrepancy and he needs to explain where it has come from. And if he wants to get paid he needs to get on it and get that itemised list sent. 

Cheery_Daff

Will it ever end? 

We need a new tap - this one gushes out of the sides rather than the actual tap. Nobody's fault, the sink was out of a skip, the builder offered to put a new tap on last week but there was no indication of anything being wrong with it so we said no 🙄 But we can pick one up from B&Q tonight and they can fit it tomorrow. 

Mr Cheery has decided he doesn't like the colour of the doors though, or the pattern on two of them, which he now wants to pay to replace 🙄

I'm definitely sneaking off to the Premier Inn tonight if the heating doesn't get fixed 🙄

EssexHebridean

I'm hoping that very shortly indeed there will be a man arriving who will - in very short order - repair your heating, and that you can then tuck yourself away in the worlds longest, hottest bath for a while.... 

Could it be suggested to MrCheery that perhaps it might be ideal to live with the doors for a while and see if they "settle in" in your minds at all? Just to push a bit of additional hassle down the line so you're still "house to ourselves" almost as planned? 

beanielou

Glad that the granite is sorted 

Cheery_Daff

EssexHebridean said:

I'm hoping that very shortly indeed there will be a man arriving who will - in very short order - repair your heating, and that you can then tuck yourself away in the worlds longest, hottest bath for a while.... 

Could it be suggested to MrCheery that perhaps it might be ideal to live with the doors for a while and see if they "settle in" in your minds at all? Just to push a bit of additional hassle down the line so you're still "house to ourselves" almost as planned? 

I am delighted to report that a very nice man did indeed turn up and fix our heating 😁😁 It seems there was not that much wrong with it - we'd managed to get quite a lot of air in the system while draining and refilling, and it had basically done a safety shut down. So he just had to reset it (and check that it wasn't one of the more serious things indicated unhelpfully by the same error code) and we're back up and running!

Also booked him to do a boiler service next week, add the inhibitor to the system so the builder doesn't have to come back to do it, and replace the electric water heater in the loft that's been broken for over a year, which means we'll be able to have hot water in the small bathroom and utility room. Bravo! 

I've managed to put a stop to any decision making (and even talking about) the doors for tonight at least, which is a start... 🙄

It's AMAZING what a difference being warm makes. Truly amazing. Ten minutes in and I found the energy to hoover, which I've not done for days. We've even done a tiny bit of tidying up! House hasn't been above 10 degrees for the last wee, and was about 3 for much of that. Thermostat now set to a positively tropical 16 😂😂😂