DIY Home Redecoration

Kitchen Remodeling – week 19

The floor laying has started – at last. Given that the wood pieces are reclaimed from an old factory, every single one of them has to be checked and cleaned before gluing them down. Most are covered in (horrid, black, sticky) bitumen which needs to be scraped off. The walls are getting greyer and greyer. I have rebuilt my plastic enclosure to seal the hallway and upstairs – but still, when I run my finger over the freshly painted walls and woodwork in our bedroom, it becomes rather dusty..

Of course the builders have started their usual moaning – there is more work than they anticipated and it will take longer. They say that the floor pieces are more dirty and damaged than they normally are. Although the older guy (the boss) visited us twice during the last few months and inspected the parquet bits – he seems to have forgotten about doing so. I do agree it’s a rather messy job and time-consuming but I’m sure this is not the first time they’ve done it. More importantly, they took on the project and they knew exactly what they’d agreed to do. Even more importantly, they are getting paid for it. Builders tend to behave as if they were doing us a favour. They are providing a service for which we, the clients or customers, have to pay. And they do make a good living out of us, that’s for sure! So they should really stop whinging about having to work a bit harder. But I shut up – I don’t even comment when they go on about it – I pretend I’m not listening or divert the conversation when they moan directly to me. I just want them to get on with it. I don’t want to fall out with these ones too.

They’ve done the kitchen area so this weekend we can install the base units and the sink. At last we can have some running water. We decided not to have the parquet under the dishwasher, sink and oven units – we put two layers of marine ply up to the level of the parquet. There will be a kicker board under these units, so there was no point in using expensive flooring beneath it.

Otherwise nothing is happening; we have some time to do some work to try to make us a living.