Knackered
Posted: Sun 15 April, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, House Work Leave a comment »I’ve been up at the new house again this weekend, and in that time I’ve
- ‘Pruned’ (AKA annihilated) a buddleia, right back to first growths, which has left it roughly 10% of the original size. This is A Good Thing
- Tidied a lot of the garden, and chopped up the remains of the annihilation for use on the wood-burner when we have that installed
- Removed 11m² of poxy bloody laminate flooring and underlay
- Removed 18.5m² of manky lino floor tiles
In addition there’s been all the normal domestic stuff – shopping, walking Hound, playing with Hound in the new garden etc. etc.
And now, I have to say, I’m totally bloody knackered. Which is fair.
B&Q – Another Attempt
Posted: Sat 14 April, 2007 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, House Work 11 Comments »I forgot to say at the time, (although I did mention it in the summary of the week) but when we were checking out quotes and costs for getting floor tiles for the house – a large task, but one that makes a lot of sense in the long run- we decided to brave B&Q again. After all, I’ve slagged off their home delivery service and website, and the comments from various B&Q employees on there have all made out that the people in the store are a lot better.
Now bear in mind I didn’t go in with the attitude “B&Q are shit” or any preconceptions – and also bear in mind that we’ll be going back later for some of the things we do want, which we’ve seen there for decent prices.
Anyway, we’re looking for (at the time – the specs changed slightly later on) roughly 126m² of floor tiles. That equates to One Fuck Of A Lot of tiles. About a thousand tiles, depending on the tile size (obviously) and when you take into account the amunt of tile adhesive and grout we want as well, we’re talking somewhere around the £2-2,500 mark.
We see a tile type we like, and (when we eventually find one) ask a member of the staff team whether it’s possible to buy one tile to take home to check we like the things when they’re in situ.
“Oh, I dunno, snomydeparmen. I’llgoantryanfinesommunwhoknows” Roughly translated, this works out as “Oh, I don’t know. Sorry, it’s not my department. Wait here, and I’ll go and try to find someone who does know, and may be able to help you“. I think.
We wait.
Eventually he comes back with someone else.
“We don’t do sample tiles. It’s not policy”
“We’re not wanting to just take one, we’re quite happy to pay for it”
“We don’t do sample tiles. It’s not policy. You can buy a complete box, and bring it back for a refund”
“We don’t want a box. We just want one tile so we can see how it looks. Look, here’s one that’s seperate, so you don’t even need to break open a pack”
“We don’t do sample tiles. It’s not policy.You can buy a complete box, and then bring it back for a refund”
“Look, we’re going to be buying a hundred and twenty five square metres of these tiles. We would like to buy this one seperate tile, so we can see how it looks in the place before buying two grands worth of tiles, plus adhesive and grout”
You guessed it.
“We don’t do sample tiles. You can buy a full box, then return it if you don’t like them”
“OK, so for want of this one seperate tile, you’re prepared to lose a sale of about two thousand pounds?”
“We don’t do sample tiles”
“Can I speak to your manager please? I’d just like them to know why they’re going to lose this amount of business”
“I am the manager” (Aye, right)
“OK, then. You’ve just lost our business, because you won’t let us buy this one tile, because it’s ‘not policy’. That’s two grand (roughly) plus all the adhesive, tile grout and so on. Nice work.
He did let us have the tile in the end, once we’d started walking away. Amazing what that’ll do, just demonstrating that actually yes, you can find other places, and that B&Q aren’t the be-all and end-all of the business. I’m not quite sure what the ‘policy’ is that he was quoting, but I suspect it’s “B&Q have a policy of not wanting large dollops of business. Piss off to a proper place instead”
Unsurprisingly, we won’t be going with them for the tiles. And yet again it gives the lie to all those commenters who say that the staff in-store at B&Q are really helpful and do their best to help anyone who asks.
Aye, right. 200% of fuck-all is still fuck-all.
House Progress
Posted: Thu 12 April, 2007 Filed under: Getting Organised, House Work 2 Comments »It’s now a week since we collected the keys for the house, and so far progress has been pretty good. Obviously there’s still a long way to go, but for the first week, yeah, I think we’re generally happy with what’s happened so far.
In that week we’ve:
- Cleared out the garage of existing crap
- Got rid of a mahogany-veneer flatpack monstrosity, horrific 80s brick/stone/concrete fireplace, carpet, and underlying lino floortiles in the living room
- Removed all the old damp carpets from the other rooms
- Stripped half the poxy fucking Anaglypta® wallpaper in the hallway and half the easy-to-remove stuff in the living room
- Measured all the rooms, and the garden (a mere 165ft x 50ft) and drawn up basic plans for what goes where etc.
- Talked to the architect regarding the plans he sent through, and sent back amendments
- Sorted out a new account with water board (surprisingly painless) and electricity provider (also surprisingly painless)
- Filled a 6ft³ skip with crap frm the house, had that collected, and replaced it with a 4ft³ one
- Contacted a decent local electrician (the joy of contacts in the area)
- Found a potential supplier/installer for the wood-burner we plan to put in – and decided on the types of wood-burner we want to see when they come over
and - Had quotes from three places for the floor tiles we want (including a wonderful argument in B&Q), found a place with a good price and placed the order – for 116m² of tiles, plus all the adhesive and grout
So yeah,, not bad at all.
Tonight, and over the coming week we plan to :
- Meet the electrician, and get a quote
- See the stoves/wood-burners, and get a proper quote on how much it’ll cost
- Sort out the veg-patch area of the garden (Herself’s domain)
- Strip all remaining wallpaper
- Get rid of poxy cheap laminate flooring in hallway
- Decide what to do with the teak parquet flooring that’s underneath it
- (Hopefully) Take delivery of all the floor tiles etc.
- Work out the poxy boiler/heating/hot-water system, which is currently tits-up
- (Hopefully) Get the boiler checked out and serviced
- Deal with meter readings etc. for the electricity account (I’ve done it twice and lost the notes on both occasions)
and probably another couple of things I can’t currently remember.
Not busy at all, then…
Job Done
Posted: Wed 11 April, 2007 Filed under: House Work Leave a comment »Yes, the fireplace is no more. It took another hour and a half to get rid of the last bits, and the lumpy dollops of concrete that remained.
The combination of 4lb lump hammer and cold chisel, along with judicious use of a wrecking bar meant that most of it came out one hell of a lot easier than the first bit. But the concrete lumps were still a bastard.
Now for the poxy laminate. (Well, tomorrow, anyway)
New Tools
Posted: Tue 10 April, 2007 Filed under: House Work 2 Comments »Last night, I bought some new tools for use while sorting out the house over the next few days.
These included:
- A 4lb lump hammer
- an 18″ wrecking bar
- another cold chisel
- a 15″ levering bar (I can’t remember the full correct title for it, but it’s a flat version of a wrecking bar)
and - a pair of decent work-gloves for my poor delicate little hands that’ve never done a day’s physical labour in their lives. *ahem*
The remains of the fireplace are going to regret those purchases, I tell you now…
Day Four (of four)
Posted: Mon 9 April, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, House Work Leave a comment »Not a lot been done on the house today – mainly because of social plans, but also because it’s good to have a day where we’re not working on it solidly.
At the same time, though, I’ve bought a decent lump hammer and wrecking bar (crowbar, prybar, whatever) in order to finish off that poxy fireplace as well as getting rid of laminate, lino floor tiles and the like in other places.
In addition, we’ve decided on the necessary amendments to the plans sent to us by the architect, and checked up on some suppliers, and ordered some brochures.
All in all, we’re just getting sorted for the next weeks or so of work.
Day Three (of four)
Posted: Sun 8 April, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, House Work Leave a comment »Jesus, I’m knackered. Today’s been busy, and we’ve got a lot done.
That’s the living room, before and after. The fucking horrid fireplace is all but gone, although it’s been an utter bastard. Whichever genius put the thing in appears to have put the rocks/bricks about six inches in front of the wall, and then filled the gap with concrete/cement. It’s a serious bit of kit – or at least it was.
We’ve also stripped half the wallpaper from the hallway – it’s fucking Anaglypta, and an utter, utter cunt to get rid of – and half the wallpaper in the living room as well. Although (as the photos show) it’s also taken a whole chunk of plaster with it. But that wall needed reskimming anyway once the fireplace is removed completely.
Tomorrow is going to be quiet, as we’re doing social stuff instead of working at the house. And now I’m off for a shower, because I’m fucking filthy, ache all over, and aim to collapse for the evening soon after.