Adversity

(Fresh concrete going down.)

It has been a week in which 800 bags of soil, hardcore and cement have gone through our front door.

A week that has seen our new kitchen, which had lately had windows installed, been plastered, and was on the decorating home straight, transformed into a 52 square metre hole in the ground.

A week in which Husband and I have lain awake wheezing and staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night for more hours than we will ever care to look back and remember.

A week that began with shattering news and ended, thankfully, with a ray of hope at the end of the tunnel, or should that be foundations, and the joy of Middle One's birthday.

And also a week in which, in the midst of disaster, there have been positives: friends who have pulled the stops out to pick up the phone, to text and to write, to be supportive, empathetic and kind, and family, in particular my parents, a constant source of support and reassurance on the end of the phone, and most wonderfully of all, Husband. 

Who would have thought that going through a, let's call it 'very eventful', kitchen extension would have done wonders for the old marriage? In adversity, it turns out, we pull together and draw support from one another. Who knew?

It is quite literally one of my worse nightmares to have nothing but a hole in the ground at the back of the house. You know those dreams in which you have to give a speech and then you suddenly realise you're naked? Or when you are desperately trying to get through to someone on the phone and can't? Or when it's your Geography GCSE the next day and you haven't revised? (With me it's always Geography, no idea why. I got a B.) Well, I have one where the back of the house is missing. The builders have come and knocked it all down and gone away. And that pretty much came true, except that they didn't go away, thank God. I kept thinking that they might. Every night after they left I would do a quick audit of their tools and clothes: still there, I would think. Phew.

Here we are now, seven days on from 'that' day, the day we discovered that the concrete floor was no good and had to come up, and since then the builders have dug the whole lot out, down 400 mm into bare soil, carted nearly all of it out the front door, put down a new cement layer with DPM underneath (damp proof membrane, you see I know all the lingo now), built sleeper walls and joists and nearly completed the insulation layer before the marine ply and then underfloor heating go on top, all before the lovely Christof (see previous blog) is due to come back on Wednesday to lay the engineered timber. You see I told them, when we discovered the cock-up, that they had just over a week to sort it all out and if they manage to get it finished by Wednesday, as promised, we will end up only two days behind the original schedule and back on track for Christmas.

So, with reference to my previous blog sign off, I would say that it looks like he can do it, and that he is up to the job… but I'll have to let you know. 

Watch this space.

Love E x

Twitter @DOESNOTDOIT

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Dont-Know-How-She-Doesnt-Do-It/547812378582001

Life is a series of problems.

The state of the concrete floor.

"Life is a series of problems that need to be solved," said Maggie Smith, aka the Dowager Countess of Downton Abbey, during Sunday evening's episode. Or something like that. We seem to be having more than our fair share of them at the moment. 

Yesterday should have been a red letter day for us, a day to celebrate having a watertight kitchen again after 16 long weeks, with new doors installed by Express Bi-Folding windows, from Leeds no less. 

They have been great, a good service, on time, to a high standard. But. BUT. On the very day they were being installed, lovely Christof, from Waxed Floors in Clapham, popped in to test the moisture content in the concrete floor and check it was level before laying the beautiful engineered timber next week, and he was not happy. He rang me. I was at the library collecting parking permits. I sat down. 

"Bad news, I'm afraid," he said, and I knew what he was going to say. We already had an inkling that all was not right. 

I realised that my breathing had become a little laboured, shallower, and that my hands were shaking ever so slightly. All I could think was: "what's the solution, what's the solution, what's the solution?" I always want to hear a solution straightaway but you have to let people tell you the problem in detail in their own time first and usually, for me, that means SLOWLY. SLOWLY. SLOWLY. I'm nothing if not impatient, it's a characteristic I deplore in myself and it has caused me many a problem in the past. Act in haste, repent at leisure. I think about that a lot.

So, do you want the detail, or the long and the short of it? I thought so. Here's the long and the short of it. 

The concrete is crap, it's dust, something went wrong with the mix. It's not level either but that hardly matters by comparison with the quality. It has to come up. It is coming up right now as I write, and quite quickly and easily too as it happens, probably because it is crap.

What now then? What is the solution? Do we have a new concrete floor put down, which will be quick to lay but take 5- 6 weeks to dry before the engineered timber floor can be fitted on top, and which definitely means missing Christmas in our new kitchen? Or, do we get the builder to make a new floor with joists, with the underfloor heating coiled between? I believe that's called a floating floor. 

Answers on a postcard (or below) would be great because we really have no clue what to do for the best, and unfortunately neither does our builder. On the plus side he is trying to put it right. For free.

We originally wanted a concrete floor because they conduct heat well and retain that heat for a long time, and it's the cheapest and easiest thing for the builder to do (you would think). The downside is that it takes time to dry before you can lay engineered timber on top.

The floating floor is a skilled job. It all has to be cut and laid and made level. This is what, at the moment, we have decided to aim for because if it can be done in a week we can still make Christmas. IF. The builder says he can do it in a week...

But can he? 

And is he up to the job?

New windows going in. Finding out that the floor had to come up rather rained on our parade.

Twitter @DOESNOTDOIT

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Dont-Know-How-She-Doesnt-Do-It/547812378582001

The builders

(Eldest shooting a video for his media project in the 'kitchen'.)

The builders have been here since Friday July 26th and I have officially had enough.

I am aware that moaning about builders is what Middle One calls, 'a first world problem'. We're not a displaced war-traumatised family in Syria. We're not Eritreans so desperate to flee poverty we're prepared to risk life and limb in an overcrowded leaky old boat on rough seas. We are a middle class family of five in south London having a kitchen extension. 

Still, I think I might be suffering from a PTBS, that's post-traumatic builder stress, except it's not so much post because they're still very much here. Unfortunately. Here are a few observations -

1. Kitchen extensions in Victorian terraced houses are inherently horrible because everything has to come through the front door. That's every wheelbarrow, every ounce of concrete, every pipe and wire and breezeblock, every brick, and every bum-crack sporting brickie. 

3. Builders don't tell the truth. They can't help it. Number one is the schedule. "Oh it will only take 11 weeks max," means, "It will take five and a half months and by the time we're finished we will all loathe the sight of each other."

4. Builders offer to do extra things in your house at the start of the job and then don't follow through. You want that underfloor heating tweaked in the upstairs bathroom? No problem, we can easily fit a new control panel for you. All such offers miraculously dry up the minute the build starts. We all know this will happen but choose to be optimistic.

5. Why?

6. The price always goes up, never down. Even if some things end up quicker and easier than they thought. 

7. Who am I kidding? Nothing ends up easier or quicker than they thought. 

8. Quite how the price goes up is a mystery since you told them exactly what you wanted at the outset. 

9. When builders make a mistake they pass the cost on to you. (For example, not building the trench for the foundations deep enough and having to re-dig them.) When you make a mistake the cost stops with you. How any builder in London ever goes out of business is a mystery, it's foolproof. Having said that...

10. So far our builders have - failed to cover the beautiful front tessellated path so that it's now worn and cracked and damaged, tripped out the leccy when we were on holiday so that all the food went off in the fridge and had to be thrown away, failed to consider disconnecting the kitchen alarm so that it went off the whole time upsetting the neighbours, put a foot through the cellar ceiling damaging a pipe and causing a flood, made an absolutely bloody huge mistake with the main supporting beam so that it was failed TWICE by the building inspector and there are now cracks all over the place, made a glass door with a frame too narrow for a proper handle, plaster-boarded around a fireplace with non-fireproof board, over-run by four weeks with no real end date in sight. Although I'm sure most of this is par for the course.

On the plus side the beam has finally passed, the plasterers are in today and the builder seems to be a basically good guy who gave Husband a bottle of vodka for his birthday and mended our wedding picture. And he says he'll fix the damage to the house free of charge. He's going to put that in writing.

So watch this space reader…

Love E x

(Beautiful glass door, no space for a proper handle.)

Twitter @DOESNOTDOIT

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Dont-Know-How-She-Doesnt-Do-It/547812378582001

Cracks

Cracks have appeared. Both literal and metaphorical. 

The literal ones are running in alarming lines down the back of the house, especially around the windows. 

The metaphorical ones are in our relationship with our builder, whom we thought was lovely, but have discovered was keeping things from us.

Meanwhile, Husband has had a significant birthday and we have since escaped to North Yorkshire to our favourite little hotel for some much needed R & R. 

Here is one of the cracks...

Here is the birthday...

Here is the hotel...

More next week...

Love E x

Twitter @DOESNOTDOIT

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Dont-Know-How-She-Doesnt-Do-It/547812378582001

Don't Let The Bastards Get You Down.

8.20 am. Wednesday. I've just given the boys a lift to school and now I'm back at the house. As I open the front door I nearly step on my face. My smashed wedding photograph is lying on the hall floor, little fragments of glass scattered far and wide. Quite how it landed that far from its position halfway up the stairs where it was innocently resting on the wall is a mystery. 

I pick it up and start to carry it into the living room. The door bell rings. Again. I let a builder in. Again. Another one. There are already a multitude of them milling around at the back of the house. 

"What's that?" says the builder.
"My smashed wedding picture," I say. 
"Who did that?" he says.
"I don't know," I say.

Then I go back into the living room, still holding the picture, and switch on the kettle. Out in the hall the doorbell goes again and again and again...

The phone rings. I answer it, still holding the picture. It is my neighbour. He is calling to tell me about the roofer he just used to solve the damp problem in his top back bedroom. 

We also have a damp problem in the top back bedroom. It is on going. We've had three roofers up there in that past few years and spent a lot of money on it - all to no avail.

"I'll send him over to you in a bit," he says. 
"Thanks, I say, "but I have a governors committee meeting at the primary school this morning, so I won't be in." 
"Okay," he says, "I'll get him to ring you instead." 
"That would be better," I say. 

So now I'm in a hurry. There is something I want to do before the meeting. I want to make a message. The school just had a nasty OFSTED inspection and I want to cheer them up, especially the head teacher because he is a lovely man and a great head. I'm very fond of him.

I put the smashed picture down on the sofa and go upstairs with a piece of A4 card, lots of old newspapers, a pair of scissors, and a Pritt stick. I must remember to print out the agenda and the minutes from the last meeting as well, I think, and it's already ten past nine...

The doorbell rings. It is my neighbour, and he has the roofer with him. "I thought I'd send him over to you now," he says.

"Right," I say, and I feel my back teeth clamp together.

As quick as I can, I show the roofer the wet patch in the top back bedroom. It's Middle One's room. Since the building work started the problem has got worse. There are cracks, and where once there was a constellation of tiny luminous stuck-on stars for him to look at able his head, now limp lining paper hangs down to reveal a festering black hole.

We discuss the cost and feasibility of having the chimney removed. It's a shame you didn't think of this before the extension, says the roofer, because now it will be very hard to access the roof. I keep looking at my watch. 

We go back downstairs. He wants my number, or my email, but I can't find a piece of paper or a pen and now it's getting late so he leaves without either, saying he'll pop a quote through the door over the weekend (he doesn't).

I go back to my office and finish making the message. I print the last minutes and the agenda. I dash down to the school. We have the meeting and afterwards we chat about the OFSTED. I give the head teacher my unsigned message in a blank manila envelope. 

I walk home. I open the door. I go into the living room. I glance over at my smashed wedding picture. Except it's not. It's not smashed any more. 

I do a double take. I know I'm tired, I know I'm stressed and anxious and exhausted because there are 9 builders in the house and it's week 12 of constant banging and drilling and no kitchen, but am I actually hallucinating now? 

Slowly it dawns on me that someone must have taken the smashed photograph and had it mended and then put it back in exactly the same position, while I was out. The builder. 

So that message I made, out of lots of cut-out letters from old newspapers and stuck on a piece of card, to give to the head teacher and staff at the school where I am a governor, and where they just had a horrible OFSTED inspection, it said: Don't Let The Bastards Get You Down. 

Seems appropriate somehow.

Love E x

(That's the photo at the top, now back on the wall.)


P.S. Thanks for reading! Stats are very high. Several thousand over a month and now more than a thousand just on blog day. Do comment if you want...

Twitter @DOESNOTDOIT

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Dont-Know-How-She-Doesnt-Do-It/547812378582001

Double Edged Sword.

Smart phones are a double edged sword. That's my thought for the week. On the one hand they provide you with invaluable up-to-the-minute info, on the other they catapult breaking news straight into your hand, and nanoseconds later into your brain, that you sometimes really don't want to know, at least not that fast. Two cases in point...

Monday morning, before 9 am, I check my email before setting out to the edit...

I'm off to edit the two rap videos shot at my kids' primary school on Saturday and incidentally, a word to the wise, maybe don't try shooting two videos in one day with seven kids and a rapper in an old Victorian school when you only have the key for the main door and have to haul all the equipment up four flights of stairs and one of the children is an hour late so you have to re-jiggle your entire schedule and the client is coming to watch. 

It all went well in the end but we were really up against it. I only had one drink in seven hours and by the time I got home was so frazzled that I went straight to bed. But I digress...

So, the email is from the teacher whose classroom we used and she is not happy. She says she just had to spend ages putting it back as it was, which is mortifying because we really tried to leave it as we found it, we even took a photo at the beginning so we could match it. 

It was certainly clean and tidy but maybe not in precisely in the configuration it was meant to be. So, one grovelling email in return, and one also from the production company because I forward her email to them, and a mental note to take in flowers and chocolates later in the week, and I'm hopeful the situation will be ameliorated. But still, it preys on my mind the whole hour I'm driving to the edit: Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Not a good start to the day/week.

The second is about the kitchen build and arrives on Friday afternoon. Two emails that top and tail the week, you might say...

I'm walking home with a jaunt in my step thinking how lovely the Common looks, even if it is raining, after a nice lunch with a friend...

and I check my phone as I do because, well, I don't know why, because you do, don't you? If you have a smart phone you check it all the time, constantly, it becomes a nervous tick: texts - check, email - check, Facebook - check, Twitter - check, and if I'm at home often the blog too - check. It's mad. I'm sure I find it harder to concentrate when reading a book or the paper now because I'm always reverting to my phone.

So, the email is from the structural engineer who did the drawings for the extension and he has been sent a letter from building control to say that, after a recent site inspection, it has been noted that the beams (steels) are wrong. In fact, to quote exactly, they are "at serious variations with the deposited and conditionally approved details." As one of the kids in my rap video says, as per my genius script, "OMG."

So why didn't the guy from building control raise this with me or the builder at the time? We both met him. Weird.

Much hyper-ventilating and many phone calls later and it turns out it's not half as bad as it sounds. I learn that the beams have been welded rather than bolted as the plans specify and that this in itself is not necessarily a problem so long as our builder can provide a welder's certificate and proof that the work is good - and safe. Worst case is that bolts might have to be added (by the builder, at his cost) but that's fine, it can be done from below without disturbing the new roof. 

Phew. I had visions of the whole structure being ripped down and rebuilt there. It was only an hour of phoning and panicking, all told, but I could have done without it. 

So why did I check my phone right then in the park on the way home when I was all happy-go-lucky-it's-Friday? 

I guess we all need to know this stuff eventually but there's just no let-up is there? We're bombarded. This has happened! And then this has happened! Oy! This has happened! It's exhausting. 

I resolve NOT to constantly check my emails and texts all the time from now on. It can all WAIT. In fact, I'm going to hide my phone right now and go and read the paper from cover to cover, just like in the old days...

just after I've checked what's happening on Facebook.

Love E x

Twitter @DOESNOTDOIT

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Dont-Know-How-She-Doesnt-Do-It/547812378582001

Bear with me...

Please bear with me...

I shot my rap video on Saturday - seven kids, one rapper and the client came to watch. 

I was editing it yesterday and again today. 

I will be back soon!

Love E x

Twitter @DOESNOTDOIT

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Dont-Know-How-She-Doesnt-Do-It/547812378582001