The laminate flooring and underlay arrived yesterday, delivered to the front door of the block of flats. The delivery guy started to lug it upstairs in curious stages, leaving both his truck and the front door open to passers-by, so I suggested he just brought it indoors and I'd lug it upstairs. He was - no surprises - more than happy to accept, and said that they're not really supposed to cart the stuff up several flights of stairs.
It didn't occur to me that I'd be lugging 217Kg of flooring up three flights of stairs, and that it would be hard, tiring work, because I didn't read the bloody label. It said '217Kg' quite plainly, but I only paid attention to that once I'd got everything lined up outside my door. Silly me.
Even in 15kg chunks, the batches of laminate flooring were heavy, and I was completely exhausted by the time I was done... I had been expecting my father's help in carrying it all up but, having been delayed by problems on the train, he arrived long after I'd finished. I'd intended to wait till he arrived to drag it all indoors because I was truly exhausted, but then I noticed the dark cloud rolling in.
(I'm not sure the laminate can really have been 15Kg per batch because there were 11 batches of that and three lots of underlay, and the underlay sure as hell didn't weigh 30+Kg per batch, but it wasn't labelled... whereas the laminate was clearly labelled as 15Kg per batch. Weird.)
Of course, now I have the flooring, there's a bit of a waiting game to play. The laminate requires 24 hours to 'acclimatise', while the underlay requires 48 hours. Something a bit squiffy about that... as you're delaying for two days because of the first stage, when the second stage is ready to commence after one.
Still, we had plenty to keep us busy.
Having taken up the vile carpet, we found hardboard. This did not answer the questions of squeaky boards or hollow-sounding patches in the hall, so that had to come up too. The former question was easily solved - the plumbers to fitted the heating were utter cowboys, and they didn't bother fixing back the floorboards they pulled up to lay the pipework for the central heating. The latter question is... more complicated.
A huge chunk of the hallway is one large board that's balanced atop some joists and underneath the skirting boards. We can fix that by screwing it down (assuming we can locate the joists with any certainty), but that still leaves it about a quarter of an inch below the level of the floorboards at one end, with a gentle slope at the other. My father thinks he has a plan to fix it. My mother would like to call in a professional.
Today could have been better. We seem unable to start work much before 2pm because of my father's habit of sleeping till lunchtime. The delay was exacerbated today due to his dental appointment, which meant that he got there somewhere after 3pm.
On the upside, we did have a visit from the local kitchen designer, who concurred with my assessment of the rather daft layout of the kitchen. Currently, there are worktops on two sides of the kitchen, but both are broken in the middle by the sink and hob respectively. The new plan will be to put the sink into one corner (below the window, so I can admire the view and have the best light... while I do the dishes) and the hob/oven almost in the opposite corner, towards the fridge. We'll also be making better use of the below-worktop space (a whole unit of drawers! A corner cupboard with shelves that pop out when the door is opened to maximise on the amount of space used therein!) and putting in some more over-worktop storage. On paper, it seems spiffy. Can't wait to see what the designer comes up with... I've picked out a colour (in a bizarre coincidence, virtually the same colour as the bedroom furniture) and gone for the simplest style from the cheaper range he offered. We'll need to have a 'design meeting' for me to pick out the worktop, etc. but that should be quick enough.
Their schedule for installation is full up till mid next month but, frankly, the bathroom is a bigger concern than the kitchen. What I have now will work, but the bathroom is wasting huge amounts of space and looks very untidy.
While I've said that I'll go to the flat tomorrow - we were hoping for a full day of work on the bedroom floor - I may change my mind and pop over to Brent Cross to peruse some other furniture (and, ahem, Toys'R'Us). For the most part, I'll probably end up going with Ikea (certainly for the extra display cabinet... but it'll be nice to see what else is on offer, and for how much.
And when I say "we were hoping for a full day of work on the bedroom floor", I mean just that - past tense. When we got home today, we had a message from my uncle, requesting the presence of my folks in a meeting with the solicitor dealing with my grandmother's estate. Sounds ominous... but it seems that most of the delays in getting it sorted out are because my uncle hasn't actually been dealing with things when he should, or getting the appropriate signatures all in one go. My mother is quietly seething, as she'd offered to take it all on, but my uncle insisted.
Tsk. Family.
No comments:
Post a Comment