Time for a New kitchen no 9

TIME FOR A NEW KITCHEN NO 9

This stage of the kitchen is finished and I am feeling so much better about things. My kitchen was always going to be done in stages because it would have been far too much to cope with having the whole kitchen ripped out and dismantled in one go, also of course I need to make sure I can afford each stage as it gets done. BUT…………the first stage is done and dusted, the whole of the back wall is tiled and grouted, the new unit, sink, taps, washing machine and dishwasher are all installed, plumbed and in good working order. The first length of black work surface is fixed and sealed. This is only one wall but it is the most important wall and the wall with the most work. The whole of this wall is tiled, all of the plumbing happens on this wall and both windows are on this wall. My new blinds were delivered tonight but I’ve decided not to hang them until the whole of the kitchen is finished, just in case they get damaged.

My stress levels have returned to normal and my relationship with the contractor is much better. Once he had finished and I had the bill, which was very reasonable, we had a chat and managed to straighten out a couple of the things that concerned me. Now that it’s done, and in spite of all my moans and raising stress levels………I have to admit, he has done a very good job!!! Maybe trying to live a normal life, get up and go to work, come home and cook tea;  etc etc……….all while chaos reigned and my kitchen disappeared was a little unrealistic and maybe unreasonably optimistic.  Almost as soon as I regained control of my kitchen the memory of how awful it felt getting here began to fade. I am so very happy to have my kitchen back, even if it is a temporary reprieve, I have spent the day baking. My daughter and granddaughter came over for tea this evening. We had carrot and sweet potato soup, home made seeded bread, mixed fruit cake and cinnamon biscuits. It’s a very long time since I have done so much cooking and baking all on the same day, it was wonderful to have my kitchen back and nice to have family to cook for.

Now I am busy negotiating a start date for the other side of the kitchen to get fixed. I think the next lot of work is due to start in about three weeks. Guess that gives me time to do the wallpapering

Time for a New Kitchen no 8

Time for a New Kitchen no 8

As the weekend approaches I am feeling more 'utterly depressed and despondent', than stressed. I suppose I have developed some sort of grudging respect for the guy I employed, that's because he was so good about the mistakes that had been made in the tiling. He told the tiler to take out the tiles that were wrong and re-do it as I had originally requested, all at no extra cost to me. The tiler tried to argue with him, just as he had argued with me and tried to fob me off with excuses as to why his way was better, but I have to admit, the chap I employed was having none of it and insisted it all be re-done exactly as I wanted.  That renewed my faith a little, unfortunately it didn’t prevent the tiler doing exactly the same thing again on the other wall. This time I stood up to him and insisted he re-do it, which he did but only after telling me, yet again, why it looked better his way.

The kitchen is almost at the point where you can see what it is going to look like. My nice new shiny white doors are still covered in protectice blue plastic. The tiles are almost up on the back wall, the double sink unit is in and working, the washing machine is plumbed in and in the picture you can see the dishwasher waiting to go in next. On the left side of the picture you can see my black and white cooker with a shiny black ceramic top that is going next to the washing machine. That one wall will look rather nice.

 Now I can get some idea of how nice the back wall of my kitchen is going to look it makes me realise how shabby my other units are going to look no matter how well I paint them but there is no point thinking that cos no way can I afford to replace all the units. No …………they will be painted as planned, have new tiles above them and a new work surface on top. It will look a lot better than it does now so guess I should be happy.

But of course……………..not all is as well with this work as it should be. This morning I had a chance to inspect the work on my own in the full glare of the morning sun.
OH NO !!!!!!  My nice new black work surface is very badly damaged; it has terrible deep scratches covering an area of about 8sq inches (10sq cm). The tiler who arrived has just told me I can use a childs wax crayon to cover the scratches  !!!!.  AND………..then I noticed the ceramic top to my cooker (that I had left covered in a thick towel) is also very, very badly damaged. It is covered in very deep scores, it almost looks as if this guy has cut his tiles on top of my ceramic hob. I could never prove it of course but that is what it looks like . Ceramic top cookers do no come cheap as I am sure you know. The tillers response was along the lines of oh well it can’t be helped I suppose. Remember this is the guy who thinks kitchens should be completely stripped out to have any work done in them. Last night there was a bit of a rush to get the sink plumbed in and working which resulted in an old reused piece of plastic pipe being split. Of course it wasn’t replaced, for a start he doesn’t seem to carry any of the stuff he might need, and secondly……….well he has some tape which he says fixes every thing!!! Let’s hope it does. That is something else I have noticed about him, he doesn’t seem to plan ahead, every so often he says he just has to pop out for something, sometimes he has done this a couple of times per night,……….all at my expense no doubt. The final nightmare is the bill…………….I still don’t know how much they are going to charge for this nightmare.


I am trying very hard to be philosophical about this and treat it as an expensive (very) learning curve. In future I think I will have a check list before letting any one start work, it should go something like this

•      The one thing I have learnt is that if I EVER have to employ any one again it will be someone I do not know which will make it a lot easier to complain when things go wrong.
• I will always insist on an estimate for the job NOT an hourly rate. 
• At the first sign of something not being quite right I will say so. 
• The one thing I should have done with this guy right at the start,  was to tell him that he needed to make my house a priority and not try to fit in my work in the evenings, in the dark, without any one to help with the heavy bits. 
• He should have made sure he had every thing he needed to the job, including dust covers for my other kitchen appliances and the floors, pens pencils, note pads, buckets, brooms, brushes, measuring tapes, and all the other things he has ‘borrowed’. Pencils get lost and brooms brushes etc end coated in plaster and unfit to use indoors
  

     From now on business will be business…… what a shame cos I would rather be friends with people but now I see that is not always a good idea. In this particular case it’s even more difficult cos the guy I employed seems quite a nice friendly chap. He is really a rather nice person, he is pleasant, honest and works hard to support his young family. He has taken on far more than he can cope with but all with the very best of intentions and all in order to support his family without hand outs from the state.


     OH BIG SIGH……Isn’t life difficult sometimes?? And I still feel sick with anxiety about it all.

continuation of Kitchen no 7,STRESS

And so the saga continues............
Last night I ended up boiling  the last of the water left in the kettle that we had saved for drinks, and using it to wash with..........no bath for me last night. I threw the last of the bucket of water down the toilet followed by half a bottle of bleach and resigned myself to a very long bath-free night. He finally left in the early hours of the morning after connecting the water to the bathroom and switching my water heater back on. He left the water turned off in the kitchen which was irrelevant really since there was (still is) no sink in my kitchen!!.

This morning there was a bit of a reprieve, he didn't turn up before work which meant I could stay in bed a while longer and have that longed for soak in the bath. Oh bliss
Short lived bliss though. Tonight I returned from work not sure what to expect, what I didn't expect was to find a man I had never seen before, alone in my kitchen putting tiles on the wall. But that is exactly what I did find. This strange man had used my bucket, kicked water all over the floor, soaked the laminate, used my towels to mop it up and then trodden on the bucket and broke it........none of which seemed to matter very much to him.  He assumed I was in the process of moving in to the house, he obviously thought of my house more as a building site at his disposal than my home. I did end up telling him that these premises are primarily my home and not primarily a building site or his place of work, I suspect it fell on deaf ears. Once he realised I have been in this house for six years he said.........''oh have you only just got round to doing it up then?? of course the best way to do this is for the kitchen to be completely emptied out of cupboards and every thing''. What a horrible man and to add insult to injury I have just noticed he has not put the tiles up as I requested. He has put two white tiles between the black in some places and three white tiles between the black in others, it looks awful. He said he is going to return tomorrow to finish the tiling along with the original joiner who is supposed to be fitting the sink tomorrow.............oh I just want this to be over. This has to rank up there with divorce and moving as one of the greatest stress factors of all time.
And for every one who agreed with me.......yes now I am 100% convinced that workmen treat single women (of all ages but especially older single women) with utter contempt and disregard..........

Ian Hamilton Findlay; artist, poet, writer, philosopher,

One of the greatest Scottish artists.

Art Sunday; Ian Hamilton Findlay

Ian Hamilton Findlay

The most original ScottishArtist,
 An original thinker, philosopher, author, painter, sculptor and horticulturalist.

HIS GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT IS
LITTLE SPARTA

http://www.littlesparta.co.uk/

http://www.littlesparta.co.uk/index.htm

This is a VERY EARLY Art Sunday, if you have read the 'kitchen no 7 ' blog you will realise I have had a few late nights waiting for work in my kitchen.........this is the result of last nights very late night!!

If you are EVER in Scotland, Little Sparta is one place you MUST see. check out his web site.

Ian Hamilton Finlay was actually born in the Bahamas but of Scottish parents, he was educated in Scotland at Dollar Academy. When he was 13 World War II began and  he was evacuated to the Orkney Islands, then in 1942 he joined the British Army.

After the war, he worked as a shepherd and then began  to write short stories and poems. He published books including ‘’The Sea Bed and Other Stories’’, (1958) and ‘’The Dancers Inherit the Party’’, (1960) and some of his work was broadcast by the BBC.

In 1963, Finlay published Rapel, his first collection of concrete poetry (poetry in which the layout and typography of the words contributes to its overall effect), and it was as a concrete poet that he first gained wide renown. This work was mostly issued through his own ‘’Wild Hawthorn Press’’. After a while he began to inscribe his poems into stone, incorporating these sculptures into the natural environment.

This kind of environmental poetry is a prominent feature in his garden Little Sparta in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh, where he lived. This is a five-acre garden which also includes more conventional sculptures and temple-like buildings as well as plants.

In December 2004 in a poll conducted by Scotland on Sunday, a panel of fifty artists, gallery directors and arts professionals voted Little Sparta to be the most important work of Scottish art. Second and third were the Glasgow School of Art by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and The Skating Minister. Sir Roy Strong has said of Little Sparta that it is "the only really original garden made in this country since 1945".

Now the Little Sparta Trust is preserving the garden for the nation and raising enough to pay for all ongoing maintenance of the garden and exhibits within it.

His work is known for a constantly repeating a number of recurring themes: especially classical writers (including Virgil); a concern with fishing and the sea; an interest in the French Revolution; and a continual stream of work featuring World War II. His work can be severe, but it’s also witty and at times dark, deep and whimsical. His use of Nazi imagery led to an accusation of neo-Nazi sympathies, and to a court case, which he easily won. He also came into conflict Strathclyde Regional Council over his liability for rates on a byre in his garden, which the council insisted was being used as commercial premises. Finlay insisted that it was a garden temple, as such a place of worship and exempt from local taxes!!!! He eventually won the case and did not have to pay special rates for the structure. In general, he courted controversy.

One of the few gardens outside Scotland to permanently display his work is the Improvement Garden in Stockwood Park, Luton, England.

His awards are numerous and varied. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1985, awarded honorary doctorates from Aberdeen University in 1987, Heriot-Watt University in 1993 and the University of Glasgow in 2001, and an honorary and/or visiting professorship from the University of Dundee in 1999. The French Communist Party presented him with a bust of Saint-Just in 1991.

He received the Scottish Horticultural Medal from the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society in 2002, and the Scottish Arts Council Creative Scotland Award in 2003. Finally he was awarded a CBE in the Queen's New Year's Honours list in 2002.,

Finlay was married twice and had two children. He died in Edinburgh in 2006

Poetry Wednesday; Ian Hamilton Findlay

CONCRETE POETRY
 
IAN HAMILTON FINDLAY

Concrete poetry, pattern poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on.

It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry; a term that has evolved to have distinct meaning of its own, because the words themselves form a picture. This can be called imagery because you use your senses to figure out what the words mean.

Scottish artist, poet and thinker Ian Hamilton Findlay is among the greatest concrete poet. In 1963, Finlay published Rapel, his first collection of concrete poetry (poetry in which the layout and typography of the words contributes to its overall effect), and it was as a concrete poet that he first gained wide renown.

This work was mostly issued through his own ‘’Wild Hawthorn Press’’. After a while he began to inscribe his poems into stone, incorporating these sculptures into the natural environment. This man blurred the edges between art, sculpture, poetry and philosophy.

http://lauritasita.multiply.com/journal/item/1232/Poetry_Wednesday_032509_Sign_in_and_take_the_tour

Time for a New Kitchen no 7.

At last the joiner is working in my kitchen. I should be pleased, I should be well on my way to a new kitchen, things should be moving along nicely by now………….unfortunately the reality is a little different.
This experience has really, really put me off ever having any one in the house to do any thing ever again.
It is now almost 10 pm, my house is freezing cold because the front door has been open most of the evening, there is a hole in my kitchen wall where the joiner removed the extraction fan on Sunday (today is Tuesday!!), I still have no kitchen unit or sink, my water is disconnected, the joiner is in the kitchen still using power tools and I am getting very afraid one of my neighbours will knock the door to complain about the noise so late at night. Remember, I live in an upstairs apartment with young children directly below me. I would love to tell the joiner to go home but with no water, no sink and no way to flush the toilet, have a bath or even make a hot drink I am at his mercy until he at least reconnects the water supply. This man is a friend of a friend, I thought I would be doing the right thing by employing a local self-employed man, sounds good in theory. The original plan was that he could give me three whole days, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, which should have been enough to break the back of the job. Turns out he had other commitments during the day and he asked if he could do a couple of hours in the morning and a few hours every evening. SO……….what could I say??
 I agreed because I want my kitchen done. I have been getting out of my bed every morning at 6 to get ready for him arriving at 7, he leaves to work in a shop at about the same time as I go to my work and then he reappears at tea time, after the shop is closed for the evening. He has been here until almost midnight Sunday and Monday and it looks as if he will be late again tonight. Yesterday I had to ask him to stop using power tools after 9pm because I was worried about the children trying to sleep in the apartment underneith mine. Tonight I have had to let him carry on because I need the water sorted out. Tonight he casually said he would need me to help him outside with the new work surfaces so he could cut them. Obviously it didn’t occur to him that he would need assistance for this part of the job and when he asked I didn’t feel as if I had much choice, I need this sorted out, so……..despite the fact my arthritis makes lifting and stairs  difficult , I stupidly agreed. I helped him carry a 3 meter length of heavy work surface down my stairs and out into the garden. Then I had to go outside and hold the torch and steady the work surface while he used his power tools to cut it IN THE DARK!!!!!!!. Yes, I know…………this story gets more and more bizarre. Once it was cut and carried back indoors he noticed damage to the edge, actually I wasn’t surprised, but he was!! He insisted I contact the supplier to complain and ask for a replacement. Which of course I did, only to be told they could not replace it because it had already been cut. I can’t help thinking that if he didn’t damage it, if the damage was already there, he would probably have noticed if he had been doing this work in daylight and at a reasonable hour like any sane work man. And of course the chances of him causing the damage himself would have been much less in daylight.
So …………..now it’s 10.30 pm, my knees are very sore, I badly need a long hot soak followed by bed, my temper is frayed, my patience is exhausted and still ……….I HAVE NO WATER.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Oh yes…………….the final insult, he wouldn’t even give me a quote for the whole job, he said he charges by the hour so it looks like this whole fiasco is going to cost me a fortune. And all because I thought I was doing the right thing by giving work to a local self employed joiner.