I take it back. Since I wittered on about the scarily short time frame, our builders have worked like Trojans, (although with less of a focus on equine siege weapons and more on actually getting the job done). They have put the glass in the windows, ripped out the rest of the kitchen, installed the steels, levelled the floor, put in the electrics, built a cloakroom (nearly), and built a pantry. In fact, so enthusiastic were they, that they even built an extra 30 cm of wall where we didn't need it. This was a BAD thing.
The wall that they built is the left hand side of the pantry, which is also the back wall of the cloakroom, and which supports one of the steels. It all came down to a miscommunication on the plans. We told Gavin that we wanted to put our washing machine, which is also a tumble dryer, into the pantry so Gavin wrote "washer/dryer" on the plans. Interpreting this to mean that we wanted to put both a washing machine and a separate tumble dryer in the pantry, Nick took it on his own initiative to increase the depth of the pantry by around 30cms so that they would both fit. Ed noticed the mistake as soon as he saw the wall, and brought up the issue with Gavin and Nick the next morning. Cue much swearing and gnashing of teeth, and frantic calls by Gavin to Optiplan to work out whether the kitchen would still fit in the space available. Optiplan said that it would, so Gavin and Nick set about convincing us that the mistake would actually benefit us by giving us a bigger pantry and cloakroom. As I was already concerned about the amount of "sitting area" we were going to have at the far end of the kitchen I took quite some convincing that they had done us a favour. They really really really didn't want to demolish the wall a it would mean taking out the steel and building a new padstone support for it. This would have undoubtedly delayed things beyond the critical point for the kitchen fitters and thrown everything into disarray.
As soon as the screed floor had dried enough for us to walk on it Ed and I were in there measuring things and marking them out with whatever we had to hand - chopsticks as it turned out. We decided that we could live with a slightly smaller kitchen, and that the pantry would benefit from being a little larger, given how much we're planning on putting in it, so we've allowed ourselves to be persuaded, but it was yet another bit of stress that we didn't need on top of the various issues that have beset us over the last few weeks.
One benefit of the problem is that I have convinced Ed that we do need to get the dining table that I identified. It is a 90cm table that doubles in size when extended, which is quite rare as most usually just have an extra panel of 30cm or so. I have compromised on the chairs though and we're going to keep the ones that we've got and I'll re-cover them.
We're coping relatively well without the kitchen, although microwave food doesn't really agree with me. Fortunately the girls get a good meal at school/nursery and Ed buys half of Sainsburys for lunch each day, so he's OK. The best thing we've discovered is Morrisons fish pie, which is actually quite tasty. The worst was Morrisons risotto, which was disgusting.
Our poor neighbours have really suffered while the demolition was going on, with Amy threatening suicide at one stage. Fortunately things have quietened down somewhat now, plus we took them some wine to apologise.
This weekend the plasterer will be in doing his thing, and the floor is supposed to be going in Monday, then the kitchen will be installed Wednesday. Hopefully...
I can't post any photos at the moment as the camera has run out of battery, but I will as soon as we manage to recharge it!
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