A mammoth undertaking

While Chris was in partial remission, in late Spring 2010,  we accepted a quote from Rob for decorating the kitchen and dining room and re-tiling the bathroom. The earliest he could fit us in was September, but by then Chris was already dead. I simply couldn’t face the disruption of having the kitchen out of action on top of everything else I was going through, so asked Rob just to do the dining room and bathroom.

Since then, I’ve had Rob back here on numerous occasions, and each time he’s asked whether I want him to do the kitchen – even offering to honour the original quote which is now over 18 months out of date. My answer was always the same – I really wanted to have it done, but I couldn’t cope with living through the actual doing. The most recent occasion was before Christmas, when he was repainting the hall ceiling after the incident with the leaking hot water system.  But then I had  sudden brainwave. I was at the time bidding at work for a project which would require me to participate in some equipment trials at our Hampshire offices, which would mean staying at a hotel down there for at least a week and a half at the end of January.  I said to Rob that if (i) I won the bid and got on contract, (ii) his diary was free over the dates of the trial, (iii) he was prepared to do absolutely everything himself – I was intending to keep right out of the way, so he’d have to clear the kitchen and put it back the way he’d found it, and (iv) I would be unable to take calls during the day as I’d be with my customers, so he’d have to use his own judgement on any issues he came across and just update me over the phone in the evenings if necessary – then we would have a deal. He agreed to those terms, and we pencilled the dates in subject to final confirmation if and when I won the contract.

The contract did come through in time, so for the last week and a bit I’ve been living out of a suitcase in Hampshire. Meanwhile, Rob has had a key to the house and has been getting on with the kitchen. It’s not quite finished – he thinks there’s about two days left doing the woodwork – but it’s looking good so far.  And I’ve escaped almost all of the disruption! I will be so pleased when it is done – another thing to cross off the to-do list.